Thoughts on the Tea Party Movement

Today, in America, political passion is on the right.

There is a frequently quoted statement I have heard attributed to various people: Churchill, Alain; that goes something like this: "If you are young and not politically on the left, it's a sign that you lack passion. If you are old and not on the right, it's a sign that you lack common sense." The same notion was expressed in my family in the 60s when we spoke of bleeding heart liberals. The implication was that the social agenda pushed by the left was driven by lofty ideals, but was not realistic. The notion of the right was that it was cautions and careful not to upset the status quo. It sought to ally itself with the economic elites.

Throughout the 19th century and until recently, the left was animated by a passionate party of writers and political activists: socialists, communists, liberationists, labor leaders, intellectuals, who were driven by what they perceived as social injustice. They were a liability to the mainstream democratic party, putting forward candidates too far to the left to be elected, requiring that the national debate be focused on their issues. But they brought out the vote on election night and they moved the political center in their direction.

Today, this passion has moved to the right and is being expressed by the Tea Party movement.

The ideals of the Tea Party are straight from the heart: patriotism, commitment to the constitution, free enterprise, economic freedom.

Their lofty ideals are, unfortunately, seriously disconnected from the central issues of our time.

Their assertion that the recent healthcare bill constitutes a step toward socialized medicine is ludicrous. A poor bill, certainly, but not a socialistic one in any way. A socialist bill would have nationalized the insurance industry. This bill subsidizes the insurance industry and requires citizens to do business with it. It's based on an alliance between the government and corporations. The same alliance which has been one of the pillars of the Republican party since the 1880s. Anybody with a socialistic fiber in their political make-up can only be furious at this bill. It's a sign of the times that the left-wing disappointment with this bill is not even being heard.

The Tea Party people are angry at the deficit and government spending, but, here again, their analysis fails to understand the problem. The government has run the deficit up by bailing out the pillars of advanced capitalism: the Wall Street investment banks. This is not the result of a mysterious left-wing agenda. Any person with affection for socialism knows that these super banks should have been nationalized and broken up into something small enough to fail. But once again, the left wing perspective and the passion that drove it is absent from the conversation.

Where is the common sense of the old right? It now belongs to the Democratic party of Clinton and Obama. They have been cautious and careful not to upset the status quo. They have allied themselves with the economic elites. Like Clinton, Obama gives only lip service to the social causes that once drove the left.

My Political Orientation

I am an urban person. I like mass transit systems. I like street maintenance. I like an efficient police system and government agencies, which help the needy. I like the things that citizen groups can do together. Government is the most fundamental and one of the most powerful of all citizen groups. I admire the national health care systems of most European nations and wish we had something comparable. I am sad that our cities and states are not really committed to providing an equal level of security and education to all our citizens, regardless of social-economic background. As an urban person, I have no interest in fleeing my city to escape from a population of uneducated hoodlums.

I am, however, very aware that other Americans do not share all of these outlooks. Indeed, I was not born in an urban environment. I now live in Cleveland, Ohio. But I was born in a state: Nebraska, and a country: the United States, which has had significant difficulty in identifying with the urban experience. To Americans, cities are often felt as a necessary evil. So when I go to western Nebraska, I am left a bit perplexed as to what political perspective to argue for. My ideal government is not their ideal government.

But this is the essence of democracy. We don't have to agree on what the ideal government is. But we do need to be able to sit together like a good family, and pragmatically discuss how to spend our money.

I am very pragmatic. My political orientation is not determined by what I believe. It is determined by where I am located. I am located in Cleveland, Ohio. But I am also located in the United States of America.

Ideology and Pragmatism

Our political discourse today is marked by the prevalence of ideological discourse. To me, this is distressing. An ideological statement typically begins with something to the effect of "I believe." For example: I believe in universal health care, or I believe in a free market, or I believe in capitalism, or I believe in socialism. Ideological statements are often stated in the negative, such as: I am opposed to government intervention, or I am opposed to corporate influence.

Ideological statements polarize. They assume two sides. The speaker situates himself on one side of a conflict. Ideology always comes out at election time. It situates the debate at the level of what distinguishes us. It raises our adrenaline.

On the other hand, if you have a group of people who share a common threat and you need to work together to resolve that threat, ideological statements need to be avoided. All successful families know this instinctively. You don't start the conversation by saying: "I believe you are not thrifty enough." It implies that the person being spoken to lacks commitment to thrift, something we all agree is good, and raises his adrenaline. It prepares him to defend himself.

Instead of making an ideological statement, successful families are pragmatic. They stick to the problem at hand. "Hey, I'm worried about money. I've noticed that each month our balance is less than the month before. Do you have any ideas about what we could do about this?"

I set up a blog, thinking I could use it to get my thoughts together.
I haven't gone to writing in it yet, I still might.
But the process seems to have helped my thinking.
I've gone to reading things with the goal of determining my thoughts, and it's been therapeutic.
There is so much noise out there in the public space.
Internet, radio, cable television have given the megaphone to people who are not very interesting.
Jim Lehrer on NPR radio day before yesterday said that there are no more wacky extremists today.
It's just that they have the means to project their ideas out to the public sphere.
He said that it takes more work today to get a grip on what is happening.
He also said that it's still the centrists, the people who listen to both sides, who decide the elections.
That's encouraging.

January 22, 2010

Two articles in The Plain Dealer, January 20, 2010, reflect the state of our government. On the first page of the Business section, Wall Street celebrates the demise of health care reform. "Investors have moved back into stocks on hopes that an election in Massachusetts will create a logjam in Washington." Page 3 of Section A details the lonely efforts of Ohio's Republican Senator George Voinovich to fight the national debt. He is quoted speaking of the "public good" and "the best interest of our nation," but the writer: Stephen Koff concludes that his desire to create a powerful congressional commission is lacking in support. "The idea has sparked protest from a variety of interest groups, some fearing tax hikes and others saying this would inevitably lead to cutting Social Security and Medicare, staples for America's seniors."

Special Interests Have another Good Day

Two articles in The Plain Dealer, January 20, 2010, reflect the sorry state of our government. On the first page of the Business section, Wall Street celebrates the demise of health care reform. “Investors have moved back into stocks on hopes that an election in Massachusetts will create a logjam in Washington.” Page 3 of Section A details the lonely efforts of of Ohio’s Republican Senator George Voinovich to fight the national debt. He is quoted speaking of the “public good” and “the best interest of our nation,” but the writer: Stephen Koff concludes that his desire to create a powerful congressional commission is lacking in support. "The idea has sparked protest from a variety of interest groups, some fearing tax hikes and others saying this would inevitably lead to cutting Social Security and Medicare, staples for America's seniors." The special interests win, and the nation loses.