America’s two political parties have faced off with factions within their houses before, The Republican Party emerged from the Whig Party in the 1800s, and the Democrats had to fight with the Dixiecrats in the 1940s. However, this time around, it seems the Republican Party is facing a division much more cancerous than anything seen before.
At first, you might be wondering how I can have the gall to call the Tea Party cancerous; after all it helped Republicans achieve large gains in the 2010 election cycle. Well, as anyone who is in the medical field or at least seen an episode of “Grey’s Anatomy” knows, certain malignancies can create euphoria, a feeling of grandeur before ultimately killing the infected.
The platform of lower taxes, smaller government and erasing the burdensome national debt is all admirable and widely appealing. However, the policies the Tea Party have put forth to reach those goals are not. Refusing to raise the debt ceiling, which could cause the U.S. to default on its debt, is not a remedy to the problem.
It is ideas such as those that make the Tea Party seem a little ridiculous, if not stupid. And I don’t make that observation after seeing the plethora of clips showing Tea Party protesters saying stupid things, such as a protester who shouted “keep your government hands off my Medicare!” at a town hall event, all the while oblivious to the fact Medicare is a government program.
I make the observation from listening to the leaders of the Tea Party, the higher echelons of the group that have truly mustered up the frustration of the group into electoral success. The fact the Republican Party keeps indulging the ideas the Tea Party espouses is also at the crux of the issue. So long as it keeps feeling that euphoria (strong support) from the Tea Party, it is going to ignore the greater danger of alienating moderates and becoming a party of wingnuts.
Because it’s only wingnuts who say they give all due deference to the Constitution and then propose repealing the 17th Amendment (the direct election of U.S. senators) as newly elected Sen. Mike Lee of Utah has. Lee, who is supported by the Tea Party, trounced former Sen. Bob Bennett in the Republican primary last year.
It’s only wingnuts who say that “if someone is openly homosexual, they shouldn’t be teaching in the classroom and I hold the same position on an unmarried woman who’s sleeping with her boyfriend –she shouldn’t be in the classroom,” as Sen. Jim DeMint, the kingmaker of the Tea Party, has said on numerous occasions.
The Tea Party is already gearing up to replace veterans and moderates within the Republican Party with more wingnuts, and these wingnuts would threaten the candidacies of Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine and Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana. Sen. Lugar has been deemed impure ever since supporting the NEW START Treaty that was ratified by President Obama.
Since when did the START Treaty become liberal? It was first proposed by Ronald Reagan in the 1980s. And since when has it become credible to call a senator with one of the most conservative voting records, one who was overwhelmingly reelected, in the Congress a liberal?
I understand the Tea Party’s grievance with Sen. Lugar a little bit, having served in Congress for more than 30 years he represents the establishment, and the Tea Party is supposed to be fighting the establishment. Well, that is at least what it says. However, despite all its raging against the powerful in Washington, the Tea Party has made itself fairly comfortable with the likes of Dick Armey and FreedomWorks. Armey, who served as a Congressman for more thar a decade and has strong ties to lobbyists, is nothing but a creature of Washington. And FreedomWorks appears to be nothing more than the political machine of David and Charles Koch, the billionaire brothers.
So, what is the Tea Party offering the Republican Party, aside from electoral success and seemingly temporary electoral success at that? At a rally in Arizona, the Tea Party issued a threat to the newly elected members of Congress they helped propel with primary challenges if they didn’t adopt their ideas; ideas that seem to be mired in conspiracy theory rather than sincere skepticism of government power.
The Republican Party is sick, but you wouldn’t know it at first glance or seeing itr new majorities in the House of Representatives, but something inside is wrong. And after listening to Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, a darling of the Tea Party explain away how tax cuts benefit the upper-class by saying, “There are no rich. There are no middle class [people]. There are no poor,” I know what the problem is.