Last August, ThinkProgress reported that Max Pappas, the vice-President of FreedomWorks, the corporate lobbying group that engineered the AstroTurf tea-bagging pity-parties, was engaging in friendly conversation on CSPAN with a caller from the the Council of Conservaitve Citizens (CCC). The CCC is a far-right bigoted racist group, founded by a longtime white power activist and are far from showing their undying love for the Untied States, instead claiming that the U.S. is a “European country.” Given an opportunity to reject the repugnancy of this individual who was calling in to tell Max that he was a “true patriot”, Mr. Pappas instead reveled in the praise that the CCC caller was showering upon him. Max’s flirtation with the right-wing fringe went contrary to a suggestion from a veteran Republican who called in to tell Max to “wrap these people down.” Indeed, Max vocally dismissed the idea that FreedomWorks would distribute an email telling their passionate followers to “calm down.”
The repudiation of mainstream Republican politics in exchange for embracing the fringe is the strategic core of the strategy behind the anti- health care reform, anti-Obama tea parties. Certain conservative politicians have embraced this rhetoric in an attempt to build up their bona fides, such as Texas Governor Rick Parry who, in a burst of anti-stimulus & anti-government spending speechifyin’, suggested that Texas jsut might secede from the United States. (Country first, let’s not forget.) Even a political naif could observe that if the Republcian Party refuted the lunatic fringe tea-baggers, a Frankenstein monster out of their control would be created and unleashed, laying waste to the relevancy of the GOP.
And here we are, jsut a little over two months later, and that Grankenstein monster has rared its ugly. After a long, hot summer that consisted of angry shouting at each other, the tea-baggers feel emboldened and now not only believe they represent the majority (even though more Americans believe in UFOs than oppose a public option for health care) but that they are also the “last, true” defenders of the Constitution. According to a recent report from Politico, the tea-baggers- who have self-identified themselves as a “mob” on Twitter and in similar mediums, ignoring the connotations of ‘mob politics’- are drafting insurgent candidates to confront incumbent GOP Congressmen and Senators. Somehow, although Republicans in Congress are decidedly lockstep and have increasingly drifted further and further to the right in the past two decades, some are just not mobbish and neanderthal enough to be supported by the tea-baggers in a primary. A few of these GOP Congressmen are having to fend off inter-party challengers for the first time, protecting themselves in what would otherwise be “safe” gerrymandered district seats.
And my only reaction to this is: GREAT! Other than a Presidential run by Sarah Palin, nothing can expedite the demise of the Republican Party as a relevant policial player than a bunch of ‘mob’-affiliated candidates making the case that they are worthy of Capitol Hill. These tea-baggers may actively be trying to formualte themselves as the current version of the angry, anti-Irish immigrant “Know Nothing Party” from the nineteenth century (even proudly referring to Glenn Beck as ‘their’ idiot), but the fact remains that the Know Nothing Party had a political lifespan all of two years. The tea-bagers should be lucky if their political relevancy lasts much beyond the 2010 election cycle.
2010 elections | Beck | GOP | tea-baggers
