Adele M.Stan, AlterNet's Washington Bureau Chief, has posted an op-ed at Alternet and TruthOut warning of the dangers of underestimating the Tea Party:
The Tea Party Is Dangerous: Dispelling 7 Myths That Help Us Avoid Reality About the New Right-Wing Politics. Stan agrees with others that the rise of the Tea Party is partly a reaction to events such as the Democratic take-over of Congress in 2006 and the election of our first African-American president.
The Tea Party also arose due to the frustrations of working and middle-class Americans to their losses in the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
But bad economies create bad politics, notes economist and Nobel laureate Paul Krugman. Economic downturns traditionally, over the course of history, usher in swings to the right,
Krugman writes. The administration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt was an aberration in this regard, and, perhaps, as
Michael Tomasky suggests, in the course of American history. But since the Great Depression offers our most recent experience of severe economic crisis, its story is etched in the progressive mind as the narrative for how the nation naturally responds to economic catastrophe.
More than a year ago, Robert Reich
warned of the vitriol we see today from the Tea Party movement, as well as its likely targets. “Make no mistake: Angry right-wing populism lurks just below the surface of the terrible American economy,” Reich wrote, “ready to be launched not only at Obama but also at liberals, intellectuals, gays, blacks, Jews, the mainstream media, coastal elites, crypto socialists, and any other potential target of paranoid opportunity.”
Stan goes on to discuss the dynamics behind the Tea Party formation and growth. Some of the same forces and people that created the Religious Right in the 1970s are involved; the foundations funded by the ultra-rich and the ultra-conservative movers and shakers in the conservative movement. Add Rupert Murdoch's Fox News to the mix.
Day after day, the themes favored by the billionaires and political operatives who mobilize the Tea Partiers are hammered with ruthless repetition not only by Glenn Beck and the rest of Fox News, but also by Rush Limbaugh and hundreds of radio talk-show hosts and right-wing syndicated newspaper columnists. And now those themes are finding their way into mainstream media as journalists feel compelled to address them in their reporting.
Over the course of the last 30 years, conservatives have held more years in power than liberals and moderate Democrats. But the men behind the right-wing fury don’t just want their power back; they want more of it than they’ve ever had before.
As Stan points out, progressives have a history of ignoring the threat of far-right groups and movements; but, she warns every time one of these movements has faded from the scene, it's provided a core of voters to feed the next round in the conservative take-over. Each time, the databases of voters accrued can be passed to leaders and activist for the next incarnation of the right.
And, progressives have no real alternative to Fox News. Fox acts as a conduit to convey an agenda that serves the purpose of the right-wing billionaire that founded and funded it. That's why Glenn Beck doesn't worry about losing sponsors; Murdoch still has very deep pockets.
You'll have to read the rest of Stan's article to get discussion of the seven myths. The thrust of the piece is that: The Tea Party does is a power to be reckoned with and we ignore them at our peril. She doesn't despair; but, she advises:
Minimizing the force and impact of the Tea Party movement does nothing to defeat it. No amount of ridicule will stop it. If progressives want to save the republic from the hands of the old New Right, they will have to sell their core principles to a public that is not much in a mood to buy anything. It can be done. But it will require a serious, sustained and strategically designed effort that is based around something more than launching progressive primary challengers to establishment Democratic candidates. That's the start of a long-term effort to make the Democratic Party more progressive, but it doesn't begin to meet the structural challenges posed by the Tea Party movement. Without a plan to meet regular Americans through their local media, or a way to articulate progressive goals as a plan of enlightened self-interest, progressives could see their moment slip away, carried on the winds of resentment.
Read the rest of the article here:
http://www.alternet.org/story/147307/?page=1Also check out:
Profiling 5 Key Right-Wing Mouthpieces Who Spread Paranoia and Hatred to Extremists on the Fringe.
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