Posted on 01/22/2011 1:58:31 PM PST by smokingfrog
.. most analysis of the Tea Party movement ignores history and sees the Tea Party as something new and rather bizarre. Yet the Tea Party is a form of populism - a perennial feature of American politics and perhaps one of its defining characteristics.
American populism has its origins in the broad-based and fissiparous movement that emerged from the 1850s onwards. It reached its high point in the 1890s with the formation of the People's Party, which challenged the duopoly of the Republicans and Democrats but declined rapidly as a formal movement thereafter.
Yet, like an event of nuclear fission, its half-life continues to be felt long after its moment of greatest energy. The vital centre of the Populist movement was the mid-West, with particular concentrations of activity in Texas, Kansas, and Oklahoma. Though primarily an agrarian phenomenon, its political impact came through forging a farmer-labor alliance.
Michael Kazin, in his book The Populist Persuasion, identifies four themes that shaped the original Populist movement and all on-going forms of populism, of which the Tea Party is the latest iteration:
- the first is Americanism (identified as an emphasis on understanding and obeying the will of the people);
- the second, producerism (the conviction that, in contrast to classical and aristocratic conceptions, those who toiled were morally superior to those who lived off the toil of others and that only those who created wealth in tangible material ways could be trusted to guard the nation's piety and liberties);
- the third, the need to oppose the dominance of privileged elites who are seen to subvert the principles of self-rule and personal liberty through centralizing power and imposing abstract plans on the ways people lived (elites were variously identified as government bureaucrats, intellectuals, high financiers, industrialists or a combination of all four);
(Excerpt) Read more at abc.net.au ...
Will the Tea Party help bring about a new Age of Reform?
I see the tea party is being a lot like the Freesoil party which led directly to the Republican party. Fortunately we have the mistakes of the freesoilers to learn from.
Total BS.
The Tea party has nothing in common with the People’s party which was created by the Confederate democrats and later merged with the democrat party.
In fact the Peoples party eventually supported the rise of the Progressive democrat movement and endorsed them.
They were anti-Wall street, supported government nationalization of industry and supported goverpnment bailouts.
The Tea party is the exact opposite of the People’s party formed by secessionist democrats who hated the Constitution and America.
Its Wiki but you can get the basic gist of what the free soil party was all about.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Soil_Party
More than very different.
They were complete opposites.
And even the quote by the author is complete BS.
The Tea party has no goal of ‘withdrawal from public life’ at all.
It’s goal is to return governmental ‘public life’ back to it’s true Constitutional goal of being representative of ‘We the People’ in how it performs.
Yes, that’s really what I mean.
My point is that this article was not trying to show how the Tea Party movement is similar to traditional American populism, but rather to argue that it is fundamentally different. He’s making much the same argument both you and I would probably make, though he’s making it for the opposite reason.
The author of this article is clearly more sympathetic to the left-populism of the People’s Party and wants to “defend” its reputation from association with the Tea Parties. I, for one, welcome any effort to distinguish the Tea Party movement from old-fashioned populism, even when that effort comes from the other side.
Luke Bretherton is senior lecturer in Theology and Politics, and convenor of the Faith and Public Policy Forum at King’s College, London. His most recent book is Christianity and Contemporary Politics: The Conditions and Possibilities of Faithful Witness (Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), and he is currently writing a book on community organizing and democratic citizenship. A different version of this article will appear in The Tablet.
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Why yes, I bet theis British elitist has a clear clue as to what makes Americans tick.
He has made so many factual errors to render this article as nothing more than nonsense.
Actually, I’ve always considered the Tea Party movement to be rather anti-populist.
They want the government to limit itself. They want the government to do less. They aren’t demanding that the government fix something or fulfill their dreams, they want it to stop fixing things that are not within its jurisdiction.
They are very conscious of the meaning of “rule of law”.
They are not envious of any class elite, nor do they see themselves as some kind of downtrodden proletariat. They are citizens. They don’t want anything more than the constitution requires, nor do they want anything less.
The DNC has always been the populist party, always looking to use the power of the mob. We mis-use the term “liberal” in describing them when the better terms will be socialist, leftist, populist. This is the difference between Rousseau and his “will of the people” versus John Locke. The DNC is the “will of the people” party.
You’ll find right-leaning populists and left-populists but the tea party folk are neither. They want to restrain the power of government to its legitimate and legal limits. Thats not populist.
“The DNC is the “will of the people” party.”
You wouldn’t believe this by listening to Boehner, Bachmann, and McConnell!
It is bases for so many miss switch's they have done to blame conservationism from everything from slavery to the KKK.
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