The Tea Party Movement: Drawing Lines In The Sand

As Michelle Malkin issues a warning to so-called "fair weather Republicans" and Glenn Reynolds fills in the real back story of the Tea Party movement in the Wall Street Journal, politicians, activists and on lookers of every stripe might be well advised to try and understand what is actually going on here, so as not to misinterpret the Tea Party movement.

Any line in the sand being drawn here is not between the Left and the Right, Republican versus Democrat, or one socio-economic political agenda or class versus another. The line being drawn is between the proverbial We the People and those that have been governing America for decades.

While today's economic issues and an aggressive public policy agenda of a young new president may be helping to bring the thoughts and feelings behind this movement to a head, it is more about a concerned citizenry growing increasingly disconnected from a governing class, than it is anything else.

There can be no question that an almost governing elite now spending trillions of dollars in part because it perceives a financial crisis is comprised of the very same individuals with the same ideas and plans that steered America down this path in the first place.

True, the average American may be as much to blame for this as anyone else. It is, after all, we who have elected many of these same politicians year after year. But just as those politicians were forced to wake up and face the folly of bad policies crafted and enacted by both parties over a number of years, a large number of Americans are waking up and starting to shout: enough!

What leadership eventually emerges to steer America forward in the future remains unclear. But what is very real and should be exceedingly clear to everyone watching or participating in the Tea Party movement is that a large portion of America is not comfortable with the current political leadership being offered by either party and it is seeking change beyond, or different from anything than it has heard offered thus far.

Comments

[Reaganite Republican Resistance]

Excellent post- I might add that Sarah Palin's views on taxation and spending are not that far from what you, and many, are asking for. A Palin-Jindal 2012 ticket could be the solution, IMHO.

And, it's not at-all out of the question that the 2009 Tea Party participants might someday be respected by history as patriots who made a difference- same as 1773. And this sort of public outrage might be just what's needed to break through the media's manufactured reality.

Barack Obama is rapidly liquidating everything that made this country great... and needs to be put back-on-his-heels with a major embarrassment that puts an end to the myth that everybody just loves Barack and his wacked-out agenda... because millions of us DON'T.

http://reaganiterepublicanresistance.blogspot.com/

[American Woman]

This "movement" is co-sponsored by Fox News and Dick Armey. It is a joke. None of the people protesting understand what they are protesting against. It is merely an excuse for anti Obama rallies. The Republicans are angry that they are out of power. That is all there is to it. It's a a bunch of old, white Fox news watchers who are out of touch with modern America.

[WBestPresidentEver]

American women, Take your Messiah and shove him.
It is not about Fox News or Dick Army as you say.
GOD gave you a brain. USE IT.

The tea party movement will prevail. People are not going to sit back and take our country being turned into a socialist country with only hard working decent people paying for the low life people who are too sorry to work.

[Erich]

american woman, are you honestly going to throw up that talking point (heard it 3 or 4 times on CNN today already, so get more original).

I will be honest, I hoped Obama would be better than Bush, but so far he is not only worse, he is proving to be FAR worse.

This government (and all of them for the last 20 years or so) continue to spend money they do NOT have. They never get rid of a tax....ever Find me more than 5 examples of a tax that has been taken away (by the federal government).

This is so far beyond Repugs and Deomcrats, and that is the problem with you liberals, you think all of the people at the Tea Parties are Neo-Cons and love foxnews. So not true.

Open your eyes for a second, a lot of the people there were not of either Party (at least the one I went to), they were just people who were mad at the government throwing our $$ away.

[Bob]

Only on Fox News and in the right wing blogosphere could a movement featuring the usual wealthy and powerful Republicans like Grover Norquist and Dick Armey be considered "populist" or "grass-roots." The wealthy ruling class is mad because Obama dared to let the Bush tax cuts they were enjoying expire. Using their control of the Republican Party and media outlets like Fox News, their mission is to convince some of the same people who are now seeing their taxes reduced under Obama's plan to go out and protest the gross unfairness of it all.

There are no principles behind it. It's just the conservative movement proving once again that you CAN fool SOME of the people ALL of the time. Now go out there and fight so that Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly can get their tax cuts back!