Tea Party Atonement

by publius

Ah, Tea Party Day.  Loves it.  There’s already been much ink spilled on the manufactured nature of these things.  But that’s not the most interesting part.  What’s more interesting is the motivation of the people actually going to these things (and cheerleading them).  To me, the tea parties are serving a psychological function – they’re allowing conservatives to subjectively reaffirm their ideology and to relieve the cognitive dissonance of the Bush years.

It’s hard to know what being a conservative means these days.  There are so many internal contradictions that I’m not sure it lends itself to any easy definition.  But one thing that all conservatives tell themselves is that they’re somehow opposed or skeptical of “big government.”  There are of course different and diverse camps (some more thoughtful than others) – but in general, the ideological glue that holds the concept together in one’s mind relates in some sense to “small government.”

For obvious reasons, this ideological self-image came under a fairly withering assault by the Bush administration.  Whether you look at Bush in terms of spending, deficits, imperialism, executive power, or surveillance, it’s hard to squeeze the past 8 years into any sort of “small government” ideological box.  Procrustes wields a capable knife and all, but he’s not that good.

To be fair, a lot of conservatives were genuinely uneasy with these developments – but many chose to ignore or repress their anxiety because they really hated Democrats, or because they wanted a piece of the action, or whatever.  But most stood silently by, except for the much-maligned Ron Paul contingent.  (By the way, Glenn has a must-read showing the somewhat-hilarious hypocrisy of conservative bloggers complaining about the DHS report on rightwing extremist movements).

The tea parties, however, don’t have much to do with logic.  I’m sure our modern-day Samuel Adamses aren’t supporting big military spending cuts.  I doubt they care that taxes are unchanged or lowered on 95% of families.  I suspect they had almost nothing to say about the spending and executive overreach of the Bush years.  Logical consistency, remember, isn’t the point.

The point is that tea parties give them an opportunity to reaffirm their own ideological self-image.  In their own heads, they want to be “small government” people.  In this sense, the tea parties are simply atonement – trying to “out out” the damned spot. 

Perhaps all this seems unfair, but I think it’s actually the most charitable interpretation.  Because if they’re actually protesting Obama’s policies on the merits, it shows a fairly large disconnect from reality.  Under this less charitable interpretation, these people are protesting because 5% of the richest Americans are getting an extremely modest (by historical standards) tax increase. 

Tyranny doesn’t get much clearer than that.

Comments

[Troy]

These are people watering the wind.

They truly fear that Obama will mesmerize the populace to do what Clinton failed to do in the 1990s, further entrench the Federal Free Lunch state.

Each dollar of Federal spending directed towards the lower classes crowds out their church charity efforts and (from their perspective) reduces the teabaggers relative position in society, and also strengthens the "Liberal" political position at "Conservatives" expense.

These are the people that believe European or Canadian style mild socialism is inferior to classical liberal laissez faire.

They are largely fighting their own demons.

[Brett Bellmore]

This post has a certain whistling past the graveyard air to it. What's really driving this movement is graphics like the one http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/76702/>Glenn Reynolds keeps showing, demonstrating the explosion in the national debt even in the overly optimistic administration forecasts.

Bush was terrible when it came to fiscal responsiblity, but today's Washington makes Bush look like an icon of responsiblity. If we don't suffer a hyperinflation, I'm going to have to rethink being an atheist, because I'll have been confronted with a miracle.

[Madrocketscientist]

Tyranny? Really? You are equating people protesting fiscal irresponsibility with tyranny?

Did I miss something here, or are you pulling a Vizzini?

[anonymous]

The tea parties, however, don’t have much to do with logic.

The only reason to be a (movement-loyal) conservative today is resentment.

Conservatives ran the government for the better part of the past decade, piling up debt without much more than a whimper from the right. Now that their policies (and the deregulatory agenda favored by both parties) have created a severe recession so we actually need to spend money, the GOP is advocating an insane spending freeze.

There is no ideology, no policy content to conservatism today. It's an expression of one's psychological demons, and nothing more.

[Madrocketscientist]

PS, Glenn's article is so on the money. It's why I don't pay much attention to Malkin or The Blonde Harpy or Rush. They occassionally find a nugget, but mostly they are just bitter that their boy screwed the pooch so royally.

[spartikus]

If we don't suffer a hyperinflation, I'm going to have to rethink being an atheist

Time to ponder, then. Voila, deflation:

For consumers, it may be one of the brighter spots of an economic meltdown: For the first time since 1955, consumer prices in the United States are lower than they were a year ago.

[Brett Bellmore]

The inflation's waiting for the economy to start recovering, IMO: The volume of money is inflating rapidly, but the rate of circulation is still low.

[rea]

Poor Brett, standing out in the pouring rain, worried about sunstroke. The sunstroke is waiting for the rain to stop pouring.

[hairshirthedonist]

Tyranny? Really? You are equating people protesting fiscal irresponsibility with tyranny?

I think Publius is faceciously referring to "...5% of the richest Americans are getting an extremely modest (by historical standards) tax increase" as being the tyranny that the Tea Partiers are protesting. They are not, themselves, tyrannical, but protesting a false tyranny.

[mythago]

Bush was terrible when it came to fiscal responsiblity, but

But? But what? Where were the teabaggers last year? If they're really protesting 'fiscal irresponsibility', they would have been flinging bags of Lipton back last year. Or the year before. This isn't about 'fiscal irresponsibility'; that's the excuse for a vague, feel-good protest against Teh Libruls.

Not that there's anything wrong with a feel-good protest, of course.

[Gregory]

It’s hard to know what being a conservative means these days.

Are you kidding? That's an easy one. Whatever liberals want, they're against it. (Buckley put it as "standing athwart history yelling "stop!," which shows that even then conservatives knew they were on the wrong side of progress.)

[Brett Bellmore]

Rea, the connection between massive increases in the volume of money and inflation is pretty solidly established. If Obama can print money by the trainload and not have an inflation result, he's reinvented some fundamental laws of economics.

[Slartibartfast]

If they're really protesting 'fiscal irresponsibility', they would have been flinging bags of Lipton back last year.

It's a matter of scale. This year's budget deficit is currently running about twice the total, seven-year expense of the GWOT.

Oh, and lots of us were unhappy with the let-no-spending-go-unvetoed spending of the last administration. We just didn't throw any protest parties.

I've been to one of the Tea Parties, by the way. Lots of mixed metaphors, and lots of unhappiness used as a cudgel of opportunity against the Obama administration. Grasp any lever you can for political advantage, is my guess.

[d'd'd'dave]

"Tea Parties ... the manufactured nature of these things."

Like the WTO riots, tree sittings, and union strikes aren't manufactured. You think people spontaneously rise in the morning and protest in these other cases? No. Most protests are organized.

"But that’s not the most interesting part. "

I hope not.

"What’s more interesting is the motivation of the people actually going to these things (and cheerleading them). To me, the tea parties are serving a psychological function – they’re allowing conservatives to subjectively reaffirm their ideology and to relieve the cognitive dissonance of the Bush years."

As is the case with all nearly all modern, made for media protest. Do tree sittings stop the cutting of trees? Nope. Does PETA stop the use of animals for human food? Nope. Do WTO riots stop world trade? Nope. So, how is this different enough to even mention?

"It’s hard to know what being a conservative means these days....
For obvious reasons, this ideological self-image came under a fairly withering assault by the Bush administration."

You're confusing republican with conservative. Bush was not a fiscal conservative. You're using Bush as a strawman.

" I’m sure our modern-day Samuel Adamses aren’t supporting big military spending cuts."

Really? I've certainly advocated it.

" Logical consistency, remember, isn’t the point." ... of Publius' arguments.

"Perhaps all this seems unfair, but [I am basicly unfair minded and] I think it’s actually the most charitable interpretation [someone like me can come up with]."

[cleek]

Because if they’re actually protesting Obama’s policies on the merits, it shows a fairly large disconnect from reality.

oh, they're disconnected from reality alright. go read some comments at righty blogs, or on newspaper stories covering this, or on the Facebook pages for these tea parties. they are all about the "socialism" and the "Marxist plot" and the "indoctrinating our children" and the "reeducation camps" and the "bankrupting our nation" and the "ACORN = Obama's brownshirts". really. it's Birthers and Birchers all the way down.

these under-informed, easy-excitable, gun-totin conspiracy nuts aren't about to debate the merits of Obama's policies. in fact they're so far from reality that they don't even know what Obama's policies are.

[Eric Martin]

You're confusing republican with conservative. Bush was not a fiscal conservative. You're using Bush as a strawman.

Then how many conservatives are there in the Republican Party, cause I don't remember too many Republicans opposing Bush's agenda.

Further, I don't remember too many Republican's opposing Reagan's deficit exploding spending either.

[cleek]

If Obama can print money by the trainload

being that Obama is neither a printing press, nor a Federal Reserve Bank, he cannot create any money.

[Slartibartfast]

Based on the last change of regime polarity, I'd posit that what we have here is a severely underdamped loyal opposition, and it takes a few years for the wild mood swings to damp out.

That's just based on my memory, mind you.

[cleek]

Further, I don't remember too many Republican's opposing Reagan's deficit exploding spending either.

Deficits don't matter. duh.

[Troy]

Actually, Brett, the money's already been done printed, 1996-2006.

The incorporation of Chinese factories into the first-tier world economy allowed us to get away with it, but now we either continue moving forward -- producing wealth -- or choke on our own debt.

The economics of this are incredibly complex and anyone thinking they know how this is going to turn out or what the best policy should be is full of it, an ideologue, but I repeat myself.

[rea]

Rea, the connection between massive increases in the volume of money and inflation is pretty solidly established. If Obama can print money by the trainload and not have an inflation result, he's reinvented some fundamental laws of economics.

Except, Brett, the reason all reputable economists agree that a massive stimulus in the present situation is appropriate, is that otherwise the money supply would be suffering from massive deflation.

A year ago I had $100,000 in equity in my house; now I have $50,000--$50,000 vanished. If the government prints $50,000 in extra money, that's not inflationary, that keeps us at equilibirum.

[Slartibartfast]

Slightly OT: I'm very tempted to walk up to people bearing Who Is John Galt? signs, teeshirts, etc and tell them exactly who John Galt is. At Galtian length.

Tediously repetetive rhetorical questions deserve chock-full-of-rhetoric answers.

But I'm too lazy. It's just one of those nice ideas I have that I'll never act upon.

[rea]

To put it another way, Brett, run the water in the bath tub long enough, and the tub will overflow except if you have the drain open

[cb]

The volume of money is inflating rapidly

By what measure? Prices are declining, the monetary base has leveled off, and the increase of aggregates has slowed rapidly in the past few months.

[J. Michael Neal]

The inflation's waiting for the economy to start recovering, IMO: The volume of money is inflating rapidly, but the rate of circulation is still low.

Uhm, this is nonsensical. The money supply is a function of, among other things, the velocity of money. The former can't be inflating rapidly if the latter is cratering.

Further, your assumption that velocity is going to turn this into a huge problem is tenuous. As the volume of loans gets crushed as financial institutions deleverage, the money supply shrinks. The various Fed programs, as well as fiscal policy from Congress, are trying to replace this supply. Unless you think that those financial institutions are going to be leveraging back up to the 30-1 ratios they were using, then the multiplier going forward isn't ever going to get back to what it was. As Troy said, the money was already printed before last year, and it did fuel hyperinflation. It's just that it went into asset inflation, rather than goods and services inflation. Now we get to clean up the mess.

[spartikus]

Most protests are organized....

...by Fox News?

"We exhort, you follow!"

[Madrocketscientist]

even then conservatives knew they were on the wrong side of progress.

Don't confuse progress for the betterment of society and mankind with progress for progresses sake.

A true conservative is not against progress, but merely wants it to progress cautiously. Change is good, change is inevitable, but too much change to quickly is deadly.

The poison is in the dose.

[Pooh]

You're confusing republican with conservative. Bush was not a fiscal conservative. You're using Bush as a strawman.

Conservatism can never fail, it can only be failed, amirite? Where was Brett a year or two ago? On a blog saying things like (and I'm paraphrasing here) "Bush is no prize but the Democrats would be worse." I guess he gets points for consistency in that all that has changed in his posting is the tense.

[A.J.]

Like the WTO riots, tree sittings, and union strikes aren't manufactured.

Speaking as Berkeley resident, I'd have to say that, out of the three options above, these "tea parties" most resemble the tree protests. They attract cameras, but don't accomplish anything worthwhile.

[russell]

My opinion about this, as in so many things, is "Whatever floats your boat".

If things are bugging you and you want to get together with folks of like mind and kick up some dust, have at it.

All I'll add is that if any of the folks buying all the guns lately take it into their heads to point one in my direction, we're going to have a big problem.

Short of that, live it up.

[Brett Bellmore]

"Conservatism can never fail, it can only be failed, amirite?"

It can, and does, both. Conservatism fails horribly when it comes to victimless crime laws. But the guy who couldn't bear to call himself a "conservative" without implicitly accusing regular conservatives of lacking compassion was more a case of the latter.

[rea]

Conservatism can never fail,
What is the reason?
Because when conservatism fails,
None dare call it conservatism.

[LFC]

The Tea Parties are an outpouring of anger. These people can't stand the Dems in general, but they can't find a competent political leader to follow that has their perceived beliefs (if/when they can actually quantify those beliefs). Instead, they line up behind the likes of Limbaugh, Beck, and a host of Faux News talking heads out of frustration, mistaking their drivel for coherence.

There's a scene in The American President that sums these people up pretty well:

Lewis Rothschild: People want leadership, Mr. President, and in the absence of genuine leadership, they'll listen to anyone who steps up to the microphone. They want leadership. They're so thirsty for it they'll crawl through the desert toward a mirage, and when they discover there's no water, they'll drink the sand.

President Andrew Shepherd: Lewis, we've had presidents who were beloved, who couldn't find a coherent sentence with two hands and a flashlight. People don't drink the sand because they're thirsty. They drink the sand because they don't know the difference.

There are political leaders with well thought out policies and there are leaders with nothing more than ranting slogans. And these people don't know the difference.

[Jay C]

Based on the last change of regime polarity, I'd posit that what we have here is a severely underdamped loyal opposition, and it takes a few years for the wild mood swings to damp out.

Dunno about your memory, Slarti, but according to mine, the last "change of regime" (presumably you're referring to 2001) went off pretty much as usual -without engendering much in the way of public protests or overheated rhetoric. Sure, liberals and Democrats were pissed at the result of the 2000 election (not helped by the sneering dismissive attitudes from starboard over any complaints) - but I don't recall anything on the level of the hysterical and borderline-unhinged reaction from so many right-leaners to Obama's Administration - no mass public demonstrations for one thing; nor, IIRC, did Congressional Democrats in '01 march in lockstep into the sort of intransigent oppositionism and obstructionism we've seen from the GOP eight years on.

I'll agree with you about the "undampered opposition" analysis, though: but given the volume and tenor of so much of right-wing animus towards Pres. Obama, I'll hold off judgment on the "loyal" part for now.

[Jay C]

Ooops - should have been "underdamped". Sorry.

[Fledermaus]

I'm going to come to the defense of Brett's hyperinflation theory. The banks essentially used their outstanding loans to allow them to fund billions in new loans at levels as high as 30:1. The then pretended that the debt service payments 30 years down the road were 'money in the bank' safely hedged by billions more in CDS.

Now the treasury and Fed are in the process of printing actual money to replace the fictional money the banks created. We have deflation now because of simple economic conditions and the banks are just sitting on the billions keeping it from circulating.

This money is unlikely to trickle down to the little folk, but other cournties will likely demand more and more dollars for their exports.

[cleek]

it took until the Iraq invasion for the Bush hatred to get going.

the Obama hatred from the right started before the primaries were over. they never gave him a chance. it was "Marxist socialist! black power Muslim!" right from the moment it looked like he was going to win the primary.

[GoodOleBoy]

J. Michael Neal has the inflation issue right. Rea,s 50,000 was never real so there is no reason to think it should be recovered. Bush's spending (republican congress) was out of the atmosphere (maybe we have already paid much of the price with the recent massive losses in financial assets) and it looks like Obama's (Pelosi and Reid) will be out of the solar system when it arrives. Bush's inflation was in financial assets (real estate), who knows how we will see Obama's manifest itself. Brett's a little early on the money supply issue, all we have so far is proposed massive Federal deficits, maybe an order of magnitude bigger than Bush's, but that debt won't be monetized until sometime in the future.

[cleek]

all we have so far is proposed massive Federal deficits, maybe an order of magnitude bigger than Bush's

...which were in large part caused by Bush's commitments.

[gwangung]

Brett's a little early on the money supply issue, all we have so far is proposed massive Federal deficits, maybe an order of magnitude bigger than Bush's, but that debt won't be monetized until sometime in the future.

Well, that's the thing, isn't it? Getting from here to when that debt is monetized is the kicker---the point is that getting there can be made smoother if deficit spending is enabled (and that a pain free path is not going to happen). Focussing on the deficits without accounting for the deflationary pressures is likely to be equally catastrophic as spending willy nilly, and an oversimplistic analysis like that is probably worse than what von and others are complaining about.

[ThatLeftTurnInABQ]

Now the treasury and Fed are in the process of printing actual money to replace the fictional money the banks created. We have deflation now because of simple economic conditions and the banks are just sitting on the billions keeping it from circulating.

A pretty good analysis, with the important caveat that the Fed has not as of yet attempted to create money on anything like the scale on which the shadow banking system created liquidity over the last decade, which is why we are still in deflation. To quote Steve Keen

Bernanke’s expansion of M0 in the last four months of 2008 has merely reduced the debt to M0 ratio from 47:1 to 36:1 (the debt data is quarterly whole money stock data is monthly, so the fall in the ratio is more than shown here given the lag in reporting of debt).

To make a serious dent in debt levels, and thus enable the increase in base money to affect the aggregate money stock and hence cause inflation, Bernanke would need to not merely double M0, but to increase it by a factor of, say, 25 from pre-intervention levels. That US$20 trillion truckload of greenbacks might enable Americans to repay, say, one quarter of outstanding debt with one half—thus reducing the debt to GDP ratio about 200% (roughly what it was during the DotCom bubble and, coincidentally, 1931)—and get back to some serious inflationary spending with the other (of course, in the context of a seriously depreciating currency). But with anything less than that, his attempts to reflate the American economy will sink in the ocean of debt created by America’s modern-day "Roving Cavaliers of Credit".
...
Note Bernanke’s assumption (highlighted above) in his argument that printing money would always ultimately cause inflation: "under a fiat money system". The point made by endogenous money theorists is that we don’t live in a fiat-money system, but in a credit-money system which has had a relatively small and subservient fiat money system tacked onto it.

We are therefore not in a "fractional reserve banking system", but in a credit-money one, where the dynamics of money and debt are vastly different to those assumed by Bernanke and neoclassical economics in general.

One of the ludicrous things about the teabagging movement is their myopic focus exclusively on public debt as a policy issue, when the latter is only a small part of our 350 percent of GDP debt bubble, as if private debt is of no consequence or relevance either macro-economically or to people's daily lives.

The purpose of the out of control** govt. spending is to mitigate the deflationary effects of contracting private sector debt. This will in some fashion result in a wealth transfer, both chronologically (from the future to the present), and amongst different incomes classes. I can see the point of having a debate about the latter in particular (who exactly is going to pay higher taxes eventually) but I have yet to see any evidence that the teabaggers are interested in that sort of discussion.

** something about the phrase "out of control" makes me want to ask, what exactly would "in control" look like? Our elected representatives have voted on the measures in question, nicht var? We do still live in a constitutional republic, do we not? What other sort of control do the teabaggers want? If they were protesting the existence of the Federal Reserve then I could see some sort of point to the "out of control" canard since Bernanke (appointed by GWB) and the other FRB members aren't elected, but otherwise WTF? The teabaggers seems to have confused "out of control" with "not what I want", either that or I guess elections don't count as a constitutionally mandated form of public control over public policy unless the GOP wins.

[gwangung]

The purpose of the out of control** govt. spending is to mitigate the deflationary effects of contracting private sector debt. This will in some fashion result in a wealth transfer, both chronologically (from the future to the present), and amongst different incomes classes. I can see the point of having a debate about the latter in particular (who exactly is going to pay higher taxes eventually) but I have yet to see any evidence that the teabaggers are interested in that sort of discussion.

I'm not sure that I've seen much acknowledgement of that private sector debt's existence from critics.

[Feddie]

I prefer this tea party:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTU2He2BIc0

[Fledermaus]

Fed has not as of yet attempted to create money on anything like the scale on which the shadow banking system created liquidity over the last decade

I think it has actually created this money - just using 0% interest rates (BTW how can I refinance my student loans at 0% I want a piece of that action?).

Now inflation occurrs when the money gets into circulation, the banks - obviously - ain't gonna be making a bunch of new consumer loans given how they got burned so the money won't trickle down to the Joe Six-Packs who would bid against each other with the loose credit aand drive up prices. Instead I think the banks will eventually move heavy into commodities, those being viewed as safe - oil, food, etc - and crank up the leverage machine again as they drive commodity prices higher and higher.

Of course this will eventually affect retail prices for the Joe Six-Packs who have little money as it stands. Think Weimar but without the billion-Mark notes, who knows what happens next but people who can't afford food or other necessities tend to get a bit disobedient.

[Gregory]

Don't confuse progress for the betterment of society and mankind with progress for progresses sake.

The trouble is conservatives do that much more so than liberals, and wind up opposing both.

Funny how "incremental rate of change" tends to mean "they don't have to give up their privileges," isn't it? Obama's just proposing to return to taxation levels under Clinton, fercryinoutloud. It's hard to get more incremental like that, and the tea party loons act like it's cyanide.

[John Miller]

Of course, the tea-baggers seem to be modeling their protest on the Boston Tea Party which was only partially due to taxes. The main reason for the "Party" was a corporate tax break given to the East India Trade Company.

Who is the party of corporate tax breaks again?

Additionally, I love the way Fox News is using Thomas Paine, who was as close to a socialist as there was in those days.

Actually rather funny.

[Gary Farber]

"it took until the Iraq invasion for the Bush hatred to get going."

I can't agree with that, at least absent a clearer (or any) definition of what we mean by "Bush hatred."

Certainly the Iraq invasion greatly increased it, but there was plenty of outrage directly stemming from Florida in 2000. Who can forget the massive protests that greeted G. W. Bush's inauguration? There was nothing like that in my lifetime other than Richard Nixon's inaugurations, and even those protests were, in my memory at least, more subdued. (Though other protests against the Vietnam war certainly were not.)

[OCSteve]

There’s already been much ink spilled on the manufactured nature of these things.

Krugman repeating unsubstantiated and discredited rumors - you’re going with that? I knew this post was coming but I expected you would do better than repeating the same old discredited crap. You don’t want to cite Playboy? Look – the timeline is pretty clear and easily checked by anyone:

The protests began with bloggers in Seattle, Wash., who organized a demonstration on Feb. 16. As word of this spread, rallies in Denver and Mesa, Ariz., were quickly organized for the next day. Then came CNBC talker Rick Santelli's Feb. 19 "rant heard round the world" in which he called for a "Chicago tea party" on July Fourth. The tea-party moniker stuck, but angry taxpayers weren't willing to wait until July. Soon, tea-party protests were appearing in one city after another, drawing at first hundreds, and then thousands, to marches in cities from Orlando to Kansas City to Cincinnati.

It did not start with CNBC, or FNC, or any other 3-4 letter combinations. Are others like FNC trying to ride it now? Of course. But local neophyte organizers did this (you guys love that when they’re called “community organizers” right?) They turned down Steele and other Party support: "With regards to stage time, we respectfully must inform Chairman Steele that RNC officials are welcome to participate in the rally itself, but we prefer to limit stage time to those who are not elected officials, both in Government as well as political parties. This is an opportunity for Americans to speak, and elected officials to listen, not the other way around."

I do get a kick out of Soros funded hacks like Willis and Media Matters working so hard to discount this as astro-turfing. You rarely see such hypocrisy on open public display. And Hamsher? Gah!

You guys have had more top-down funding and professional organization for years, and while the final estimates are not in – what was your biggest national turnout? Gonna’ beat this?

What’s more interesting is the motivation of the people actually going to these things (and cheerleading them). To me, the tea parties are serving a psychological function – they’re allowing conservatives to subjectively reaffirm their ideology and to relieve the cognitive dissonance of the Bush years.

That’s about the biggest mind-reading foul I’ve ever seen on the front page. It really ain’t that complicated. Bush was a dismal failure at fiscal policy – he left a large deficit. Bush drove me away strictly on fiscal policy before I ever came around on the war, torture, etc. But Obama is wrecking the country for decades to come. Those deficits are just simply not sustainable. If you don’t believe me see the CBO, which many of you here often cite as “non-partisan”.

Still – the widespread and desperate spin on the left to discredit this is all I need to call it an unqualified success. If it was really as pathetic as you are all trying to make it out to be you would just ignore it, or point and laugh. But there is a crap-load of effort going into trying to discount the whole thing.

And no, I don’t agree with it all – it is locally organized and not all the same. I agree that the spending is beyond nuts, that it can not be sustained, and that government is growing out of control. Forget about the government running financial agencies and car companies - anyone here want to make a serious case that Obama has drastically reduced executive powers?

You have a case that these folks did not protest when GW was over-spending and expanding government – you are solid on that so stick to that – the rest is nonsense IMO.

FWIW – YMMV. And I’m getting paged so I may not be back.

[gwangung]

You guys have had more top-down funding and professional organization for years, and while the final estimates are not in – what was your biggest national turnout? Gonna’ beat this?

Um, yeah. Quite easily. Immigration rallies, pro-choice rallies and anti war protests are an order of magnitude larger.

[OCSteve]

an order of magnitude larger

Looking forward to you substantiating that with real numbers... ;)

When a dozen “Pink” protesters show up it is a media story. When 4,000 tea-baggers do – yawn…

[John Miller]

OCSteve, in Chicago alone, the immigration rally drew over 100,000. It is questionable if the total figure today will reach that number. The anti-war rallies in 2002 drew several hundred thousand . The woman's march on Washington for choice drew several hundred thousand.

So yes, orders of mafnitude larger is right. And none of those had a major television network promoting these events like Fox did. Nor did any of them have a "journalist" reporting for a major news network call the presiding government "fascist."

Look, I give credit for the initial idea, but it was taken to another magnitude which wiped out the original. And it was driven by people that are riling up the crowds to potentialing dangerous levels of recklessness.

By the way, do you really have any concrete reason to dislike Soros other than that he has helped fund some things that have a liberal point of view? And would you give examples of Media Matters being untruthful?

If so I really honestly would like to know of them. Truly, I am being sincere.

[gwangung]

Looking forward to you substantiating that with real numbers... ;)

Immgration rallies is talking at least low seven figures nationwide, 500K in Washington DC by itself.

Pro choice rally in 2004 was hundred of thousands in 2004 in DC.

I'm hearing 100,000 total, nationwide, from THE ATLANTIC. I don't think there were much into the five figures in DC. I getting figures of hundreds in Chicago, Seattle and Boston.

[cleek]

What other sort of control do the teabaggers want?

GOP control.

out of control = out of GOP control.

[Gary Farber]

"But Obama is wrecking the country for decades to come. Those deficits are just simply not sustainable. If you don’t believe me see the CBO, which many of you here often cite as 'non-partisan'."

Link, please?

[Gary Farber]

"If it was really as pathetic as you are all trying to make it out to be you would just ignore it"

If you can point to where I've had a single comment until this one....

"...the widespread and desperate spin on the left...."

Desperate? Really? People are desperate?

"But there is a crap-load of effort going into trying to discount the whole thing"

Really? How much effort does it take to do a single blog post, or newspaper column? A crap-load? Really?

"When a dozen 'Pink' protesters show up it is a media story."

Funny, and here the left has been complaining for decades that when thousands of people come out for a protest there's a media blackout. Who knew?

[TheWesson]

Inflation vs deflation:

Whatever complicated way the Fed "runs the printing presses" it always amounts to buying something-or-other (some assets.) This injects money into the economy (Bernanke's helicopter drop.)

When it comes time that deflation is not a threat any more, then the Fed can [try to] yank the money back out of the economy by *selling* those same assets (be they T-bills or whatever.)

Some money is 'in the economy forever' if those assets can't be sold for what the Fed paid for them. For example, if T-bills went way down in value, then not all the money can be taken out of the economy.

So the Fed is "potentially inflationary" in 'printing money' if it doesn't get the buying/selling timed right.

[rea]

Rea,s 50,000 was never real so there is no reason to think it should be recovered.

The heck it wasn't--that $50,000 represented about $25,000 in cash and an enormous amount of sweat.

[hilzoy]

OCS: for what it's worth, speaking as someone who has ignored it: I've been torn. On the one hand, covering the tea bag rallies has a kind of shooting-fish-in-barrel feel to it, and while I cannot promise to give up that kind of post entirely (sometimes RedState is too temptingly silly), I'm trying to minimize it. On the other -- well, I sort of feel that I ought to comment, somehow -- not that it has moved me to so far.

I do think that the degree to which this is being pushed by Fox is sort of extraordinary. I truly can't recall anything like it -- any case in which a partisan set of demonstrations was explicitly pushed by a major news network. (If I'm just forgetting something, let me know.) I don't want to say something like: it's purely orchestrated, not a single person who showed up there has done so of their own free will, etc., because I don't believe that. But I do think it's striking.

As is the unclarity of their grievances.

[cleek]

I can't agree with that, at least absent a clearer (or any) definition of what we mean by "Bush hatred."

obviously i'm speaking from my own experience here, but, it was the run-up to the Iraq war that polarized me and a lot of the people I associated with at the time. for people who weren't really following politics at the time, political machinations over the election were one thing, but the blatantly deceptive way Bush handled the Iraq run-up, and the way the media played right along, was what pushed a lot of us over the edge.

i know a lot of the big blogs today were around before that, and that many were started in response to the 2000 election, and certainly many before that. but, i'd bet real money that the traffic to all of them jumped sharply in fall 02.

[Becky]

Sorry, Publius, but I think you're being a bit too charitable. Yelling "small government" probably does feel good to these people, but I think Barbara's explanation on her Mahablog (referencing 1990's New Jersey) is a lot closer to the truth. These people are being manipulated by clever well-funded campaigns from the likes of Dick Armey; they have no idea that their own taxes will be either unaffected or lowered by Obama's plan.

[hilzoy]

Bush hatred: not sure I like the term, but:

I had what I guess you might call Bush bafflement and (to some degree) contempt as of 2000 -- I thought he was an incurious person who wasn't interested in much who had decided, for reasons best known to himself, that he should be President, and behind whom the Republican party rallied in what I thought was a plain abdication of responsibility on their part. I was completely thrown by the aftermath of the election, especially the Supreme Court, from whom I had expected better.

After 9/11, I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt: his speech afterwards was really good, I thought, and 9/11 seemed like the sort of thing that actually might shake Bush up in a good way. And of course it didn't seem like a time for partisan anything.

That lasted until maybe the spring of 2002, which is when I realized to my complete horror that we were not going to so much as try to do Afghanistan right. This inaugurated a period of ever-increasing WTF????? moments, each worse than the last -- we're not going try to do Afghanistan right? We're going to invade Iraq??? We didn't so much as plan for the occupation??? And so on, until it hit bottom sometime around Abu Ghraib. Though Katrina was a different sort of despair, for me.

Anyways, you know the rest.

I have to say: when I listen to people going on about fascism and throwing away our democracy and so on, I think: it's pretty hard to imagine what they would be saying if the roles had been reversed in 2000.

[Gary Farber]

"i know a lot of the big blogs today were around before that, and that many were started in response to the 2000 election"

I'm reasonably sure not, actually. The big blog-starter was September 11th, 2001. Prior to that, the blogs that existed were mostly techy/general blogs, like Kottke, or were niche blogs. There were a few political blogs prior, but almost none run by people on the left/liberal side (if I'm forgetting some, I'd entirely welcome reminders).

Lots and lots of political/world-affairs blogs started up directly following September 11th, and in general, for several months or about a year following, poli-blogs were largely non-partisan, had as that is to believe for those who arrived later. It's not that liberal/libertarian, or liberal/conservative, differences were completely non-existent, but the differences were overwhelmingly submerged for quite a while, as most all bloggers were pretty well agreed that September 11th had been a bad thing. There were nuanced differences of opinion, but there wasn't a large amount of polarization.

Thus you had Oliver Willis, Glenn Reynolds, LGF, me, Jim Henley, Thomas Nephew, etc., quite amiable, mutually linking, etc.

That started to fall apart by the end of 2001, and particularly so after April or so of 2002.

Of course, back then, there were fewer than a couple of hundred political bloggers, and everyone pretty much knew everyone, or at least was aware by mention of everyone else.

I started blogging in the last week of December of 2001, after a few months of reading blogs, and after years of writing on Usenet the same material I blogged about. This was considerably before Atrios or Kos, say, came along.

Upstarts.

[Gary Farber]

Anyway, I suppose someone probably started blogging as a result of the 2000 election, but I sure can't think of anyone.

[Gary Farber]

"That started to fall apart by the end of 2001, and particularly so after April or so of 2002."

Oops. I meant to say "That started to fall apart by late 2002, and particularly so by April, 2003."

And "had as that is to believe for those who arrived later" should be "hard as that is to believe...."

Glenn Reynolds was one of the few blogging before September 11th, btw, and he didn't start to seem like a majorly politically biased hack until around the end of 2002, early 2003; same for Charles Johnson and LGF.

I know it seems incredible, but it's twue.

[DecidedFenceSitter]

Gary - As far as lefty blogs go - Talking Points Memo just celebrated its 8th anniversary.

[DecidedFenceSitter]

Oh fine, put in the caveat after I had hit "reply" and gone looking for the announcement. :)

[publius]

As for me, I started in Jan. 2004, but started READING blogs for first time in the summer of 2003 after not keeping up with the news very well for years. For me, it was 100% Iraq. It was and remains my formative political experience -- never been madder

[Jay C]

I'll agree with Gary (rarely a wrong choice) - for me, though I had been occasionally perusing the odd political/opinion blogs through the summer of '01 (back, astonishingly, when Instapundit made sense), it wasn't until 9/11 struck that I really began to use the blogosphere as an alternate source of information (and, later, communication and opinion) - and still do.

[Davebo]

Sadly what I'm seeing on several blogs is OBS (Obama Derangement Syndrome). And I'm talking about posts and comments on left to left centered blogs.

This is just sad. Don't co-opt the tactics of the same folks who are tossing tea bags today.

There are still reasonable Republicans out there willing to engage in an intellectually honest debate. The fact that reasonable Republicans like James Joyner or our own OCSteve attempt to have us ignore how we got to this current budget should be ignored (lest we be diagnosed with Newt Derangement Syndrom by others).

I believe there is still room for honest debate on the sad state that is our economy, foreign affairs, and other policy matters.

I'd like to think many on the right are willing to engage in this debate. But currently the facts don's support that case.

And nothing I've seen from the Tea Parties today, nor there tepid defense by conservatives I've long considered intellectually honest and reasonable support that cause.

And if you can't get even the reasonable Republicans to act honestly... what's the point?

[now_what]

Still – the widespread and desperate spin on the left to discredit this is all I need to call it an unqualified success. If it was really as pathetic as you are all trying to make it out to be you would just ignore it, or point and laugh

You don't think people are pointing and laughing?

Tea baggers?

The only way I can make sense of modern conservatism is to assume that for some reasons, conservatives are trying to put the Onion out of business. For example:

Joanne Wilder has never protested anything in public before. She's never boxed with City Hall, let alone Washington.

"I've been a quiet little person my whole life," she said.

But today in downtown Syracuse, the 60-year-old great-grandmother will lead a Tax Day Tea Party protest against the spending policies of the Obama administration and Congress.

...

[The protests are] being carried out across the country by new grass-roots leaders like Wilder, who are upset that the government seems to be bailing out everyone but them.

...

After a lifetime of working, paying taxes and raising three children on her own, Wilder is struggling.

She said she retired on disability from M&T Bank three years ago after undergoing knee replacement and back surgeries. She lives on her Social Security and disability benefits. Last year, she petitioned the bankruptcy court for protection from creditors.

She said she did not have to pay federal income taxes last year because her income was too low.

"I don't want to see this country turn into a welfare, nanny state, where we stand in line for groceries, and we're in welfare lines, and in socialized medicine lines," Wilder said.

Don't worry, we're pointing and laughing. Not just about this, it's everything about modern conservatives.

I read George Will today, and I really did think I was reading the Onion. I checked the date to make sure it wasn't from April 1. I mean, wtf? Conservative fights the good fight against...who exactly? Arthur Fonzarelli?

Conservatism is a joke. I'm pointing and laughing to the point of tears.

We have the worst deflation since the Great Depression and people are running around in a panic yelling, "Oh noes! Teh hyperinflation"!

It would be funny if it wasn't so...OK it's just funny.

[gwangung]

I believe there is still room for honest debate on the sad state that is our economy, foreign affairs, and other policy matters.

Well, yes, quite.

That still means, however, working off the same set of facts....

[CaseyL]

Still – the widespread and desperate spin on the left to discredit this is all I need to call it an unqualified success. If it was really as pathetic as you are all trying to make it out to be you would just ignore it, or point and laugh

This is a joke, right? Please tell me this is a joke.

There is no "widespread and desperate spin" to discredit the teabaggers. They are discredited on their very face. They have no credibility. There's no need to "spin" anything.

The teabaggers are funny. Pathetic, but funny. Ignorant, and funny.

They're also... what's the word I'm looking for here... oh, yeah: tools.

What are they protesting? They're calling Obama a socialist when they're not calling him a fascist; sometime they call him both at once. They're protesting taxes when they've already gotten tax cuts. They're blaming Obama for a cratered economy when their heroes, Bush & Co., are the ones who cratered it.

They're upset now at the Surveillance State? When it's their heroes, Bush & Co., who implemented the warrantless eavesdropping and data mining and starting "disappearing" people?

And we're supposed to take these morons seriously?

Well, I do, actually. But not in a way you might like.

I do take very seriously their threats and promises of violence. I do indeed believe they'll start killing - hell, they've already done so. Got a decent little body-count started already, only 3-odd months into Obama's Adinistration - wonder how long before the Deranged Right gives us yet another Timothy McVeigh, eh?

Still – the widespread and desperate spin on the left to discredit this is all I need to call it an unqualified success.

You have a very peculiar idea of what constitutes an unqualified success.

[Brett Bellmore]

(If I'm just forgetting something, let me know.)

The Hundred Thousand Mom March comes to mind. The MSM were almost unanimous in pretending to believe press releases about how the march had approached a million, and Clinton even ordered that the practice of official crowd counting be ended to keep them from being contradicted. (But aerial photos and Metro records told the tale anyway.) A very well funded example of Astroturf, but not very well disguised, and the media were absolutely in the tank.

"wonder how long before the Deranged Right gives us yet another Timothy McVeigh, eh?"

A few years after the Obama administration gives us another Waco, would be my guess. Think you can refrain from that?

[cleek]

I suppose someone probably started blogging as a result of the 2000 election, but I sure can't think of anyone.

i may be wrong, but believe Josh Marshall has said TPM started in response to the media's handling of the 2000 election.

ah yes, here it is:

The site started in November 2000 during the Florida recount. It wasn't just fortuitous, that was why it started.

(his emphasis)

FWIW

[JadeGold]

The Deranged Right has already given us Richard Poplawski (sp?) I suspect we'll see more as Right's desperation increases.

[John Thullen]

There's a dick army in Texas who is fomenting secession and rebellion against the duly-elected federal government. Neither newt nor quist can stop themselves from getting out in front of the multitude of dicks. I'll beck you they will neil in front of dick army.

FOX's role in this (their supposed journalists networking the entire deal) should attract the attention of the FCC licensing office. Pull their license.

This should escalate the dicks into a gun-toting frenzy. Norquist is only weeks away from threatening violence against the Federal government, as he did repeatedly in the early 1990s, the unAmerican piece of shit.

On the other hand, when the collective room I.Q. of the Tea Parties surpasses double figures, wake me up for the rebellion. The incoherent, babbling, paranoid rants I've seen on video don't make for a really fun revolution.

Besides, the dreg has-beens of the Republican Party don't have the guts for a real war.

I wish they did. It's time to put an end to them.

Only these guys could deregulate the banks one year and then lead a rebellion against bailing the banks out the next, and play themselves as victims in both cases.

I'm thinking another round of cheap American anti-Semitism is just under the surface. Soros is anagram for Jew.

When the dicks mass in seceding Texas, this will give true Americans the opportunity to use the ungodly amount of weaponry the Republican Party has forced the American people to pay for and turn Texas into the Swat Valley.

[John Miller]

JT, all I can say is "WOW" to that rant.

[John Thullen]

JM, it's nothing really.

It's like Bugs Bunny or Daffy Duck doing their impression of Elmer Fudd. The secret is Mel Blanc.

Of course, in Daffy's case, his bill ends up spinning around to the back of his head as Elmer's shotgun goes off.

This duck can duck.

[cleek]

turn Texas into the Swat Valley

or the SWAT Valley... if we want to press the issue.

[ScentOfViolets]

The tea parties, however, don’t have much to do with logic.

The only reason to be a (movement-loyal) conservative today is resentment.

I don't know whether it's a sin or not, but I would suggest that over the last thirty years or so, resentment has really been the driver for most of the irresponsible behaviour we've seen.

The problem with resentment is, the people moved by it tend to have legitimate beefs. They have been wronged repeatedly, often grievously so, and no one is intervening to put things right for them. Worse, the people who have wronged them have lived long and prospered.

When this happens to someone enough times (I speak from experience, observing members of my tribe), resentment has a propensity for eating them up from the inside and making them less than they were or could have been. They get the sense that they are owed a chance to get their licks in, and if they at times behave badly, well, it's only a partial payment of what's owed them.

[John Miller]

Just as an aside, and somebody may correct me, but as far as I know, nobody in the administration has done any mocking, belittling or dismissing of these protests. In fact, I heard the Asst. Press Secretary say this morning that he feels that this is the perogative of the people in this country.

Contrast that with comments from the administration prior to this one about the anti-war protestors, particularly from the VP.

SOV, I agree resentment is a major driving force and fuels irresponsible behavior on both sides. And at times the resentment burrows itself so deeply that people can't even recognize that the conditions they were resentful about no longer exist as they did when the resentments started.

[cleek]

just wait till the wingnuts start protesting about Bush's wiretapping of a Congressman.

that's when we'll see just how serious they are about the Constitution!

[Nate]

One of the problems with the resentment on display is it's not aimed at the people who the legitimate grievances are with. Some of whom are the very people orchestrating the Tea Parties.

[CaseyL]

Contrast that with comments from the administration prior to this one about the anti-war protestors, particularly from the VP.

Cheney called us... what was it, a "focus group," right?

Hundreds of thousands - no, millions - marching against a war (which turned out to be even more of a bad idea than we thought at the time) were a focus group.

But 25,000 turning out to protest tax hikes they won't be paying and a surveillance state they applauded the creation of, though: now, that's a revolution!

Anywhere from 800,000 to 1.5 million turn out for theMarch for Women's Lives in April 2004, and that rates barely a mention on the news (and even less than that on conservative blogs).

But 25,000 turning out to protest tax hikes they won't be paying and a surveillance state they applauded the creation of? Now, that gets wall to wall coverage, and is declared an 'unqualified success'.

I'm totally with John Thullen. The GOP and anyone, anyone at all, who pays any allegiance to those choads comprising the GOP, can ESAD, FOAD, DIAF, or just plain die.

It's not about ideology. Their belief system is nowhere near organized or consistent enough to qualify as an ideology. Or a philosophy. Or even a creed.

They're just a toxic blend of oblivious egoism, small-dick sadism, and bone-deep dumb.

[Brett Bellmore]

I think Thullen is losing it. Usually even when I disagree with him, I find him at least a little witty. But that? Just pathetic.

[Gary Farber]

Is Dick Armey's Freedomworks lobbying firm "grassroots"?

[Gary Farber]

And Typepad disappared my links. Trying again: Is Dick Armey's Freedomworks lobbying firm "grassroots"?

[Gary Farber]

Crap. My links were there, and they disappeared again.

"But 25,000 turning out to protest tax hikes they won't be paying and a surveillance state they applauded the creation of?"

Nate Silver says 260,000.

[Eric Martin]

I do get a kick out of Soros funded hacks like Willis and Media Matters working so hard to discount this as astro-turfing. You rarely see such hypocrisy on open public display. And Hamsher? Gah!

Soros funds neither. It's a peculiar meme on the right: Seeing shadows of Soros behind every left leaning cause.

Do you have any evidence that Soros funds either? I don't think you do.

You guys have had more top-down funding and professional organization for years

Again, not true.

[Slartibartfast]

Nate Silver says 260,000.

He's missing Orlando, which was estimated at about 5k people, IIRC. I wouldn't be surprised; I was there (sans torch and pitchfork).

[JadeGold]

260K across the country at multiple venues is pretty weak beer.

Still, it explains how Nigerian email scams continue to make money.

[John Thullen]

Brett, it's true, I've been off my game lately.

As to pathetic, here's what I find hilarious:

Michelle Bachman, evoking Thomas Jefferson, over various burrs in her saddle: "Thomas Jefferson said a revolution now and then was a good thing."

Actually, you and I both know TJ said: "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants"

Bachmann's pale paraphrase (she was wearing a choker of pearls when uttering) is a little like Marie Antoinette wondering if the new French high-tech cutlery at the time would come in handy for slicing cake.

The tree of liberty is not encouraged by being fed Bachmann's manure.

The only redeeming feature of the Gingrich revolutionaries from the class of 1994 was that they had a charming, school-boy propensity for reading the texts and quoting verbatim to the mob. Out of context, natch, considering even Jefferson lost his lunch when he got a load of Robespierre's methods of nurturing his arbor.

The Bell Curve has curved southward for the Republican Party since then.

Or, let's take the courageous Rick Perry, Governor of Texas, ramping up a good head of gummint hate from the steps of the Texas Statehouse (or wherever) running through all of the diabolical measures that might have to be taken by courageous Texans to throw off the oppressive yoke of the Federal Government.......

...... but unless someone might think he'll be leading the charge ... "you know, who knows what might come out of that?"

Who knows? Indeed.

I do. Nothing. Because Perry is a well-coiffed coward.

Step one: Obama orders the INS to withdraw all personnel and equipment securing the border with Mexico.

Step Two: Our anti-ballistic missile system is ordered by Obama to stand down from protecting the great state of Texas.

Step Three: Barbara Bush gets a full-freight bill from Medicare.

My taxes -- stolen by Rick Perry.

Cowards .. all.

C'mon, guys,stop paying your taxes and make the government come after all of those guns that have been purchased in fear of Obama.

Until then, this stuff is boring.

[ral]

Here I was hoping for the Rapture to happen already but secession might be OK. There are some good things about Texas, though, it would be a shame to lose them.

[russell]

"Cowards .. all.

C'mon, guys,stop paying your taxes and make the government come after all of those guns that have been purchased in fear of Obama.

Until then, this stuff is boring. "

All true, except for the sorry nutcases who don't understand that it's all theater, and take it to heart.

Leave the guns home, and there is no problem. Have fun, get your ya-yas out, make your point. No worries.

Bring the guns, and we have a problem.

Regarding Perry, I've always thought it would be a great idea for Texas to leave the US. Then we could invade them and take their oil.

Several birds killed with one stone, with some karma on the side as a garnish.

[cleek]

Actually, you and I both know TJ said: "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants"

TJ? i thought that was Michael McCaul (R-TX)!

funny thing about that slogan... McVeigh had that on his T-Shirt, the day they arrested him.

and by funny i mean, "didn't we have this same discussion fifteen years ago?"

[Uncle Kvetch]

Regarding Perry, I've always thought it would be a great idea for Texas to leave the US. Then we could invade them and take their oil.

Brilliant. Russell, you are magnificent.

[Phil]

Actually, Brett, given this, I think Thullen's rant was just about right on. Which signs do you like better: The ones threatening Obama with death, the ones comparing paying taxes to the Holocaust, the ones with Obama dressed as Hitler, or the one with Obama slitting Uncle Sam's throat?

[Yukoner]

The more I read and see of the political scene in the US the more I feel sorry for conservative Americans. Not for the seemingly wide lunatic fringe of the American right, but those like OCSteve who's postings I've read here with great interest for a long time.

Reading him on this thread it's clear that he is feeling defensive and resentful of the mockery and derision being heaped on the Tea Party protests. And who can blame him? Nobody likes to be even an indirect target of mockery and derision. But mockery and derision (along with the far more vicious accusations of treachery and such like) have been shoveled out in great quantities over the past several decades by the political right in the US so my sympathy is somewhat tempered.

But what really interests me is where will the American political right and the Republican party go from here?

Following their defeats in 2002 and 2004 the Democratic party selected Howard Dean as chair and he pushed the party toward the "50 state" strategy and helping it tap into the energy and money of the activists who had become disenchanted with the party or who had never really been a part of it. Following their defeats of 2006 and 2008 the Republicans have selected Michael Steele as chair. Will he do something similar for his party? The early signs do not appear promising.

After the 2004 elections the Democrats in congress seemed (to me anyway) to pull themselves together more, uniting in strong opposition to Bush's efforts to privatize SS, using the aftermath of Katrina to hammer away at the administration's incompetance and generally present themselves as more compentant and trustworthy. Current Republicans in congress are certainly united in opposition to just about everything (nothing wrong with that) but if their alternative budget is any indication of how they will govern if given the chance again then they deserve only scorn and derision, not another chance to control the government purse.

And I'm particularly interested in whether the American right can come up with anything analagous to the web-based activism that appears to have played such a large role in the resurgence of the Democrats. I'm thinking of the likes of Daily Kos where Kos, independent of his party (and sometimes in conflict with it) managed to get an initially small and extremely fractious on-line community to focus on, donate money to, and volunteer for canidates based on the "more and better Democrats" mantra that he espoused. Despite all the mockery and derision (Kos Kids, radical left wing fringe, zero for twenty etc.) I was impressed early on by the open and blatent political pragmatism on display as exemplified by the Kos' strong support for Stephanie Herseth in the special election in South Dakota in mid-2004. Is there or will there be anything equivalent on the political right? RedState was started as a deliberate analogue of Daily Kos but doesn't seem to have had nearly the same success to say the least. The Next Right is supposed to be an on-line place where the right was reorganizing and regenerating but its traffic numbers are tiny and its threads filled with left leaning commenters. Perhaps something very different (Twitter?) will help the Republicans and the right regroup.

[Jeff]

obviously i'm speaking from my own experience here, but, it was the run-up to the Iraq war that polarized me and a lot of the people I associated with at the time.

I was upset with Bush when he ran, and mad at the Repuiblican Party for their systemic disenfranchisement during the 2000 elections, but, like cleek, I didn't get mad until the Iraq War.

==================

A few years after the Obama administration gives us another Waco, would be my guess.

Well, we already have the cult-like gun-nuts needed for the set-up. Or was David Koresh an innocent bystander?

=====================

I think Thullen is I'm losing it. Usually even when I disagree with him Thullen, I find him at least a little witty.

Fix't.

Here's a funny thing: ANSWER never organized any of the big protests of the past 8 years -- they were never even specifically invited. It was more a matter of "public protest -- can't keep them out". On the other hand, as soon as Faux Noise starting sticking its nose into these protests, the organizers should have distanced themselves loud and clear from Beck, Hannity, etc. Instead, they were featured speakers.

If you don't kick the dregs out, don't be surprised if we judge you by them.

[someotherdude]

Between Thullen's rants and CaseL' comment

They're just a toxic blend of oblivious egoism, small-dick sadism, and bone-deep dumb.

Made my day. Thanks!