The Tea Party Is Still Winning

by Leslie S. Lebl

Like many, I've been reading all about the decline of the Tea Party, its relative invisibility in the Republican nominating process, and the widespread dissatisfaction with Republican members of Congress, many of whom were swept into office by the Tea Party. However, I'd like to add my two bits to the discussion before we hold a public funeral for the movement. 

Of course the Tea Party is quiet: none of the candidates really speak to them. It's discouraging, but on the other hand, look at it this way:

-- which Republican nominee would speak in favor of retaining Obamacare?

-- which Republican nominee is prepared to say that the federal debt isn't important?

You got it - none of them. That's because the Tea Party has succeeded in highlighting problems that can no longer be swept under the rug. Look what happened when Gingrich denigrated Paul Ryan's budget proposal, which contains the first public commitment to reform Medicare (and which was passed by the Republican House of Representatives). He had to eat crow.

What I find really interesting is that so many people (among them, I assume, many Tea Partiers) are focusing on electability. That's a bitter lesson learned in 2010, and it's clear people don't want to repeat the mistakes made then, especially with regard to key Senate races. That, folks, is real progress.

As for the low favorability numbers of Republicans in Congress: who would ever expect the guy trying to stop the spending to become popular? Look at Governor Scott Walker in Wisconsin: he's facing a recall vote even though he saved lots of union jobs. The real lesson Tea Partiers have learned is that House Republicans can't make much headway resisting every bill raising the debt ceiling. While I suspect many people are disappointed, I'm confident that the majority understand that what's needed is systemic entitlement reform, which can't be done by only one House of Congress.

My prediction: as the Republican nominating process advances, watch the frontrunners come under pressure to formulate policies attractive to the Tea Party, hopefully framed in ways that attract support from Independents. The Tea Party may not have its nominee, but it will try to shape the platform of the party and persuade the nominee to espouse its positions. And it will have logic on its side. With U.S. obligations downgraded and our debt now equal to our GDP, it's pretty hard to argue that the level of government spending isn't a problem.

Only if the Tea Party fails to do this will I agree that it is a spent political force.
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A retired Foreign Service Officer, Leslie S. Lebl is a writer, consultant and lecturer. In the Foreign Service, Ms. Lebl served as Minister-Counselor for Political Affairs at the U.S. Mission to the European Union in Brussels. Prior to that, she was Political Advisor to the Commander of Stabilization Forces (SFOR) in Bosnia-Herzegovina, first in the American sector in Tuzla and then at SFOR headquarters in Sarajevo. Other assignments included Russia, the U.S. Mission to the United Nations in New York, Bolivia, Germany and Poland, as well as a year as diplomat-in-residence at Yale University. She speaks French, German, Russian, Polish and Spanish. She is currently at work on a book about radical Islam and the European Union.

Using a Broad Brush

by Libby Sternberg

On Facebook the other day, I took part in a discussion of the OWS crowd, and eventually we got around to discussing its anti-Semitic elements and whether they were representative of the crowd. I was trying to make the point that Tea Party gatherings had been painted with the broad brush of racism for a few outlandish fringe elements, whereas the OWS crowd seemed to get off scot-free on the anti-Semitism charge despite some signs with messages decrying Jew Bankers and the like.

This discussion eventually led to one poster claiming: "Anti-Semitism is a right wing sickness."

I didn't ask her why she thinks that, but I know that many people think of Nazism as a "right wing" movement, one that was responsible for the slaughter of millions of Jews.

As the holder of center-right views, I have often bristled at the conflating of a movement like Nazism with "conservative" or "right wing" ideals--at least in the understanding of those ideological labels today.

Today, conservatives, or "right wingers" are the ones favoring freedom and limited government. The one broad link between conservatives, right wingers, Tea Partiers and the like, in fact, is that belief in limited government, especially fiscal restraint in government.

I know that opponents would argue that a limited government outlook doesn't jibe with some conservative views, such as restrictions on abortions. But it's a mistake to assume these conservative pro-lifers favor government intervention on a grand scale. They see abortion restriction as necessary in protecting the "life" in that "life, liberty and pursuit of happiness" ideology they hold dear. (It's worth noting that other movements to restrict "happiness" and "liberty," such as Prohibition, were advanced and supported by liberal Progressives.)

Using these broad brush definitions, then, Nazism was never a right wing movement but, rather, a left wing one, if you define the term "left wing" the way it is used today--an ideology that favors more government.

But before my left wing friends start throwing bricks at me, hear me out! I don't think Nazism was any more left wing than it was right wing, any more liberal than it was conservative.

Yes, it was ultimately a totalitarian state governed by sociopaths, and in that regard it lies to the left of what I view as a broad stroke political ideology continuum:

Totalitarianism<--Communism<--Socialism    --   Dem/GOP     --       Libertarianism-->Anarchy

But it did not represent current left-wing thought any more than anarchy -- no government at all -- represents conservative thought.

Nazism was precisely the opposite, in fact, of conservative, right-wing limited government views. It was government everywhere and all the time, even down to the stipulation of how to use words as aids in spelling out other words (anti-Semitic laws stipulated that Germans could no longer say "D as in David" or "S as in Samuel," because those were Jewish names -- you don't get much more "big government" than that.).

So, I hope we move past the linkage of Nazism with "right wing" or conservative views as they are understood and meant today. It's awfully tiresome and downright wrong.

ONE OF THE 98% OF THE 99%

I am the 98%.

I don’t squat in parks. In fact, I try to be a good neighbor by not beating drums at all hours. I don’t ask to use my neighbor’s bathroom facilities, either, unless, of course, it’s an emergency.

I try to pay my bills on time. I try to make good financial decisions. Sometimes, I don’t, and I have to pay the consequences. That’s okay, because we all make mistakes. I just try not to ask other people to pay for them.

Am I hacked off at the way things are now? Yeah. I’m angry that people who thought they were achieving the American Dream were led down a yellow brick road to financial ruin by promises from mortgage companies and student loan officers, who were, in turn being pressured by the government to make bad loans, all in the name of “equality’ and “fairness.”  I’m royally ripped that a lot of those folks – the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac ones, in particular – don’t seem to be getting the same serving of guilt heaped on them as others are.

And I’m really, really stunned that a lot of the “99 percenters” say they still plan on blindly voting for the characters who either got us into this mess or made it worse.

What do I do when I get mad at policy makers? I don’t grab the chance to relive the Sixties. I get involved. I educate myself about the issues – and not just from organizations that support my political leanings. I don’t like conspiracy theories that make easy connections between a causation and something that has no real, profound effect. Conspiracy theories are for dunderheads or mystery writers.

No, when I’m ripped about something in this democratic republic, I call or write my elected officials. I get like-minded folks to do the same. I participate. I vote. I don’t wallow.

I’m the 98% out of the 99%--in the same income bracket, yeah, but not the same mental zone as the 1% occupying parks. Not. At. All.

Occupying Wall Street

by Leslie S. Lebl

It's very flattering, for this Tea Partier anyway, to hear that the Occupy Wall Streeters believe they are copying Tea Party methods in order to emulate its success.

Aside from the obvious incongruities (no Tea Party event has ever done anything like try to take over the Brooklyn Bridge), there is an even more important difference. Typical Tea Partiers turn out for a specific event - and then go home. But the occupation of lower Manhattan has gone on for weeks. Who is paying those folks to camp out? Don't any of them have jobs or other obligations? Do you think we'll ever find out?

So You'd Like to Create a Tea Party?

By Leslie S. Lebl

Last Thursday Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO, told reporters that organized labor will reduce its funding of Democratic party coffers and instead build up its own grassroots structure. This structure, which sounds a lot like the Tea Party, would pressure candidates to honor promises made during the campaign.

So what would such an organization look like and how might it function? Would it be able to duplicate the Tea Party's success in shaping decisions in Washington? First of all, the similarities:

-- The Tea Party grew out of frustration with both parties. The unions are clearly very frustrated with President Obama and Congressional Democrats. Despite spending over $400 million to help elect Obama, unions were disappointed when the president failed to deliver such things as the card check bill that would facilitate union organizing. And the president is reportedly about to submit three free trade agreements for congressional approval that the unions oppose. (The unions apparently don't give much weight to the passage of ObamaCare.) More importantly, as Trumka puts it, Obama has allowed the Republicans to shift the terms of debate to debt and deficit reduction - definitely not union priorities.

-- In 2010, money that Republican party organizations might have hoped to get went instead to Tea Party groups, and that's likely to happen again in 2012. But in the end, most of it supported Republican candidates.

-- It's hard to think of the unions not supporting Democratic candidates next year, in the final analysis. Like the Tea Party, they're likely to conclude that you're more likely to get what you want by working within the two-party system, rather than outside it.

The differences, though, are more numerous:

-- The Tea Party was a genuine grassroots movement; it wasn't organized top-down, although senior Republican politicians have since taken key Tea Party positions. I'd be very surprised if that's what Trumka is talking about; I suspect he's got "astroturf" -- a movement directed by professionals -- in mind instead.

-- Fairly early on, the Tea Party decided its priorities were reducing government deficits and debt, shrinking the size of government, and strengthening America's foreign and national security policy. Social issues had to take a back seat. But any real grassroots labor group may find such unity elusive.

-- First of all, unions have never controlled the actual votes of their members. Significant minorities have always voted Republican, and there haven't been any reports suggesting that this situation will change. That being the case, grassroots positions on the unions' political agenda are also likely to be split.

-- Second, Trumka said that his members were "working-class people ... looking for three things: jobs, jobs, jobs." But organized labor consists of two different groups: private sector unions, who now represent no more than 6-7 percent of private sector workers; and public sector unions, now including almost one-third of state and local employees. By now, the former have surely realized that stimulus spending doesn't help them; the latter will continue to press for such spending to preserve public sector jobs.

-- Third, new laws in several states no longer require all public employees to pay union dues, so organized labor may find itself with less money in its coffers than before. No matter what, this will translate as decreased influence - hardly an encouraging development. The Tea Party, on the other hand, started from zero so had the encouragement of an upward trend in money available to spend on key issues and on political campaigns.

-- It's also easier to get out activists and voters if you feel like you're on a roll. Unions are famous for their ability to turn out the demonstrators and voters, but that may not be so easy if there's less money to fund those people.

-- And there's one final problem: everything the unions want costs money. Already, unions in many states are battling the public perception that it is their extravagant costs that are running up state and local budget deficits. The Tea Party, on the other hand, is arguing for less spending. That may be unpopular in many quarters, and politically extremely difficult, but at least they're not demanding more resources when the coffers are empty.

So will Trumka find a way to energize his base and build a new organization capable of exerting significant pressure on Obama and Congressional Democrats? It seems unlikely - and he runs the risk that withholding union funding from the Democratic Party will contribute to its defeat in November 2012.

Twelve Grafs, One "Sorry"

by Libby Sternberg

New York Times columnist Joe Nocera recently called the Tea Party "terrorists" in a column. If the definition of news is any story with a "man bites dog" template, the Nocera name-calling surely doesn't qualify. He was one among many using words like "terrorist" for those whose opinions he didn't share.

Nonetheless, it's noteworthy when people who are paid to give thoughtful opinions end up being, well, thoughtless, so his name-calling column garnered attention.

It wasn't the kind of attention a commentator likes, however, since it focused on style and not substance.

Not to worry -- in his August 5 column, he apologized and said he won't do it again.

But you have to search for those golden words of regret. On second thought, don't bother. Here's the Cliff Notes version of the 12 paragraphs of his column:

Grafs 1 through 4: a summary of Nocera's working-class roots
Grafs 5 and 6: how awful the financial crisis is and how angry it makes people, including himself
Graf 7: how he hates incivility; the money quote -- "I apologize" (that's it in its entirety)
Graf 8 through 11: how awful the economy is and how awful Republicans are for doing things he doesn't like
Graf 12: he promises not to call anyone names again.

I'm sure conservatives weren't holding their breath for an apology, but his column hardly qualifies as one anyway. In it, he seemed to me akin to a child who, when caught with his hands in the cookie jar, says he's sorry but, gosh, darn it, he was so hungry because the dinner you cooked was awful to begin with.

There's something a little, oh, insincere, about the apology in that case. It sounds more like an excuse than a real declaration of contrition.

So, while I, as a conservative, would be happy to accept Nocera's apology for labeling folks terrorists, who, like me, believe the Republicans, while not perfect, are on the right track, I can't grant him absolution.

His confession was too small, too obscured, and too inauthentic.

The "Narcissism of Big Differences?"

by Leslie S. Lebl

I, too, just finished reading the op-ed page of the August 6-7 issue of the Wall Street Journal, and am still scratching my head over Joseph Rago's interview with Eric Cantor in which he says that both Cantor and President Obama suffer from the "narcissism of big differences."

I think - although I'm not sure - that Rago means both men measure their self-worth by adhering to an all-embracing philosophy. For Obama, it's achieving "social justice" by redistributing wealth and increasing the role of government. For Cantor, it's restoring economic prosperity to America by reducing the government's debt and its role.

Rago explains that "Mr. Cantor's aggressive style has earned him the enmity of liberals and most of the D.C. press corps." This caused me, the great literary connoisseur, to recall the opening chapters of Jane Austin's Persuasion. The heroine's father and elder sister are spending their way toward bankruptcy, and are only persuaded with great difficulty to change their ways. Needless to say, the heroine's efforts to promote economy earn her no gratitude.
 
So I find myself agreeing with Claudia Rosett, who praises Standard & Poor's because it "has finally reduced the spending bacchanal of the U.S. government to a sound bite that anyone can understand..."

Eric Cantor: new Jane Austen hero?

Maybe, just maybe, Eric Cantor strikes many people as aggressive because they, like the heroine's father and elder sister in Persuasion, really but really don't like what he's saying, even though it's true. And they hope that, if they make a big enough noise, the electorate won't catch on that he has a point.

All this might have worked several years ago, but Cantor has the wind of the Tea Party at his back. It will be an interesting fall; a year ago, Obama could convene a bipartisan debt commission and then utterly disregard its recommendations. That's unlikely to happen again.