Monday, January 3, 2011

Tempering the Tea Party in 2011?

An interesting piece at LAT, "'Tea Party' Activists Keep Watch on Congress' New Class."

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With a GOP majority now in the House, the role of the tea party in politics and policy will change. The Times' piece points out the polarizing tendency between purity and pragmatism, and considering the longstanding insight that Members of Congress are "single-minded seekers of reelection," I'm confident that purity will be taking a backseat to pragmatism and party unity. As noted at the article:
Many grass-roots movements have learned how hard it is to remain outsiders in a place run by insiders and still accomplish something, said Martin Cohen, a professor of political science at James Madison University, who is studying the tea party movement and its parallels to the rise of the Christian right in the 1980s and 1990s.

In Washington, vowing not to compromise can be a self-imposed exile into irrelevancy. Ideological purity is in short supply. The lure of a party power can be strong. And the currency of the movement is its grass-roots engagement, Cohen said, something famously tricky to maintain in the face of defeats.

"If I had to bet on whether they would change Washington or whether Washington would change them, I would bet on Washington," he said.
Sounds about right, and more at the link.

RELATED: At NYT, "Conservative Seeks Political Balance." Plus all the latest at Memeorandum, especially, "G.O.P. Newcomers Set Out to Undo Obama Victories."

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2 comments:

  1. DaveJanuary 3, 2011 at 6:15 PM

    Any more 'pragmatism' on the part of the repubs and America as our founders intended, is over.

    No, the 112th Congress has to be the one to stop Obama cold in his tracks. Any backsliding whatsoever will mean Obama ultimately wins, which will render the makeup of the 112th congress, whatever it may be, meaningless.

    The GOP needs to assertively communicate what it is doing and why at every opportunity in order to blunt the MSM's coming assault, because starting this Wednesday, the Ministry of Statist Misinformation is going to be throwing everything it has at them, including the kitchen sink.

    Remember, most in this country are nowhere near as "plugged in" as are we, and are still heavily influenced by the MSM.

    And don't underestimate the influence of the mooch, leech and tick class, either, as they now make up a larger percentage of our nation's population than ever before.

    These people don't give a damn about much else than getting their government check each month - even if it means the destruction of the republic.

    And it damn well may, and much sooner than most think.

    -Dave

    ReplyDelete
  2. DaveJanuary 3, 2011 at 10:58 PM

    Edit to the above comment:

    I meant to say, "Any backsliding whatsoever will mean Obama ultimately wins, which will render the makeup of the 113th congress, whatever it may be, meaningless."

    -Dave

    ReplyDelete