Kirsten Powers thinks it's time...

...we stopped mocking the tea party. "The media doesn’t get it," she says:

The Tea Party crowd is about to radically reshape the Republican Party on a scale not seen since Barry Goldwater in the 1960s.
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Yes, Goldwater was demolished by Lyndon Johnson in the landslide that was the 1964 presidential election. But his crowning accomplishment was igniting the flames of a conservative movement that would eventually lead to the election of Ronald Reagan, ushering in eight years of conservative realignment. To this day, conservatives rule the Republican Party which, prior to Goldwater, wasn’t the case.
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[In] his heyday, Goldwater was decried by Democrats and liberal Republicans alike as a dangerous demagogue, who would lead the U.S. into nuclear war, eliminate Social Security, and roll back civil-rights progress. He once advocated giving battlefield commanders in Vietnam the authority to use nuclear weapons.
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But even if the Tea Party fails in the near-term—which is still not a forgone conclusion—so did the Goldwater movement, which was considered a spectacular failure after the catastrophic 1964 presidential election. Predictions were made that the Republican Party would not recover. Yet Richard Nixon, who had campaigned for Goldwater in ’64, took the White House just four years later.

Powers concludes by saying:

Remember the lessons of history.

And what, exactly, were those lessons? That Goldwater (above), and the Republican platform, scared independents and led to a landslide victory by Lyndon Johnson in 1964. But, having taken over the Republican Party, led to the conservative administrations of Nixon, Reagan and, later, George W. Bush. Hmmm. Is that so?

My curiosity led me to have a look-see at that famous Republican Party Platform of 1964. I was actually surprised at how vanilla and non-reactionary it really was. The juiciest parts I could find -- and there weren't many -- were (my emphasis):

GOVERNMENT SPENDING: Charging that Democrats have "burdened this nation with four unbalanced budgets in a row," the platform promises "a reduction of not less than $5 billion in the present level of spending" and "an end to chronic deficit financing."

Well I guess Reagan and Bush made a mockery of that.

TAXES: Moreover, it promises further reduction in individual and corporate tax rates as "fiscal discipline is restored."

Fiscal discipline? No need to elaborate there.

MEDICARE: The G.O.P. favors "full coverage of all medical and hospital costs of needy elderly people, financed by general revenues through broader implementation of federal-state plans, rather than the compulsory Democratic scheme covering only a small percentage of such costs for everyone regardless of need."

After Reagan and Bush, we still have Medicare. While Nixon wanted to pass health care legislation that was more far-reaching than Obamacare, the Republicans last year warned of deep cuts in Medicare under Obamacare. So much for that.

CUBA: "We Republicans will recognize a Cuban government in exile; we will support its efforts to regain the independence of its homeland; we will assist Cuban freedom fighters in carrying on guerrilla warfare against the Communist regime."

Whatever happened to that Cuban government in exile? I've never heard of it. And Castro? He's still in power -- and turning capitalist!

TRADE WITH COMMUNIST NATIONS: Arguing with the Democratic Administration's position that both East and West would benefit from increased trade, the plank says that "trade with Communist countries should not be directed toward the enhancement of their power and influence but could only be justified if it would serve to diminish their power."

Who was it again that opened the door to Communist China? Oh, yeah -- Nixon. And who was it that furthered detente with the Soviets? Reagan.
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So 46 years after the Goldwater debacle, the Republican Party is still solidly middle-of-the-road. Its track record is one of bigger government and eye-popping deficits. Meanwhile, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are trusted American institutions. And the departments of Education and Energy aren't going anywhere.

So I wouldn't count on this tea party movement to have too lasting an effect on the arc of American history.