In Which the Tea Party Outdoes Progressives

The Democrats will find out the power of the base when many of them don’t bother to show up to vote and the lunatics on the right take power. Maybe that will get the base a little attention the next time around?

I still like this political ad the best….
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What’s the old saw?
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“The Republicans fear their base, and the Democrats hate their base”?

Tim Kaine announced yesterday (I think) that the Democrats have a new logo.
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http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2010/09/15/new-look-for-the-democrats/
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And they wonder why their supporters aren’t motivated this year…

Oy.

you know what they say about people who like the wizard of oz…

Thanks, Kate. When you write, “…progressives may feel like their banging their heads against the wall,” it reminds me of a question I directly asked Jay and Michael elsewhere: given Tea Party success in primaries, why no similar large scale revolt on the left? (I originally left out the “large scale”, it draws a better analogy to TP) JNS and MS did not answer. Will you answer this (or other q.’s here)? Thanks for your thoughts.

If O’Donnell was smart or her handlers, she would put out a political ad which has her playing the part of Alice in Wonderland, and Barack Obama as the Mad Hatter.
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Biden could be the rabbit. LOL!!
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Just saying.
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Enjoy.
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…btw, congrats on getting your twitter feed set up. Please use it now and then to communicate with your fans, tweeps, and other non-peers. Too many media starlets do NOT directly engage their audiences but only each other, esp. on twitter (proof: look at who they reply to). Speaking of your feed, you didn’t link here to your Heathland blog post about # of people without HCI: 50.7m, a disturbing if not surprising #. Are you planning to post here about that with more thoughts?

Oh so you think you are going to punish the people? It says a lot about progressives, that is if we can consider you one.

Excellent questions.

It’s always been my hope that one of newfreedom’s links or youtube posts Rick Rolls us all.

Democrats are resigned, like worn-out parents. They realize somebody has to govern. So given the choice, they’ll offer up somebody who can be elected and not fail utterly instead of someone who might do a really good job hypothetically if it weren’t for the fact that they’d get trounced at the polls.
Republicans are perfectly willing to vote for ideologues because after all the world is exactly as they think it ought to be or at least it would be if only the damn libruls (furners, gays, etc.) would get out of the way (I call it “faith-based reality”) so of course their candidates will be elected by the majority white Christians and will proceed to put everything straight, although the lamestream media will obscure the truth by bombarding us with things that those dadburn scientists, economists, and other “elites” call “facts”.
Shorter R’s: We must revolt because we’re right, so we’ll win.
Shorter D’s: *Sigh* I guess I have to hold my nose and clean up the dog puke again.

Too many progressives think political money is tainted.
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People who understand power know that the only thing tainted about money is there “tain’t” enough of it.

Man I’m taking a beating from the freepers and centrist trolls today.

Just for you yogi!!
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Click on it everyone!!
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http://tiny.cc/ei66q

Good points, Joe. Hopefully there will be a tipping point for progressives to overcome such despair. If HCR’s failure to get the public option didn’t create a Howard Beale moment, maybe something else could.

Just for You Rusty!!!1!!!
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Enjoy!!!
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THe answer is fairly simple: those Democrats who voted against HCR were, with perhaps one exception, representatives of districts in which there was either skepticism or majority hostility to the measure. Despite all the cynicism and rage about poiliticians this year, most of them actually know their constituencies reasonably well. I cannot think of a single house member whose constituency was strongly for HCR who didn’t vote for it. As for Senators, the one who made passage miserable (Blanche Lincoln, Ben Nelson et al) generally come from states where, for whatever reason, there was hostility to the measure, or lack of understanding. The only “Democrat” who could be accused of not representing his constituency’s wishes was the detestable Joe Lieberman, and I think he will indeed pay the price when his seat is up in 2012. but what one is seeing here is not that the Democratic progressive wing is feeble so much as the reality of the Democrats representing a lot of center-right districts.

It isn’t fun to make concessions to make concessions to political reality but we only have to look across the aisle to see the consequences of the alternative.

Here you go Elvie!!
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Enjoy
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Lanny Davis Attacks Maddow For Clinton Criticism: ‘Worst Element Of Our Party’

It is people like Lanny Davis and Joe Lieberman who are the main reason the Left is saying good bye to the Democratic Party.

Kate Pickert:
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“the Tea Party Outdoes Progressives”
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“progressives may feel frustrated at their inability to shake things up”
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What kind of Democrat do you mean, exactly, by “progressive?”
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Hillary Clinton, chair of the Democratic Leadership Council’s “American Dream Initiative,”

DLC | Blueprint Magazine | October 21, 2005
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America in 2020
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The chair of the DLC’s American Dream Initiative has an optimistic vision of the not-too-distant future.
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By Hillary Rodham Clinton
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“I am honored to accept Governor Vilsack’s challenge to lead the American Dream Initiative for the DLC, because its mission goes to the heart of why I am a senator…
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After more than four years of Republican control, our government has not only gone off track, it has reversed course. They turned our bridge to the 21st century into a tunnel back to the 19th century. And while we envision restoring the American dream to its full potential, the Republican leadership is busy concentrating wealth and power, restricting opportunity, and abandoning responsibility for our shared future.
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Thus, the clear mission of a unified Democratic Party is to back us out of that Republican tunnel, fill it in, go back across the bridge, and get America back in the business of building dreams again. Let us start by uniting against the hard-right ideology, of those who have used it to divide Americans and distract us from our common responsibility. We Democrats have not yet succeeded in isolating and defeating the far right, in part because all too often we have allowed ourselves to be split between left, right, and center. We can and should differ with one another on this or that detail of politics and ideas. After all, we are thinking Democrats, not lockstep Republicans.
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But let us acknowledge that what separates us on occasion is but a tiny sliver in comparison to the Grand Canyon gap between us and the Republican Party. Now, I know the DLC has taken some shots from some within our party and that it has returned fire, too. Well, I think it’s high time for a cease-fire. It’s time for all Democrats to work together based on the fundamental values we all share, values violated every day in Washington by the ideologues of the Republican right. Now, that is not just a dream. That must be our common goal and mission.“

said of herself, when asked point blank if she was a liberal,
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“I prefer the word ‘progressive’”
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But, as Hillary Clinton so accurately points out in her 2005 “American Dream Initiative” chair acceptance speech, the Democratic Party is “split between left, right and center.”
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I’m sure you must be aware by now that the “left” to whom she was referring in that speech, the group whose political philosophy led them to take those acknowledged “shots” at the DLC, those people (like me, for example) are decidedly for a completely different health care system than either the one we have currently, or the one envisioned by the architects of the PPACA –the DLC.
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So, Kate Pickert, having established that the centrist DLC’s prime time candidate is a self-described “progressive,” and having also established that movement liberals are not generally in favor of DLC policy (health care or otherwise), isn’t is possible that movement liberals and “progressives” aren’t the same kind of Democrat at all?
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Does the reason why there are only “scattered efforts by the left to knock them off of the ballot” have something to do with how conflicted movement liberals are over supporting what we know to be the centrist, DLC-oriented PPAC, perhaps?
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Well, Kate Pickert?
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Does the “progressive” problem of generating movement liberal enthusiasm for supporting “progressive” policy exist because “progressive” isn’t actually just another name for “liberal” at all?
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Have you considered that obfuscating, Orwellian language may be a problem for movement liberals, or the glue that holds together the fragile center-left coalition against the ideological “hard-right” that Hillary Clinton described, depending on how one looks at things?
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What do you mean by “progressive,” Kate Pickert?
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Can you perhaps be a little more clear and precise in your terms, for readers’ sake?

Actually I think I recall that while Blanche Lincoln was firmly opposed to a public option the large majority of her district was in favor of it. If not the public option, it was another aspect.
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Many of the Democrats seemed more concerned with satisfying corporate interests than those of their voters.

OT, but a tweet from KT –

ktumulty congratulations to noam scheiber and @sullivanamy on the arrival of beautiful finoula sullivan scheiber!

Question: Who funds the tea parties and how much is funneled to them?
Who funds the progressive movement and how much is funneled to them?

Congrats, Amy! We knew you had it in you. Seriously, congrats and best wishes with your new baby!

Haha thanks newfreedom, I’m never gonna give you up, but you let me down. I know how to rick roll, I wanted to be rick rolled.

apr, thanks for asking. I earlier asked some of the reporters directly same TP question, though in my q. it was specifically about the Tea Party Express group. The reporters would NOT answer me, so maybe if YOU, stuart, and others ask, you’ll get answers for us (since I couldn’t). If the Koch’s come up again I won’t be surprised, but who else is buying in?

decon: I would hope we would get some clarification but I am not holding my breath.

Yesterday as I was driving into Philadelphia, I heard an interview on All Things Considered with a NY Times reporter who has written a book on the Tea Party. It was so warm and fluffy. If not for second link problem, I would link. You can find transcript at http://www.npr. org All Things Considered, Wednesday.

Not a mention of Freedom Works or the Tea Party Express, which contributed $250,000 to Christine O’Donnell’s campaign. She got 27,000 votes — let’s see that is less than $10 per vote, the publicity they got seems worth it.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/09/14/hours-polls-close-gloves-come-delaware/

Yesterday as I was driving into Philadelphia, I heard an interview on All Things Considered with a NY Times reporter who has written a book on the Tea Party. It was so warm and fluffy. If not for second link problem, I would link. You can find transcript at http://www.npr. org All Things Considered, Wednesday.
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Not a mention of Freedom Works or the Tea Party Express, which contributed $250,000 to Christine O’Donnell’s campaign. She got 27,000 votes — let’s see that is less than $10 per vote, the publicity they got seems worth it.
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http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/09/14/hours-polls-close-gloves-come-delaware/

Stuart-

I don’t know if Kate will respond with her definition of “progressive,” but I would love to read your definition of “movement liberal.” I’ve read your posts defining the ideology of Third-way Democrats, but I think I have only seen bits and pieces of your philosophy.

Please be assured that this is a request based on sincere respect.

Sorry, trying for better formatting with my last comment, I forgot I wasn’t in Reply to:
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Interesting link for TP funding sources.
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http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Tea_Party_movement_funding

Thanks Ivy. Good information. I am just looking for some perspective and this helps.

First of all, thanks for reading.
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Second, I’m about to try to go meet the judges who are up for NY Supreme Court elections, believe it or not, so rather than try to go through positions (or to try to describe the differences between the camps in movement liberalism in five minutes), I’ll repost my reply to Rustydog (he handles himself “Newfreedomblog” now) on the difference between movement liberals, Third Way Democrats and conservatives, with an emphasis on how movement liberals see the world and priorities:

“when movement liberals decide to go less with regulations on business…”
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See, that’s where you and I –movement conservatives and movement liberals– disagree, Rustydog.
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Respectfully, the reason for that disagreement seems to be your determined inability to recognize that small business is a separate kind of entity altogether from big business, i.e. gigantic, multinational finance and industry.
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Seeing that difference between “business” (J.P. Morgan-Chase, Verizon, General Electric) and “small business” (me, you, the dry cleaners) the way that we movement liberals do, we’re fine with “regulation” as it applies to big finance and industry, since liberal (not Third Way) regulation on those kinds of giant organizations tends to keep them from exploiting their size and power to trample on consumers and small competitors.
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Movement liberals are for the state regulating Goliath in order to free up David, in other words.
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We don’t want less regulations on “business,” unless it’s the kind of “regulation” that Ben Nelson, Evan Bayh, Mary Landrieu, Diane Feinstein, Tim Geithner or Larry Summers finds useful –the kind of “regulation” that entrenches the biggest players, and shields them from both competition with the little shops, and accountability to consumers (and tax-payers, ultimately).
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That’s where we seem to disagree: you want an end to any business regulation, and we want an end to rent-seeking, big-player protective regulation, and incentive-crushing small-gal/guy regulation.
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When it comes to regulation, movement liberals can see the difference between David and Goliath, Rustydog.
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Make sense?
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Read more: http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2010/09/15/the-1099-fracas-and-income-tax-evasion-101/#ixzz0zeGIvOIG

Contained therein is the fundamental movement liberal premise: that, in order to best protect us ordinary people from both big government (think abortion-outlawing, obscenity-defining, privacy encroaching, accountability-less security state, etc.) and big business (local insurance/utility monopolists, financial overlords, big box predators, extraction industry polluters, etc.), we need to keep these individual/community-crushing powers in adversarial roles with respect to each other.
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See what I mean?
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Liberals recognize that state isn’t the only threat to ordinary peoples’ liberty and opportunity fulfillment out there, extremely wealthy people and corporations also pose grave risks to our well-being.
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The state and private finance/industry giants need to be in positions where they check each others’ excesses, and, in that way, both electorally and economically-speaking (ballot box/wallet) both powers can be as accountable to us little people as possible.
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It’s the opposite of the Third Way’s public/private partnership ideal, where the state and private finance/industry cooperate for the benefit of both, and at the expense of us. We want trust-busters around to make the competition fair and between smaller entities, and we want entrepreneurs around in abundance to innovate around the state’s attempts at control, too.
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We’re not old, statist social democrats, and we’re not robber-baron market fundamentalists, and we’re not an incompetent combination of both (Third Way centrists).
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We’re movement liberals. We want a balance of the right things, the right way.
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Make sense?

Kate, does TIME have any idea how many people actually read the Swamp on an average day?

Thanks, Ivy, great info. The Koch / Scaife involvement is beyond words.

Stuart-

Thanks for taking the time to respond. I had previously read your comment to Rusty, so I especially appreciate your additional comments here. They add perspective to many of your other comments. Thanks again for responding.

Have fun with the judges!

OT, but hilarious !!
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Blush, a judge and 3 stuffed mama grizzlies
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” I don’t think you should be able to broadcast something nationally if you can’t verify it.” – Ellen, wife of Judge Roger Vinson.
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hear, hear !!

Do we count all of Rusty’s alter egos separately, or as one?

How do you set up different screen names? Do you have to use a separate user account? I’ve thought about using notsacredh but I’m not sure how long it would last until someone figured it out. There are some fairly sharp people on here.

Because the progressives have a President they still mostly support. The left’s silent majority are those who are not out protesting or complaining, but quietly voting for who the president endorses. The truly truly angry left are actually way less than half of them. Not to mention African Americans support is still strong for him and his choices.

Ah yes, the convoluted and dysfunctional democratic party trying make sense of it all…good luck with that. America is simply fed up with your brand of politics and with good reason. You return people like Charles Rangel to the public trough proudly wearing the democratic label and you want us to trust your judgment? You totally screw up something as important as HCR, you give us a clueless administration who consistently lies to the American public and you manage to immerse us in enough debt to jeopardize our very future…yet we are suppose to trust you? Get real, folks. The Tea Party is a manifestation of anger directed at inept and inefficient government. You have shown NOTHING that indicates any capacity to correct the multitude of problems confronting our nation and the Tea Party provides a powerful voice of condemnation. Millions of Americans are totally sympathetic to their cause.

So the progressive (ultra liberals) are now the base of the Democrat Party. No wonder they are losing voters faster than a Democrat majority can spend your hard earned dollars.

When you argue against the Tea Party, you never really come up with an argument (an argument is based on logic, and has some basic in reality) you resort to elementary school name calling. It really compliments your IQ.

Anyway, to argue against the Tea Party means that you support Big Government. That you cannot make it without being governed by a bunch of corrupt jackasses who pander to you to get your votes, all the while promising one thing and doing the opposite ala the new type of politician: Obama.

Well we’ve had Big government before. Did it solve poverty? No, we had more people living in poverty during the New Deal, and the War on Poverty. We have millions unemployed right now, but we have Big government. By the way, who’s going to pay the salaries of all those government employees and their fat pensions?

Answer: Business, and taxpayers with jobs outside of government. Federal government workers make twice as much as comparable private sector employee counting all benefits. Does that seem right to you?

So, if you take the money away from business through taxation, fees, penalties, licenses, health care mandates, cap and trade, etc, etc how do you expect to create new jobs? Do you know how jobs are created? Obama doesn’t create them, as we have seen. Obama couldn’t run a popcorn stand.

Loved this.

You’ve been pretty busy posting this video…still wonder why since the “evil wizard” who brings the TARP is Henry Paulson, Bush’s Treasury Secy. At least this video acknowledges that TARP is not the product of the Obama administration as so many Tea Party members wrongly claim.

Well for person who is not going to vote in this election, I wonder who the troll is.

If I agree with you do I have to be a Movement Liberal? What then is a Movement Conservative? It all sounds just like the “Village” to me.
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Frankly I find it difficult to define someone beyond general terms. We just are not all the same. The labels do nothing but divide people.

Answer: Business, and taxpayers with jobs outside of government. Federal government workers make twice as much as comparable private sector employee counting all benefits. Does that seem right to you?
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Can you provide me with a link that has a wide range of statistics with a wide range of comparable jobs to support your claim?

Hehttp://www.thenation.com/slideshow/154631/slide-show-fifty-most-influential-progressives-20th-century-1
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Here is a list and slide show of influential progressives and their accomplishments. I find it hard to not acknowledge the good they brought to our country.
From protection of coal miners, children, workers in sweat shops, civil liberties, women’s suffrage, and against corporate monopolies and exploitation, progressives enhanced our democracy.

Just call me “worst element” from now on.

Apr,
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“Question: Who funds the tea parties and how much is funneled to them?”
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Last evening I joined the local chapter of the Tea Party. It appears they get no outside funding. The treasures report showed current funds of $725.00 on hand. It appears their only source of funds is membership dues which are $35.00 per year for one person and $50.00 per year for a married couple.
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As I learn more about the working of the Tea Party, I will share that information with Swampland.
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One thing that did impress me was the professionalism of the group. There were a lot of well educated people at the meeting and the officers of the organization all appeared to have served in leadership roles is their jobs and in community organizations.
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I didn’t see any rednecks there just good all around patriotic Americans who want the best for their country and its citizens and that are willing to work to achieve that goal.

“One political dynamic that’s emerging this election season is the strength of the right and the weakness of the left.”
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It is a sad fact of humanity that, sometimes, strength comes from mass stupidity – i.e., blindly following authoritarian leaders who may also be stupid or crazy. It’s not really something progressives should want to envy or emulate. “Conservatives,” on the other hand, care mostly about defeating their perceived enemies, and not much else.

…alas, no posting of this wonderful news at morning reads….

The other sad fact is that “conservatives” will always have the advantage over liberals because liberals care about certain principles like fairness, truth and public policies that are just. “Conservative” goals are almost entirely pragmatic. Professional “conservatives” want only to advance the monied interests and the “conservative” base wants only to celebrate their membership in the superior right-wing tribe and to defeat Democrats and liberals.

shepherdwrong,
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If you are representative of Liberals it is no wonder liberals are such a small part of our population.
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You are totally ignorant of Mainstream Americans and think that they are dumb because they do not share your political views. You have a total misunderstanding of Conservative beliefs and are so brainwashed that you can not understand that you are the one’s who our citizens distrust and are totally against your distorted views of our great country.
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Fortunately for Liberals there are some Liberals who have enough intelligence and common sense that they do not believe as you do. They understand the real world and know Conservatives are not evil people but fellow citizens who have different core beliefs on how to solve the problems of our country and its citizens.
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Conservatives and Liberals both have the same end goals. Neither are evil as you seem to think. We both want what is best for our fellow citizens and our country and the world. Our approaches are different but our end goals are the same.
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If you are ever able to get out of the Hate mold, you will learn the truth about your fellow conservative citizens.

“Conservatives are not evil people but fellow citizens who have different core beliefs on how to solve the problems of our country and its citizens.”
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On the citizen level, as starkly opposed to the professional level (your leaders are decidedly evil), I never said “conservatives” are all evil people, though some are obviously miserable @ssholes, racists, homophobes, etc. My take it that most of you are ignorant, brainwashed and strongly motivated by tribal identification and the desire to dominate your perceived foes. Your fanatical devotion to lying hucksters whom you know nothing about and the fact the most of you haven’t the faintest idea what your talking about on most of the issues you claim to be motivated by leaves me little choice.

shepherdwrong,
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You are a Hopeless Partisan- Ideologue so full of Hate that you have no understanding of Reality or your fellow Americans. Hopefully Evil people like you will never gain control of our great country.

“Hopefully Evil people like you will never gain control of our great country.”
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Oh my, look who really thinks their fellow citizens (of the opposing tribe) are evil. I’m shocked!

shephardwrong,
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I wasn’t call ing your tribe evil. I was calling you evil for the evil comments you made.

Thanks 3x. How many itterations of the tea party do you think there are?

“I was calling you evil for the evil comments you made.”
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Yet you were unable to refute any of them. Anyway, I’m saying you’re being had, that you’re not aware of the harm you’re doing to the country by supporting “conservatives,” which should be quite obvious by now to any rational person. That’s about as good as I can be towards you. Sorry.

Apr,
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Our local Tea Party group is affiliated with the national “Tea Party Patriots”. There are 81 local chapters in Ohio. It appears that nationally there are approximately 3,500 local chapters.
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In the latest figure I have seen from Gallup, the Tea Party makes up about 27% of the adults population in the USA. That would come out to approx 59 million people. Not exactly a small group.
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I can refute any garbage you post but what good does that do. Your mind is so warped and closed you wouldn’t accept the truth if God came down and spoke to you.
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You must truly be an ignorant person to believe the things you do about conservatives. It sounds like you would be more at home in Cuba or China or the old USSR where people share your political views.

“You must truly be an ignorant person to believe the things you do about conservatives.”
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Ironically, it is you who are ignorant about “conservatives,” I suspect even about your own motives. Brainwashed, authoritarian-following will do that. It’s a tragedy really, I feel sorry for you.
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http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/

shephardwrong,
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“Ironically, it is you who are ignorant about “conservatives,” I suspect even about your own motives. Brainwashed, authoritarian-following will do that. It’s a tragedy really, I feel sorry for you.”
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As I said you are a piece of work. I do feel sorry for you. With the hate you have in your heart for others simply because they do not believe in your distorted world view.
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You must be a very unhappy person who has allowed himself to become an ideologue who believes evil things about others without real provable facts. Your facts are lies that come from LW sources that can not prove their garbage. But you believe because it is your reality built on lies but it’s all you have in your miserable life.
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I do feel sorry for you. To have a life built on lies is such a waste.

Of course right wingers like ads with people in costumes pretending to say something important. It sure beats having, you know, actual ideas or facts. Sleep well, my little pretties.