Can this Tea Party be stopped?
- January 23, 2010
- 3 comments
- Posted in Government, Latest Posts, The Economy
The Tea Party movement represents more of a danger to our social fabric than you might think. It’s the visible spout of a monstrous whale of unrest, raging just below the surface of our national life.
In the 1930s, the most visible social unrest came from the left. It was communitarian, demanding help from the government for the poor, hungry and unemployed. It sought support for labor unions and other collectives, to give themselves enough strength to oppose the oppression they felt.
Today, the social unrest is coming from the right. It’s individualist, opposed to taxes, and seeking to reduce or eliminate government social programs. It opposes collectives. Tea Partiers think that we’d be better off if we all took care of ourselves. The cause is slowly attracting independents, too
The resentment fueling this new movement traces back to the century’s first decade when–for the first time ever–middle-class families had less real income at the end of a business cycle than they had at the start. Job creation came to a screeching halt. Over the period, the number of jobs grew by only 0.6 percent. Meanwhile, at the high end, the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans held the highest share of total U.S. income since 1928.
Because the anger arose from the right, it merely simmered during the administration of Bush Two. Besides, home values were going up so people felt that they were still accumulating wealth. But when the bubble burst, and the country slid toward what could have been a true Depression, the resentment finally exploded, too. With a Democrat in the White House, the movement also has an ideological target for their fury and fear.
Middle and working class America thinks they’ve been left out of the prosperity they see and read about, and they’re right. But in this case, too far “right.” A jobless recovery lies ahead. Cutting taxes, and forcing the reduction of state and federal social services, would raise, not reduce, the pain.
Tags: social unrest, Tea Party
So what can be done about the anger? The Right has worked for the last half century on building an ideology (more accurately “idiology”) that “explains” why the rich should become richer. What can be done to overcome this head start?
Progressives have to get better at framing their view of democracy.
We have so much mis-information and lies being spread that this battle will be difficult to fight. The far right agenda is being fueled by Fox news, Rush Limbaugh, Glen Beck, Sean Hannity, Conservative Republicans, etc. When you figure that Limbaugh makes $50 million per year, Beck $18 million per year, Hannity $20 million per year, something is vastly wrong when they have us convinced that, the health care bill that will help most of us, is evil. People are being duped by not researching anything for themselves.