Was villifying the Tea Party a strategic mistake?

[howaboutme]

That the Tea Party has become the antithesis of the Democratic Party is a mammoth understatement. I believe that outcome was an unfortunate strategic mistake of Democratic leaders.

Now before you burn me at the stake, allow me to explain the rationale. The original destroy and marginalize plan used against the Tea Party worked about as effectively as the current War on Terror rationale where we wage war totally, instead of analyzing reasons, and to attempt to re-mold opinions with political solutions.

The mistake by Democratic leadership was attempting to go for the jugular and tear down the Tea Party instead of attempting to mold it with Democratic specific philosophies and principles of real populism. One very important concept to remember is that the original Tea Party was anti-plutocracy. It was not super conservative in the Republican pro-corporate vain but in the end pro-Republican ghost organizations hijacked and funded it.

It would have been positive for Democratic principles by encouraging participation at Tea Party rallies with signs such as "Prosecuting Wall Street Instead of Rewarding Them" , and "Give People Control of Government Instead of Corporations and Bankers" was a huge opportunity to change the dynamics of the Tea Party away from the Republican corporate right wing to an anti-plutocracy philosophy. Could there be those in both Parties that prefer to have the Tea Party vilified, than seeing it molded into an anti-plutocracy real populist movement.

The original Tea Party movement was not super conservative. It was started by disgruntled voters who saw a government and a Congress that neither listened to voters nor their priorities. Instead Congress listened to lobbyist interests and simultaneously were pouring billions into Wall Street banks that created the economic fiasco and a Federal Reserve that was obligating taxpayers with more trillions of dollars to buy up the poisonous mortgage assets that banks owned, thus enriching them further. "End the Fed" was actually one of the initial core philosophies of the Tea Party movement and one with which many Democrats agree, but it was hijacked when the media and Wall St Federal Reserve worshipers portrayed them all as tin foil racists.

Can anyone deny that the corporate plutocracy is a big threat to democracy and a prosperous working / middle class and there is currently no political movement that really offsets this power?

[kestrel91316]

1. Was vilifying Hitler and the Nazis a mistake in 1933?

YOU decide.

[Common Sense Party]

23. Wow. Godwin's law in the FIRST post of the thread.

Well done.

[ronnie624]

25. Are you sure you understand "Godwin's law"? n/t

[Gamow]

29. + 1. Godwin's law is meant to give valid Hitler comparisons some meaning

by discouraging arbitrary use of the comparison.
Above is a valid one.

[ronnie624]

45. I think so too.

"Godwin's law" offers no judgment on the appropriateness of the use of such comparisons. It states only that as long as the duration of a political discussion continues, the probability of someone invoking a NAZI analogy increases.

[Common Sense Party]

37. Yes.

Thanks for asking.

[howaboutme]

30. That's the kind of over the top

comparison that gains and solves nothing.

[kestrel91316]

41. I disagree. I consider it a fair comparison, given how some Teabaggers are

Nazi sympathizers, and most of the rest are racist xenophobes. Plenty of them are Dominionists who would bring back slavery and stonings if they had half a chance.

[blondeatlast]

2. The Onion, right?

You do know what would have happened if anyone to the left of Barry Goldwater (hell, even ol' Barry himself) had shown up at a TeaBagger rally, right?

Think Rand Paul rally--think hard, it'll come to you.

[howaboutme]

31. That was late in the game after it had been hijacked

Democratic strategists missed the boat and could have moved the movement from its anti Fed conception to anti plutocracy, which are one and the same. The problem now is the plutocrats now have the reins.

[Johonny]

3. Didn't teaparty candidates do worse than normal republicans yesterday

So I'm going with no here. The mistake was not getting the teaparty brand to stick to all Republicans since in the end they were the same thing. Strickly on pure election strategy.


I think I understand and agree with your statement. The teaparty was a group of Republicans that wanted to take back the Republican party. Their problem is instead of trying to return to the party of Teddy or Ick they turned to libertarians, the religious right and corporatist. Who knows maybe Megan McCain isn't a fake and those Republicans will eventually return. Clearly right now today the teaparty voters were had. They don't know it yet but I think soon they will figure out the people they voted for in anger are not at all what they appeared to be sold as.

[mmonk]

4. The Corporate heads created the Tea Party. By nature, it is a fascist

movement.

[somone]

5. Nah, the head stompers were harmless, lovable, little fuzzballs

just like the Big Fat Idiot

[Oilwellian]

6. Uh, no, it was not. n/t

[dchill]

7. Vilification is not always a choice.

Sometimes, it's just necessary. As in this case.

[Rex]

8. Well since the majority of Tea baggery lost their respective elections

I'd say NO, but I know there are a lot of people impressed with the Tea baggers and want to inflate their 'brand' for malicious political reasons.

[merh]

9. No.

Next question.

[uppityperson]

10. No. And wtf "It was started by disgruntled voters"? No, it wasn't.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_Party_movement#Fundraising_and_support
In September 2010 the Tea Party Patriots announced it had received a $1,000,000 USD donation from an anonymous donor.<92>

Sarah Palin headlined four "Liberty at the Ballot Box" bus tours, to raise money for candidates and the Tea Party Express. One of the tours visited 30 towns and covered 3,000 miles.<93> Following the formation of the Tea Party Caucus, Michele Bachman raised $10 million for a political action committee, MichelePAC, and sent funds to the campaigns of Sharron Angle, Christine O'Donnell, Rand Paul, and Marco Rubio.<94>

In a New York Times op-ed column, contributor Paul Krugman wrote that "the tea parties don't represent a spontaneous outpouring of public sentiment. They're AstroTurf (fake grass roots) events, manufactured by the usual suspects. In particular, a key role is being played by FreedomWorks, an organization run by Richard Armey."<95> Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-California) stated "It's not really a grassroots movement. It's astroturf by some of the wealthiest people in America to keep the focus on tax cuts for the rich instead of for the great middle class."<96> In an August 2010 article in The New Yorker, Jane Mayer said that the billionaire brothers, David H. Koch and Charles G. Koch, and Koch Industries are providing financial support to the tea party movement through Americans for Prosperity.<97>

The New York Times describes the Kochs as founders of the Americans for Prosperity, which they say has supported the Tea Party movement.<98> Former ambassador Christopher Meyer writes in the Daily Mail that the Tea Party movement is a mix of "grassroots populism, professional conservative politics, and big money", the latter supplied by Charles and David Koch.<99> David Koch of Koch Industries, who sits on AFP's Board of Directors, has help fund a number of Tea Party causes. His group is identified as one of the key groups, with FreedomWorks, behind the April 15, 2009 national tea party events. Its Hot Air Tour organized to fight against taxes on carbon use and the activation of a Cap and Trade program.<100>

[Rex]

11. Ah facts, those little things that won't go away.

Disgruntled voters = 2 billionaires.

[uppityperson]

13. Facts vs "concept"s. what to do, what to think

"One very important concept to remember is that the original Tea Party was anti-plutocracy. It was not super conservative in the Republican pro-corporate vain but in the end pro-Republican ghost organizations hijacked and funded it."

[Rex]

17. Pro-Republican ghost organizations' monitored the movement from inception

and did what the PNAC crowd failed to accomplish.

[howaboutme]

38. Koch brothers represent the new plutocrat hijackers not the original TP.

The Palins and Dick Armey did the face work and punditry while the Koch Bros poured money into the fractured diverse TP movement that eventually became its disgusting Republican pro-corporate face.

The point I'm attempting to make is that the Democratic Party could and should have worked towards influencing the populist side of the TP movement. There were many that would have favored and embraced an anti-interventionist military, End-the-Fed, reduced military spending, less foreign aid-more help for Americans, critical action against the over paid Wall St bankers and CEOs.

The TP first gained traction as the Ron Paul Revolution in early 2007 which was anti-establishment and anti-GOP. It grew and scared the hell out of the political elites in the GOP and Democratic Party.

Our political system is less about doing right to America, and more about formulating political control by pitting average Americans against each other using "liberal" versus "conservative" which in the end provides enormous profits to the media and to pundits and allows the capitalist elite to pillage the USA and use its military as their enforcer.

[uppityperson]

39. There are always people discontented with the parties. Where to find the "beginning" is difficult,

however, the teabaggers came together as a "party" when that money was poured into a non-organized bunch of discontents. Hence, the "beginning" of the TeaParty.

Who was discontented why goes back to the beginning of time.

[HuckleB]

12. Nope.

[upi402]

14. uh, the media touted the loons non-stop. n/t

[Warren DeMontague]

15. The "original tea party movement" was clearly an astroturfed re-branding attempt for the GOP.

And whatever sort of ideological coherence (read: not much) it had at the outset, quickly devolved into the standard far right republican brew of xenophobia, anti-choice puritanism, culture war hand-wringing, paranoid conspiracy theory, etc. In short, it started out with all kinds of highfalutin (if oft misspelled) anti-wall st. rhetoric, and soon became boilerplate "God Guns n Gays" Red State Red Meat.

There was nothing 'anti plutocracy' about it any more than there was genuine anti plutocracy sentiment behind the shit around Obama eating Arugula or Palin griping about "elites". The REAL plutocracy knew exactly what they were doing with the teabaggers. The whole time.

[blondeatlast]

16. They protrayed THEMSELVES as tin-foil racists--in funny costumes, no less.

[hlthe2b]

18. Think for a minute how many might have been taken in by the "baggers"

if their racism, ignorance, greed and exploitation by corporate masters had not been laid out...

The economy was what killed us. Not fair, not the administration's fault, but that is what we were faced with.

[bhikkhu]

19. Don't forget the Koch-topus funding and fueling the mess

They don't care about either party, really, only in creating sufficient dysfunction for their corp to rape up billions w/out government interference. Its worked splendidly so far.

[blondeatlast]

20. Op, are you planning to return to this thread? You've gotten lots of responses. nt

[ronnie624]

26. I hope he follows the link in reply #10 first.

I'd hate to be further embarrassed for him.

[howaboutme]

33. I'm here now

Thanks. I had written the post late last night and then bailed and went to bed. My OP on the TP was initiated after considering the issues discussed in this Federal Reserve thread http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=4599057&mesg_id=4599935 . This is another hindsight opinion. Actually I was suggesting early here on DU, before the TP had become totally hijacked that Democrats should be participating and injecting Democratic principles. The TP idea was made up initially of Rs, Ds and Is and I think that the 3rd party / movement scared the hell out of both Parties. One rejected the movement totally, and the other hijacked it.

[Ozymanithrax]

21. No. But we should learn from them.

Angry pissed off voters are listened too.

[PSPS]

22. Villifying? Outside of left-leaning blogs, they've been media darlings all along.

[JackRiddler]

42. Yup.

[Skittles]

24. FUCK NO

they're an embarrassment, the last gasp of the lily-white establishment - they deserve NO RESPECT WHATSOEVER

[mwrguy]

27. They weren't villified enough

Hit them harder

[silverojo]

28. No - Obama is to blame

He's the one who wouldn't take a real stand on issues like DADT, he's the one who never supported a public option, the list could go on for ages.

Swing voters decide elections. They saw a President with no spine, blue-dog Democrats who sided in with Republicans, and saw unemployment skyrocket. When swing voters are angry, they reject whoever is in power. It happened to Bush and the Republicans in 2008, it happened to us now.

Coupled with the fact that Obama and his administration threw lefties under the bus at every opportunity, it's amazing that we didn't lose both the House and the Senate.

I know the Obama apologists will argue the point, but this isn't about what Obama apologists think. It's about what swing voters think, and they were fed up.

[Toots]

32. When you show a clip of a Tea Bagger speaking, they pretty much vilify themselves

We don't have to do anything other than give them a wider audience..What they say and stand for pretty much speaks for itself and if there is vilification it is done by their own words..

[ellie]

34. No, if anything we should have pointed

out how crazy they are even more.

[OneGrassRoot]

35. No, because we have completely different worldviews

We may agree on a few things such as corporatocracy (though many teabaggers now defend multinational corporations..."Leave BP alone!!!"), but there is at the heart of things a completely different worldview.

I found this quote which seems to summarize it well, IMHO:

‎"Liberalism is trust of the people tempered by prudence. Conservatism is distrust of the people tempered by fear." ~ William E. Gladstone, 1866

:hi:

[bullwinkle428]

36. Democratic politicians barely uttered a WORD about the "Tea Party"!

:crazy:

[spin]

40. Democrats ridiclued the Tea Party as did the media ...

Democrats also love ridiculing Sarah Palin.

Neither have went away and both appear to be growing in influence.

Ridiculing others is great fun and allows wonderful feelings of superiority, but underestimating your foe is always foolish. Excessive ridicule is often seen as bullying and causes the target to be viewed as an underdog. American's love underdogs.

At a minimum, all the ridicule and loathing only fired up the tea baggers and got them to the polls to vote.

Pretend inferiority and encourage his arrogance.
Sun Tzu "Art of War"

[JackRiddler]

43. This question makes as much sense empirically as asking whether the Democrats ran too far left.

[Edweird]

44. No. Villifying Liberals, however, was a big mistake.