Posted on 04/18/2014 10:20:58 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Recently Sen. Charles Schumer made a groundbreaking speech outlining a Democratic Party strategy aimed at the Tea Parties. For the first time, a major figure in the liberal political universe sought to both explain the Tea Parties’ appeal to tens of millions of adult Americas and to project a strategy to break the Tea Party base away from its leaders—at least in the context of election campaigns. Mr. Schumer’s was wrong in his description of the Tea Party movement, however, and his proposed strategy was little more than a campaign statement that would do little damage to the Tea Parties.
It should be noted that Republican Party operatives such as Karl Rove had already set the Tea Parties in their sights, planning to drown them with a sea of adverse money and media during the upcoming Republican primaries. The prospects for Republican Chamber of Commerce-types beating down the Tea Party grew dimmer recently, however. Witness the recent imbroglio over immigration reform. Speaker John Boehner—in line with Rove’s general strategy—outlined possible points for bi-partisan agreement on immigration reform. But the Tea Party movement and other hard right organizations pushed the whole project into the dirt. The Tea Parties were the ones swamping Republican congressional reps with negative phone calls and emails from their constituents. As a result, immigration reform is now off any Republican legislative agenda, and the Tea Party movement can claim victory. Remember, in 2013, Tea Party groups raised more than double the funds that Rove did, according to the February 1, New York Times. Not much of a strategy for Mr. Rove.
Sen. Schumer’s talk garnered more than the usual media attention conferred on a politician’s speech at the Center for American Progress Action Fund. The New York Times accorded it positive coverage and virtually thirteen column inches of text, plus a picture and headline. The Wall Street Journal as well as smaller city dailies respectfully covered the senator’s talk. The conservative and Tea Party blogosphere gave Schumer short, negative attention. An interesting piece by Kelsey Osterman, writing on Red Alert Politics, a website describing itself as written by and for young conservatives, asserted that Schumer’s proposed strategy “isn’t going to work.” Why? Osterman asked: “Because Schumer fundamentally misunderstands the grassroots movement.” The young conservative has this point.
In Schumer’s case, because he broached issues that went beyond any narrow election-year Democratic Party strategy, IREHR believes his project bears further discussion. The Institute for Research & Education on Human Rights (IREHR) has been closely studying the Tea party movement since 2009, and we have our own criticisms of Schumer’s understanding of that far right, anti-democratic movement.
Indeed, Schumer does not even accord it “movement” status, referring to it instead as “the Tea Party.” As such, he fails to acknowledge the fact that multiple national organizations, as well as state and local groups, all comprise this phenomenon. That is over half a million members, six to eight million supporters, and 22% of adult population. Sometimes these multiple organizations act in unison, but it is more often that they have competing and conflicting goals. Any reasonably adept opponent of the Tea Party movement would, for example, take advantage of the fact that the head of Tea Party Nation openly worries about the end of “Anglo-Saxon” hegemony, while FreedomWorks’ Matt Kibbe would consider such verbiage off-limits. The open racism and Christian nationalism among some Tea Party leaders is at odds with the views of other Tea Party leaders. As such, Tea Party Nation’s leader is one of the greatest weak spots in the Tea Party movement’s armor. There are multiple such weak spots.
Sen. Schumer delineates his Tea Party into “Tea Party elites” that manipulate and mislead the “average grassroots Tea Party follower.” This formulation is misguiding on several significant points. Consider Jenny Beth Martin, for example, a Tea Party Patriots national coordinator. Readers will look at IREHR’s recent report on Tea Party membership and note that this national organization is the second largest of all the national factions. She has considerable organizational weight behind her and during the recent immigration battle with Boehner managed to “set in motion 900,000 automatic phone calls in 90 Republican House districts connecting tens of thousands of voters to their members of Congress,” according to the February 8 New York Times. As IREHR previously reported, however, in 2008, during the summer before the Tea Parties emerged, Jenny Beth Martin declared bankruptcy from her home in an Atlanta suburb. She is not an “elite” in the ordinary use of the term. Neither are any other Tea Party leaders, except perhaps, Dick Army, the former congressman who once led the FreedomWorks Tea Party. Neither should these leaders be considered “elites” simply in terms of their status within their movement, a movement which generally eschews elites.
Schumer is simply wrong about the bald facts. Also, by emphasizing this construction, he misses how issues such as gun rights have emerged at the center of Tea Party concern after grass roots activists pushed up from below with the issue and took the movement by storm. This was not an “elite” inspired storm.
Further, Schumer’s construction would cause opponents to miss the Tea Party movement’s actual weakest point: the grassroots members, chapter leaders and national groups who oppose the actual constitution all while claiming to uphold the United State Constitution. One cannot—or more properly, you should not be able to—be against birthright citizenship, and thus the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, and still claim you support said Constitution. Similarly, you cannot aim to cut down voter access and still claim to support the Fifteenth Amendment. Further, you cannot even claim to support democracy if you want to end the direct election of United States Senators, enabled by the Seventeenth Amendment. And there are thousands of Tea Partiers who along with Cong. Ron Paul want to rescind the Seventeenth Amendment, all in the name of “states’ rights.”
The Tea Party movement is a movement with followers who do not support the existing Constitution, even while they claim to be its most fervent defenders. We should Support the U.S. Constitution—All of It. If IREHR, or any other reasonable opponent of the Tea Party movement, had the funds and the access we would put that message on as many county music stations as possible, and it would surely hurt the Tea Party movement.
There are other major problems with Sen. Schumer’s speech. Proposing the defense of Medicare and Social Security, for example, might be useful Democratic campaign tactics against Republicans, for example, but that is not a point that would move core Tea Party adherents. To hurt the Tea Party movement, opponents must rip it apart at its core. Cut it up from the ground up, then you can cut off its head.
And millions of individuals that hold to the principles and consider themselves a part of it, though not a formal member of any T.E.A. Party group.
They fail to acknowledge much of reality, hence the many unintended negative consequences from their efforts.
These people have NO understanding of the tea party
movement at all. All their descriptions are based
on their OWN structures, it’s right there in front of
them but they can’t allow themselves to see it.
There is an easy strategy to defeat the tea party. Balance the budget and end then corruption. Then there would be no reason for it to exist.
These fools all assume that the Tea Party has a typical hierarchical leadership, so all they have to do is decapitate these leaders and the movement will fail.
They don’t grasp, because they probably can’t grasp, that the Tea Party is *not* a hierarchical organization, but a non-hierarchical organization. Totally different rules of operation, and one they are impotent in fighting.
The differences are actually greater than those of a conventional and non-conventional war. Yet, there is General Karl Rove, with his regimented platoon of “soldiers” following his marching commands to fix bayonets and march in formation into the enemy lines. But there is no enemy line.
So they march in this direction for a while, then march in another direction for a while, and still, no enemy they can bayonet. So Rove throws another $50 million at them and yells at them to march and bayonet harder.
Meanwhile, the Tea Party has quietly encircled Rove’s platoon, and from a safe distance yells names at them, maybe punctuated with thrown road apples.
“March harder!”, he yells, “Bayonet harder!” “Break their lines and kill their leaders! Here’s another $100 million!”
Still no enemy lines. Still, no leaders. And as much money as he raises from his well-heeled cronies, he can’t squeeze a thin dime out of Tea Party supporters. They use their money to back the other guy in the primary.
And Karl Rove loses.
Actually, I do not claim to support "democracy" - I claim to, and DO, support representative democracy, or a republican form of government.
This country was not founded as a democracy; it was founded as a Republic, and our founders knew what they were doing when they did not include direct election of U.S. senators in the original Constitution.
Very true.
This guy may be a complete DB, especially on the “support all the Constitution” nonsense, but his analysis of Schumer’s speech is dead on.
But also incomplete. What’s really happening here is a little thing called “projection”: Schumer and the Dems view the Tea Party through the lenses of how their own “grassroots” efforts are organized and controlled by the Party elite.
Remember how, when the Tea Party got rolling, Dems were tossing about accusations of it being “astroturff”? They were doing that becase THAT is exactly how they operate, and they have no real concept that a genuine grassroots movement is capable of quickly springing up and playing a serious role in the national debate. The concept is completely foreign to them, they just can’t see how such a thing is even possible. Someone/something/some ... power MUST be behind it.
It also says everthing that we need to know about THEIR grassroots (er, astroturf) organizations.
This guy needs to get a job in a movie theater, because he is an extremely good ‘projectionist’...
Absolutely.
Want to make this guy’s head explode? Tell him that a great example of pure “democratic” expression is ... Prop 8.
Watch how fast he runs away and towards the least “democratic” (by intent and design) institution established by the Constitution: the Supreme Court.
I agree completely. Remember the(snicker!) “Coffee Party”?
Curious, certainly have hit a nerve with them. Perhaps we should explain a few positions on a few issues:
“One cannot—or more properly, you should not be able to—be against birthright citizenship, and thus the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, and still claim you support said Constitution.”
Sure you can, the people who wrote the 14th amendment did not support the idea of citizenship by location of birth rather than parentage of birth either.
That is just something people after the fact presumed, Birthright however was suppose to refer to that which you get from your parents not your location.
Example: John McCain was born an American becase both his parents were Americans, but John McCain was not born in any American State. His Birthright is his American heritage.
Insolently Also You can support the Constitutions while also supporting the repeal of certain questionable amendments. IE: 14, and 17, just as there was a very good Constitution before those amendments broke certain critical checks and balances in it.
“Similarly, you cannot aim to cut down voter access and still claim to support the Fifteenth Amendment.”
I’m afraid I’m at a loss for how the 15th amendment apply to not insuring people voting in a state are actually Citizens of the State voting only once. It would seem to me that the 15th amendment requires such careful registration & verification to prevent voter-fraud which DOES undermine everyone’s voting rights.
“Further, you cannot even claim to support democracy if you want to end the direct election of United States Senators, enabled by the Seventeenth Amendment.”
Well hes got me here, I do not support Democracy, and don’t claim to support democracy. As our founders pointed our Democracy wast and murder themselves, becoming one of the most oppressive systems of government possible.
I like our founders strongly appose Democracy and instead support and insist upon Constitutional republicanism. Constitutional Republicanism for those that don’t know history is like democracy except that elected leaders can only act in a small and defined set of ways enumerated in a Constitution.
For example: In a democracy a leader can practically do anything from making any sort of law to going after any sort of group.
In a Republic A leader can only only act upon foreign objects and work with tools such as military for defending against foreign objects. He cannot utilize them in an official capacity inside our borders, nor can he tell them to do anything contrary to the dictates of law made by congress.
In this and many other ways A republican leader is limited to leading only in a defined area for defined proposes.
While all other areas such as the Domestic sphere, the economic sphere, the religious sphere, the health sphere, the recreational sphere, are all either left to the people or allocated to someone other elected official and/or Government.
In a democracy Governments & their leaders can in practice do whatever they want, rule in any sphere they want without meaningful limits.
The Left can only think in top-down categories, because they're totalitarian, they think everyone else is too. This is like Bloomberg putting up $50 milliion to take on the NRA. The NRA doesn't direct anyone. Individuals have come to the conclusion on the importance of firearms ownership and freedom. NRA or no NRA, that ain't gonna change.
But who am I? I'm obviously just another astroturf lacky of the Big Corporations. Moronic childishness.
They merely wanted to enshrine into Constitutional law what was already in effect as federal law via the 1866 Civil Rights Act.
I stand corrected, I remember reading about that same case and explication.
It really does wonder the mind how we ever came to think it ment simply being born in a US State.
The power crazed nut-jobs that crammed thou the 14th amendment and the associated 1866 Civil Rights acts were to impassioned by their cause to take more care in insuring the effect they had intended.
Honestly I don’t believe the 14th amendment was ever legitimately passed seeing as Ohio and other States retracted their ratification(After elections on the matter) prior to reaching the required 3/4th number only to have that retraction ignored by the The Federal Congress Counting the radifications.
I also find it invalid because many of the necessary State ratification came from State legislators selected and operating under the guns of ‘union’ Soldures and not the free will of their people.
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