As a person who has followed the Tea Party movement from its beginnings — first with enthusiasm and now with glum disappointment — let me point out an all-important change.
The Tea Party started out as a low tax, small government movement. It grew faster than anyone anticipated, and caught the nation’s attention (as it merited). In San Diego County, I spoke to rallies across the county as big as 4,000 — an amazing phenomenon.
It had three core positions — incorporated into every loose-knit Tea Party agenda:
But that Tea Party — the one that I spoke to often in 2008-2009 — is gone. It’s metastasized into a cabal of myopic social conservatives, single issue Pro-Life activists, conspiracy enthusiasts, anti-Mexican fanatics and Obama haters.
Fiscal issues are just a side show for today’s transformed Tea Party outfits — though they still give lip service to such tax-and-spend matters still being a top priority. They are not. Not anymore.
Recently I was stunned to go on the Tea Party Facebook page — a group with over 35,000 “friends,” and find not a SINGLE fiscal issue post in the 60 or so posts I scanned through. Not ONE.
Nothing on taxes, regulations, deficit spending, runaway government pensions, wasteful spending, overly-generous welfare giveaways (to both individuals and corporations), failing government insurance programs including social security, etc. When a fiscal issue finally WAS posted, it was an anti-free trade screed.
By far the biggest, most active San Diego County Tea Party is “Stop Taxing Us.” Well it WAS the biggest, with thousands of members. Now it is totally disbanded — its quality website closed. I suspect that the leaders tried to keep it on track as an organization concentrating on small government issues, but the far right was muscling in.
Granted, these extremist, intolerant viewpoints were present in some Tea Party members from the beginning in the movement. But these diverse viewpoints were subordinated to the three core positions stated above. We had a big tent where conservatives, moderates and libertarians could find common ground and be an effective political power on a focused agenda. No mas.
So it’s no surprise that left wing polling obviously has discovered that today’s Tea Party movement is largely unpopular and rightly viewed as a fringe group. Association with a Tea Party is now a negative for candidates in all but the most conservative constituencies.
It’s not the same Tea Party that I spoke to just a few short years ago. I’ve stopped speaking to such groups, and they in turn have no interest in having me discuss fiscal issues.
Sadly, the Tea Party is dead — long live the Tea Party.