Grand Old (Tea) Party: The People Are Furious And The Party Must Understand Why [Bill Whittle]

The transcript of this video essay is below. IMHO: video is better - Bill Whittle's presentation is characteristically passionate; and his passion is contagious.

Well, the Tea party movement is not even a year old, and already it is holding its first national convention. I was honored to be asked to speak at the West Los Angeles event on September 12^th of last year, so unlike most of the talking heads you see opining on the Tea Party movement, at least I am one of the very few to have been to one personally.

Now the most remarkable thing about that remarkable experience is something that is very hard to put into words. It’s the quality that makes me reluctant to try and tell you what it is, because it clearly is so many different things to so many people. And that grass-roots, “never-done-this-before” sense of excitement and empowerment is the first thing that really hits you.

These are the most regular, decent people you’ll meet, and with very few exceptions not one of them has been involved in politics in any way. It’s just that — like so many of us — They’ve just had enough!

Of course, the media coverage has tried very hard to portray the normal, average, every-day Americans of the Tea party rallies as dangerous and angry racists and Wal-Mart knuckle-draggers, while identifying the mass-produced signs, the mass-produced T-shirts, the mass-produced members of bused-in wiccan nihilist anarcho-Maoist lesbian eco-weenie anti-war protestors as somehow the genuine voice of the American people.

So as a person who has been there, let me try and explain what I think this whole movement is about.

The people I have met at these events were generally the happy, decent, hard-working people that make up the vast middle of Silent America. They are not bitter, and they are not “consumed with rage.”

But they — I mean, we — are angry. We have a right to be angry. As a matter of fact, we not only have a right but in fact have an obligation to be angry. The spending orgy in Washington brought on by the Democratic control of both houses of Congress and the election of the most liberal member of the Senate to the office of the Presidency is taking the country off the edge of a cliff and everybody knows it.

This spending is so monumental, so out of control and so beyond the pale that huge numbers of what were honest, decent, hard-working and unassuming citizens no longer feel like taxpayers but rather like host organisms: we find ourselves staggering around in shock, like victims of a plane crash or some natural disaster, looking around at the destruction of the work ethic that gave five percent of the population an economy four times the size of its nearest competitor. We watch, horrified, at the government takeover not of businesses or industries but entire sectors of the free market. That’s why there’s a Tea Party.

You know what this reckless, Imperial orgy of spending feels like? It feels like coming out of the shower in the morning, dazed and exhausted after a good night’s sleep, and stepping in front of a mirror to find yourself covered in leeches that are sapping not just the blood it takes to make government function, but rather all of it — every last living drop of it — to fund entitlements and work projects and boondoggles of every description: congressional “climate change” junkets that include skiing and snorkeling days in New Zealand, and Bridges to Nowhere, and the use of Air Force jets as the personal chauffeurs not only of the Speaker of the House but for her families and business cronies, too. We see a President who talks about sharing hardship but who then decides to go out on date night and catch a show in New York City and ends up spending every single tax dollar you and your kids will make in your entire life: gone!

Gone! What did you get for it? Nothing. What service did it do the country? None! So why did they spend it? Because — listen now — they spent it because that’s not your money. That’s their money. Just because you got up in the morning, sat in traffic, and worked all day before sitting in traffic again to come home exhausted… that doesn’t mean it’s your money to these bloodsucking, leather-winged, Big Government entitlement-mongers. No, that’s their money to spend as they see fit — and not just all the money you send in taxes today, or next year, or the next ten years — they — Democrats and Republicans too — have spent all the money you will make in your lifetime, and then spent all of the money your kids will make, and the pool of work that your grandkids will do in 2060 or so — that’s mostly been spent too.

You want to know why we’re angry? What once was a social compact between the people and their representatives has rotted away into this: a people no longer paying a reasonable price for the limited number of things that only a government can provide, but rather victims of identity theft — people who open a monthly credit card statement only to discover fifty thousand dollars of vacations not taken, and jet skis and plasma TV’s paid for but never delivered. That’s why there’s a Tea Party.

Now some critics of the Tea Party movement say it is hypocritical to complain about Democrat spending without complaining about Republican spending as well. Well, there are two things to say about that: first, that is a profound insight from someone who has obviously never been to a Tea Party event, because if they had been there, they would know that the real thunderbolts thrown in response to this spending orgy is aimed not at the Democrats but rather the Republicans; the people who should know better, the people, in fact, that we thought would be standing guard over our hard-earned treasure, not shoveling it out the door by the fork-full.

The grey bars are Bush’s Deficits. Notice that they were declining yearly in his second term, until TARP — which President Obama claimed as his own personal miracle — drove them up during his last year. Now look at the red bars: that’s Obama’s spending: four times Bush’s last year — the spike of TARP included — and not for an emergency fix of the banks, but rather to buy things like ATV trails on one hand and General Motors on the other, all in the name of “stimulus,” which, we were promised, would cap unemployment at 8% instead of the nine or 10% we would see without the line at the government cash trough. The official unemployment rate is now at least ten percent; some analysts say the true number may now be half again that, or even double.

Oh, and by the way, shocking and damning though this graph is, it’s a little long in the tooth. The fact is, this President and Congress have been waging a year-long war against business and the evil, evil wealthy, who, needless to say, have decided to keep their heads down, produce less, and pay less in taxes.

Here’s a graphic that better illustrates the real effect of the decreased revenues as a result of this war on the private sector:

So what’s ahead? Well, no one knows, least of all me. But I do have a very strong sense of what should be ahead.

Despite the authentic and wholly justified sense of betrayal that many conservatives feel at the hands of the GOP, I think that talks of a third party are suicide: not only permanent minority status, but also handing the store over to the people most intent on robbing it — forever.

The Tea Party Movement is really the conservative movement. It’s like a soul that has somehow been cut off from its physical body, and now both wander the landscape, trying to decide what to do. Because if the Tea Party movement is the grass-roots, common-man philosophical soul of small government and personal liberty and responsibility, then the Republican party is the skeletal structure — the bones and arteries and sinews needed to live in the real world.

The only road to success and recovery from this rocket-sled of ruin is to re-unite these two elements. We tried that, actually: Tea Party passion and internet fundraising, plus GOP ground operations, call centers, networks and so forth, and this was the result:

Now, was Scott Brown the perfect conservative candidate? To many — even many who supported him — he was not. That’s not the question we should be asking. The question we should be asking — and did ask, it seems — is not whether Scott Brown is more conservative than Ronald Reagan. The question is whether or not Scott Brown is more conservative than Ted Kennedy or Martha Coakley.

Victory is a ratchet. To retake this country we need every gain we can get — no matter how small — and to give up as little as possible. If Scott Brown — Republican senator from Massachusetts — turns out to be the most liberal man in the Senate then we’re living in paradise. That’s why there’s a Tea Party. And that’s why being a part of the Tea Party movement is, when it is all said and done, just plain fun.

And a final note: do you know who we owe the remarkable success of the Tea Party movement to? We owe it to Rachel Maddow, and Keith Olberman, and Chris Matthews. We owe it to Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid, and Barack Obama — not just for the political motivation, but because they decided to make it personal.

By calling us Tea Baggers, and racists, and Nazis, and rubes, and hicks… by pretending we’re just a fringe group of dangerous radicals, or saying — as the President did, twice, and apparently with a straight face — that he was unaware that tens or hundreds of thousands of hard-working American patriots were clogging the streets of the city he lives in — well all of these geniuses poured can after can of lighter fluid on to what might have been some old, wet charcoal — nearly impossible to light — and turned it into a wildfire that will likely remake the landscape of this country. That’s why there’s a Tea Party.

So thanks, you big-brain, sneering, socialist ninnies! We couldn’t have done it without you.

Well, listen, Father...if the candidate in place of Scott Brown had somehow been some fire-and-brimstone right-to-lifer taking the stand you are, to the exclusion of everything else, (and remembering we are in Massachusetts here) what would have been the probability of his winning?

How about slim and none, with slim having just left town?

We take our victories, however small, wherever we can find them.

We're up against an entrenched 50+ year propaganda machine, and it takes time to move mountains that big. It doesn't happen overnight.

We're working towards the day when the unborn will be protected by the state, yes, but there are more issues in the public arena than abortion. We need to be cognizant of those, too.

I don't disagree with you that the issue is most pressing, but we're in a war here on many fronts. Pick your battles wisely that we might draw ever closer to total victory.

Don't denigrate the small victory we've won. We need to pick up as many of those as we can along the way.

Just keep the faith, and keep fighting.

Respectfully,

CA....

You make me think of the baseball manager who will let the other team win if your team is not made up of all .300 hitters, each starter must steal 20 bases or more, each receive a Golden Glove award each year, the pitchers must have a 2.0 ERA, etc.

Building a conservative Congressional coalition is much like building a baseball team. The team drafts, develops, or trades for players that are better than the ones it has presently.

Each candidate will not be the perfect Congressman to all people. Support the candidate that moves your agenda to the right. If a candidate stands for 3 of the 4 more conservative positions vote for him, even though he may not have the most pro-life record.

Put him on the team and look for trades that will suit your tastes. Giving the position to the opposition is insane.

The left has always believed that reaching political goals has always been an incremental process; notwithstanding this last election. They have tried to get it all in one felled swoop; you are seeing how well that is working out for them - a direct result of the far left demanding a purity test. That is exactly what you are expecting from conservative politicians right now. It will lead to the same destruction.

IMO, get your talent when and where you can and always be looking to trade up. That puts everyone (friend and foe alike) on notice that they have to perform and get better if they want to be re-elected.

I think we need to realize that the Tea Party participants do not all consider themselves “Republican”. We are reaching out to disgruntled, disillusioned Democrats, Independents, and even in some cases to disgruntled, disillusioned RINO’s with this movement. While I believe that we need to remake the Republican Party by replacing Democrats and RINO’s with electable conservatives, we need to remember that it will be done by a strong, independently minded conservative voice of the people. The general make up of the current Republican members of Congress are not all that conservative. The Republican Party can become known as the Party of and for the People.

We generally focus on the national political scene, and as we do that we need to reemphasize emphasis on reestablishing the same Party of and for the People at all local levels of government. Bill Whittle said it well in his article.

"We take our victories, however small, wherever we can find them. We're up against an entrenched 50+ year propaganda machine, and it takes time to move mountains that big. It doesn't happen overnight. We're working towards the day when the unborn will be protected by the state, yes, but there are more issues in the public arena than abortion. We need to be cognizant of those, too. I don't disagree with you that the issue is most pressing, but we're in a war here on many fronts. Pick your battles wisely that we might draw ever closer to total victory.." ~ Chances Are

You sound like Ronald Reagan:

“When I began entering into the give and take of legislative bargaining in Sacramento, a lot of the most radical conservatives who had supported me during the election didn’t like it. “Compromise” was a dirty word to them and they wouldn’t face the fact that we couldn’t get all of what we wanted today. They wanted all or nothing and they wanted it all at once. If you don’t get it all, some said, don’t take anything. I’d learned while negotiating union contracts that you seldom got everything you asked for. And I agreed with FDR, who said in 1933: ‘I have no expectations of making a hit every time I come to bat. What I seek is the highest possible batting average.’ If you got seventy-five or eighty percent of what you were asking for, I say, you take it and fight for the rest later, and that’s what I told these radical conservatives who never got used to it.” – Ronald Reagan, An American Life

bttt

GOP is still ignoring the formula for a win in an ultra liberal district.

A HUNK with and TRUCK = WIN

Should particularly work in the liberal CA districts if he shows a tatoo or two and some body jewelry. It doesn’t matter what his policies are!

“We generally focus on the national political scene, and as we do that we need to reemphasize emphasis on reestablishing the same Party of and for the People at all local levels of government. Bill Whittle said it well..” ~GGpaX4DumpedTea

He sure did:

VIDEO: http://www.pjtv.com/video/Afterburner_with_Bill_Whittle/Grand_Old_(Tea)_Party:_The_People_Are_Furious_And_The_Party_Must_Understand_Why/3076/

bttt

Agree SOL there’s been several articles lately about cutting Social Security and we were forced to pay into that and after being robbed for over forty years they darn well better pay the people they took it from. Thats something younger people don’t like well it is not our fault they took the money they stole from us and spent it.

if the candidate in place of Scott Brown had somehow been some fire-and-brimstone right-to-lifer taking the stand you are, to the exclusion of everything else, (and remembering we are in Massachusetts here) what would have been the probability of his winning?

Let's see:

- Coakley portrayed Scott Brown as pro-life.
- The media portrayed Scott Brown as pro-life.
- Scott Brown's apologists portrayed Scott Brown as pro-life.

And what happened? Oh yeah, despite being portrayed as pro-life, Scott Brown won by five points.

So yes, a pro-life candidate could have won and if a pro-life candidate can win in Massachusets that means they can win ANYWHERE.

“He will. Their KIA count will be 200 times just this year the entire total killed in Iraq since the WOT began. (Osama bin Roevwade)

So, it’s a loss. It’s a loss for the nation.”
++++++++++++++

The difference you’re talking about is between politics and soul saving. To overturn Roe v. Wade, we need a spiritual revival in this land. No politica movement will do.

It’s time to get on our faces before God and cry out to him (which you may be doing.)

2 Chron. 7:14 and many passages as well as history of revivals will be our guide.

Nothing less (and nothing political) will do.

So in that regard Scott Brown is a minor victory. But regarding our march toward socialism, his is a major victory.

Also, Romans 13 tells us that leaders serve under the toleration of God’s will, and we’re to pray for our leaders (1 Timothy 2: “1I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone— 2for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. 3This is good, and pleases God our Savior, 4who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. 5For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, 6who gave himself as a ransom for all men—the testimony given in its proper time.”)

“...get your talent when and where you can and always be looking to trade up. That puts everyone (friend and foe alike) on notice that they have to perform and get better if they want to be re-elected...”

Well said. The Democrat/Socialist/Leftist agenda for the past 100 years has used this tactic to establish themselves in the position of control that culminated in the results of the 2008 elections, and that now has them thinking that they no longer have to listen to the People.

We need to do what we have to do With the People, always remembering that “We the People” was the premise in the beginning.

Do you really think this is the issue that the election turned on? That somehow the state that went for Kerry 2 years ago has suddenly embraced this issue as you define it, to the exclusion of everything else?

I don't think so, and if you do, you're an extremely poor political prognosticator, and you're going to be bitterly disappointed in the short-term political battles that are in the offing.

I urge you to keep fighting for this issue, yes, but also remember it's not the only issue on the table, and not the only issue that's worth fighting over. There's a lot of ground we have to cover and win in this war.

Keep your eye on the donut, and not on the hole.

CA....

GOP is still ignoring the formula. A HUNK with a TRUCK = WIN.
______________________________________________________________

Or “A BABE with a BEAMER = VICTORY”.

OMGosh! Is that “sexist”? Go Sarah, go!!

(For those who might need to know; Beamer defined: “A BMW or a really nice car.)

I don't think so, and if you do, you're an extremely poor political prognosticator, and you're going to be bitterly disappointed in the short-term political battles that are in the offing.

I never suggested that the election turned on this issue. But YOU and others have said that a pro-life candidate couldn't win in Massachusetts and I demonstrated that this IS NOT TRUE.

You are right, Kerry won, Kennedy always won, etc,; however, consider this, they NEVER made abortion an issue. They always made some sort of "personally opposed, but" statement and then changed the subject.

How then was this election different? As she continued to slide in the polls Coakley got desperate and she DID make abortion an issue and she LOST.

The real problem with Social Security is that they have expanded who is capable of receiving those funds.

For example, we have foreign nationals in our nation who never worked ten seconds in the U.S., who draw SS payments.

I say cut the payouts to only those who got in their 40 quarters or whatever it is, and quit bankrupting the system.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.