Did You Feel the Earth Move?

The earth is shifting under our feet and the political class, both elected officialdom as well as the unelected punditocracy, appears to be oblivious. They still believe that there are only Democrats and Republicans, and anything else is a "fringe" group. In their view, Progressives and Tea Party members are equivalent in their impact on the major parties. Nothing could be more in error, and nothing works more in favor of the Progressives than having the electorate view them as only a small fringe group.

The Tea Party convention this past weekend is a truly seismic event. Not in the sense that it will shake the establishment out of their rigid system of beliefs, but as a point where historians can point when describing the sea change occurring in the terms of our national debate.

Maybe the earth did not move all that much, but the stars aligned. And in reading the stars rightly, individuals have been given a rare opportunity.

And a fortuitous opportunity should not be allowed to go to waste. Really much better and cleaner than depending on continued and repeated crises.

.seems it is just a matter of time until the Tea Party assumes command.

My only quibble with anything Sarah said was her use of the word "absorb" when it comes to the GOP "absorbing" the Tea Party.

I disagree that the GOP should "absorb" the Tea Party movement. The Tea Party movement should provide conservative candidates FOR the GOP to support and then help guide the GOP in getting those candidates elected and conservative political goals achieved while in office.

We can have a symbiotic relationship without being "absorbed."

Just my $.02, Sarah.

Tea party conservatives wouldn’t “need to be absorbed” if they weren’t marginalized and ridiculed by the Republican party to begin with.

That's a very good point. We're supposed to be on the same team but we conservatives have, for the most part, stepped out and stepped up to get some Constitutional control back into the governance of the country. And the American people are responding *very* positively to it, too.

The pubbies are still in socialism-lite mode and they better wise up quick. That way leads to defeat and humiliation.

Tea Party should stick to what the original Tea Party was all about - low taxes.

By necessity, that means smaller government and fewer services, which pushes back on the individual both the personal freedom to make good life choices and the personal responsibility to accept the consequences of poor life choices. All of this good, and what America is all about.

Part of the problem is that voters vote for the pols who bring home the bacon, which is of course “pork”. In DC, it’s “I’ll vote for your pork if you vote for mine” and this is problematic for taxpayers, since every dollar going to one’s own district means $434 going to others’ districts. This inherently is a recipe for waste.

The Tea Party needs to focus on exposing and demolishing “pork for pork” politics, or situations like Jeff Sessions holding up administrative appointments until he gets an (unnecessary) FBI explosives lab, and a military project, for Alabama. This is the kind of Republican Tea Partiers need to go after.

The author seems to imply that the Tea Party is the domain of social liberals, however I suspect that many Tea Partiers are social conservatives. If the libertarians want to pick a fight with the social conservatives, then the party’s over.

Tea Party should be about low taxes, which by definition must mean constrained government spending. Any attempt to directly add social issues to the agenda will turn it into a mess of internicene squabbling.

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