I received an e-mail yesterday...

...from my cousin, who moved to a small town in the western part of Washington state a few years ago. (I hope he doesn't mind my quoting him.) He writes that there are "a lot of tea party supporters out here; a lot libertarian-type thinking and independent, self-sufficient people." He's gotten to know some of the locals -- many of whom are retired -- and found himself in some interesting discussions with them regarding the proper role of government. While my cousin is somewhat sympathetic to libertarianism -- he also "aspires to a reasonable level of self-sufficiency" -- he has "yet to hear anyone voice any substantial and rational reasons for the recently stirred-up tea party sentiment." He addresses their grievances, one by one:

• Taxes? We have an extremely low tax base here, one of the lowest in the nation, and our services are also extremely meager -- no fire district, closed library system and 16 hour police coverage outside the town limits. And these are regular people living on regular fixed incomes, so the federal government has not increased their taxes.
• Same sex marriage? Who cares, if this is about personal freedom?
• Immigration? They should have been furious about that for the last 30+ years.
• "Foreign born" POTUS? Come on!
• Repeal government run health care? What does that mean? With the exception of veterans, seniors and children?
• Pork projects? They should have been outraged for the last 30+ years!
• Federal fiscal responsibility? Again, they should have been outraged for the last 40+ years !
• Protect the constitution? From what? Should we re-establish slavery and rescind many of the voting rights that weren't in the original constitution? Is it so obviously and blatantly wrong to consider how a document written 200+ years ago might be applied to modern society, to consider that some of the authors might have seen the need for adjustments to some of the original ideas due to changes in culture, etc.; to consider that some of these authors did not think of their words as "set in stone" but as ideas for future men to contemplate and expound upon?
• Corporate power? This one is mine; and I'm surprised that it isn't a tea party issue.

He finishes by asking my opinion of all this and by linking to a piece in the New York Times, "The Very Angry Tea Party." Well, I've never been one for having opinions (wink, wink), but after rereading this piece and watching the Chris Matthews special, "Rise of the New Right," I thought I'd take a stab at it.

(By the way, don't feel bad if you missed that show; it wasn't very good. It reminded me of one of those old "Best of Seinfeld..." shows that just show a bunch of clips in rapid-fire succession. What works for a sit-com, however, is useless in a documentary. And while it had the usual blizzard of Matthews chatter, it was sorely lacking in explanation and analysis. Matthews needs to learn to talk less but say more. The show looked like it was thrown together pretty hastily; no wonder he'd been plugging it so hard lately.)

My response to my cousin:

First of all, tea party sentiment is everywhere. (Remember, one of the first tea party rants was by Rick Santelli, from the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.) My 80-something Glenn Beck-watching next-door neighbor is a tea party sympathizer, too. And if he wasn't such a nice old guy, I'd remind him that it's people like him that are the main recipients of most of the federal government's largesse. As Paul Krugman pointed out recently, the federal government can be thought of as an insurance company with an army. In other words, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and the Department of Defense account for most of the spending in the federal budget. The rest of it is, more or less, a rounding error. So my neighbor, who is receiving Social Security and Medicare, is a big part of the "problem." But I don't have the heart to tell him that.

My personal take on this whole tea party phenomenon is that it is completely driven by the poor state of the economy. After all, where were these people when Bush was making such a mess of things? I had a therapist once tell me that anger is usually just a manifestation of fear or hurt. And after the real estate bubble burst and the stock market crashed -- the two primary asset classes that make up the average person's wealth -- and jobs began to disappear, people naturally got scared (and maybe felt a little hurt, too). Combine that with what most reasonable people saw as unfair treatment for the banks, auto companies, etc. and the public felt like they were getting the shaft. (I also think there's something to the idea that middle-aged [and older] white people are feeling the ground shift beneath them, so naturally they're not too sure about that black guy with the funny name in the White House. Whose side is he really on?) So the public -- cynically manipulated by Fox News and the Republican Party -- lashed out at a convenient target: the federal government. But what's odd (and you brought this up) is why they weren't angrier at large corporations -- especially the health insurers! My best guess is that Fox and the GOP simply haven't steered them in that direction.

But the economy won't stay down forever. I'm convinced that the worst is behind us, as long as we can avoid any obvious mistakes. (See Paul Krugman in today's Times on the deficit hawks.) And when the economy recovers, as it surely will, everyone will calm down and go back to doing what they were doing before all of this got them so stirred up.

From a political standpoint, I expect the Republicans to gain seats in the fall just as the party out of power usually does. This may embolden the tea partiers. Then, in 2012, the GOP will nominate someone acceptable to the base (like Sarah Palin) and get crushed, a la Goldwater and McGovern. Only then do I expect a David Cameron-type to emerge in the Republican Party and say "Hey, do you guys really want to remain ideologically pure and thus in the minority forever, or do you want to join the modern world and become relevant again some day?" Since political parties are all about power, I think the answer is obvious. A new generation of moderates will arise and take back the party.

So I figure we have another couple of years to put up with this nonsense before things return to normal. Long-term, I'm an optimist.

Later,
Cuz