Tea Party: Partisan Frauds or Racists?

Andrew offers a pretty good description of how I've come to see the Tea Party Movement:

[O]n the fiscal front, they're total frauds. They have yet to propose any serious cuts in entitlements and want far more money poured into the military-imperial complex. In rallies, the largely white members in their fifties and older seem determined to get every penny of social security and Medicare. They are a kind of boomer revolt - but on the other side of that civil conflict, and no longer a silent majority. In fact, they're now the minority that won't shut up.

More and more, this feels to me like an essentially cultural revolt against what America is becoming: a multi-racial, multi-faith, gay-inclusive, women-friendly, majority-minority country. The "tea-party" analogy is not about restricting government as much as it is a form of almost pathological nostalgia. That's why there's much more lashing out than constructive proposals. And yes, a bi-racial president completes the picture.

He also offers this caveat, which I think is important:

And no, that doesn't mean they're all racists. Discomfort with social and cultural change is not racism. But it can express itself that way. [My emphasis.]

Questioning the Tea Party's Motives

Andrew Sullivan has a great piece on why he distrusts the Tea Party Movement:

[Tea Party members] have no genuine proposals to reduce spending and taxation. They seem very protective of Medicare and Social Security - and their older age bracket underlines this. They also seem primed for maximal neo-imperial reach, backing the nation-building efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq, favoring war against Iran, etc. Only Ron Paul, peace be upon him, extends his big government critique to the military-industrial-ideological complex.

So they are truly not serious in policy terms, and it behooves the small government right to grapple with this honestly. They both support lower taxation and yet bemoan the fact that so many Americans do not pay any income tax. They want to cut spending on trivial matters while enabling the entitlement and defense behemoths to go on gobbling up Americans' wealth. And that lack of seriousness is complemented by a near-fanatical cultural alienation from the modern world.

. . .

When they propose cuts in Medicare, means-testing Social Security, a raising of the retirement age and a cut in defense spending, I'll take them seriously and wish them well.

Until then, I'll treat them with the condescending contempt they have thus far deserved.

Let me be the first to say: I propose cuts to Medicare, progressive price-indexing of Social Security benefits, a raising of the retirement age, and reductions in defense spending. And, also, higher taxes on both the middle class and the wealthy.

Yes, Andrew, there are people like me out there on the electoral fringes.

Violence Against Members of Congress?

Let's hope this isn't actually what it looks like . . . the attempted murder of a congressman's brother.

In general, I think the portrayal of Tea Party protesters has been a bit exaggerated. From what I've seen, most of the people who attend the rallies just seem like run-of-the-mill partisan activists. A lot of the rhetoric that I've heard is outrageous, but most of it isn't bigoted or overtly threatening.

Of course, I don't work on the Hill, and many of the staffers with whom I've spoken have had to endure at least a few menacing telephone calls.

I realized that some Tea Party protesters have said and done things that are appalling. But I really do think that there is a way to condemn these few without asserting that the entire movement is composed of bigots and terrorists. Many of the protesters who I've seen strike me as frustrated partisans, who simply want to voice their disapproval with a Democratic government they regard as their ideological adversary.

In my view, they should be allowed to protest as loudly and fervently as they wish to, as long as their actions aren't directly causing or inciting violence. Writing something mean on a sign isn't the same as cutting someone's gas line. Protesters at anti-war rallies routinely wrote vicious, hateful, and even threatening things about President Bush. However, these rallies rarely provoked actual violence - and, unsurprisingly, they were rarely condemned by Democratic members of Congress.

This doesn't excuse any real act of violence or genuine threat of violence. But freedom of speech is essential, even if that speech strikes you as nasty and vitriolic.

What I'd really like to see is a bit more willingness on the part of Republicans to discourage violence and lawless conduct, and a bit more willingness on the part of Democrats to tolerate the anger displayed by members of the Tea Party movement.

They're allowed to be angry and say mean things and draw pictures of guns. They're not allowed to throw bricks through windows and cut people's gas lines.

Update: House Republican Eric Cantor says that someone shot a bullet through the window of his district office in Richmond, VA.

Cantor blames the Democratic leadership, arguing that they have used threats of violence against Democratic lawmakers to "fan the flames" of violence against Republican lawmakers.

This is getting very meta, isn't it?

I assume that the Democrats will soon respond that Cantor's wild accusations about the role that the Democratic leadership played in stirring up violence against Republican members could easily incite more violence against Democratic members . . . .

Olbermann, Race, and the Right

I'm sometimes asked why I spend my time criticising Keith Olbermann when conservative commentators like Sean Hannity are much more belligerent and over-the-top. The truth is that I can't help but hold pundits on the left to a higher standard of integrity.

To me, a man like Sean Hannity is an obvious parody. His irrationalism is so transparent that it's just not worth illuminating. I don't know anyone who thinks that Sean Hannity is reasonable or intelligent, and perhaps more importantly, I don't know anyone who takes any of his arguments seriously. Even if I did, pointing out that a public option is not socialism would quickly get tiresome, just as the constant run-down of Sarah Palin's distortions came to occupy far too much of Andrew Sullivan's blogging time.

Of course, this doesn't mean that there aren't members of the electorate who eat up every morsel that Sean Hannity and Sarah Palin spit out. It just means that I don't willingly associate with any of those people.

I do, however, routinely associate with people who believe that Keith Olbermann is both intelligent and reasonable. Many of my friends and classmates seem to find Olbermann's arguments extremely seductive. Some even contend that Olbermann's points are "irrefutable."

The clip above -- in which Olbermann casually remarks that "the whole of the anger against government movement" is predicated solely on racism -- illustrates why I continue to go after Olbermann.

Is it really fair to charge that everyone who is angry with the Obama administration -- everyone attending the Tea Party rallies -- is motivated by racism? Does Olbermann really provide the evidence to substantiate such a sweeping charge?

Olbermann's conclusion rests on three central propositions. First, there are undeniably racist sentiments being voiced during many of the Tea Party rallies. Second, the concerns of the those in the Tea Party movement are largely illegitimate. Third, black faces are virtually absent from these protests.

The initial premise obviously does not, on its own, support the conclusion. (This would be an example of the fallacy of composition.)

The second premise is a bit more enticing. Why weren't the people who are now clamoring for deficit reduction acting out during the Bush administration? Does this apparent hypocrisy on its own suggest that racism is lurking beneath the surface? There are a number of sensible reponses to this. You could argue that the deficits during the Bush administration were not even remotely comparable to the projected deficits under President Obama. You could argue that conservatives were more comfortable with wartime deficits than with deficits brought on by stimulus spending and entitlement extensions. But I think the most practical response is that partisan hypocrisy simply does not imply racism. In fact, if partisan double standards are evidence of bigotry, then Keith Olbermann is doesn't come off looking so good.

The final premise is facially absurd. The Tea Party Movement is clearly dominated by conservatives. And while it's true that many black Americans tend to be socially conservative, there hasn't been a strong black presence in the conservative movement for well over two decades. Would anyone expect to see black faces at an anti-Clinton rally during the 1990s? While it may be legitimate to criticize the lack of diversity on the right, there are many reasons why black voters' preferences are no longer aligned with the Republican Party, only some of which have to do with past racial discrimination. Either way, this does not offer any thing like the kind of evidence that Olbermann would need to substantiate his across-the-board accusation.

Olbermann's comments begin sensibly, but ultimately devolve into an unfair assault on an entire group of people. The basic problem is that Olbermann can't seem to bring himself to root out racism where it may exist -- and I believe that it clearly does exists in some corners of the Tea Party Movement -- without extrapolating his arguments far beyond reason. Certainly, we should be condemning the vicious attacks against the president. But is it fair to smear all those who engage in peaceful protests against the administration as racists?

I obviously can't read Olbermann's mind, but I think Olbermann legitimately believes that the right has no meaningful arguments. Olbermann may be smarter than Sean Hannity, but like Sean Hannity, Olbermann believes that he has the One Truth on his side.

It's easy to see why he can't seem to bring himself to acknowledge that any of those who disagree with him could possibly be acting in good faith.

Tancredo Lays on the Crazy

I don't think that all of the people attending the tea-party rallies are ignorant and crazy.

But it's hard to avoid applying the "crazy" label when the opening act at the Tea Party Convention begins by issuing these remarks:

"[P]eople who could not even spell the word 'vote', or say it in English, put a committed socialist ideologue in the White House. His name is Barack Hussein Obama."

. . .

"So the race for America is on right now. The president and his left-wing allies in Congress are going to look at every opportunity to destroy the Constitution before we have a chance to save it. So put your running shoes on. Because I'll tell you, I've heard we need a revolution. My friends, we already had it. We lost. I mean, what happened to us in that last election was a revolution . . . ."