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    Senior Member AirborneSapper7's Avatar
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    Harvard Prof: Tea Party Not Going Anywhere, More Likely to Win

    Harvard Prof: Tea Party Not Going Anywhere, More Likely to Win



    by Tony Lee 29 Dec 2013, 12:29 PM PDT 1387 post a comment
    A government and sociology professor at Harvard writes that the Tea Party is more likely than not to "win in the end" in an age when Americans are becoming more removed from Washington and distrusting the federal government and their elected officials.
    "Tea Party forces will still win in the end," Theda Skocpol writes, unless moderate Republicans can defeat them. Skocpol concedes that the Tea Party "will triumph just by hanging on long enough" as Americans are getting fed up by "our blatantly manipulated democracy and our permanently hobbled government."
    The article, "Why The Tea Party Isn't Going Anywhere," was first published in the journal Democracy, and later reprinted in The Atlantic.
    Despite the fact that Democrats, the mainstream media, and the Republican establishment again were predicting the "demise of the Tea Party" immediately after the government shutdown ended, Skocpol doesn't believe so.
    "But we have heard all this before," she writes. "The Tea Party’s hold on the GOP persists beyond each burial ceremony."
    Skocpol and Vanessa Williamson published a book in 2011 that "showed how bottom-up and top-down forces intersect to give the Tea Party both leverage over the Republican Party and the clout to push national politics sharply to the right."
    "At the grassroots, volunteer activists formed hundreds of local Tea Parties, meeting regularly to plot public protests against the Obama Administration and place steady pressure on GOP organizations and candidates at all levels," they found. "At least half of all GOP voters sympathize with this Tea Party upsurge."
    Though Skokpol and Williamson have their typical biases and describe the Tea Party movement as a "radical" one that may not like minorities--without any evidence of that assertion--they acknowledge that "even though there is no one center of Tea Party authority—indeed, in some ways because there is no one organized center—the entire gaggle of grassroots" and outside groups that support the movement "wields money and primary votes to exert powerful pressure on Republican officeholders and candidates."
    Skocpol observes that the "Tea Party clout has grown in Washington and state capitals" because "Americans are also losing ever more faith in the federal government." In addition, "most legislators and candidates are Nervous Nellies," and they have seen the Tea Party defeat establishment Republicans like Charlie Crist in Florida in 2010 and David Dewhurst in Texas in 2012 in addition to knocking off incumbent Republican Sens. Bob Bennett (R-UT) and Richard Lugar (R-IN).
    "That grabs legislators’ attention and results in either enthusiastic support for, or acquiescence to, obstructive tactics," Skocpol writes.
    She writes how powerfully someone like Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) resonates with the Tea Party. She noted that he was able to direct House Republicans to pressure House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) to demand that President Barack Obama and Democrats fund the government except for Obamacare.
    Skocpol notes that it will not be easy to defeat the Tea Party.
    "For one, at least three successive national election defeats will be necessary to even begin to break the determination and leverage of Tea Party adherents," Skocpol writes. She concedes that Tea Partiers will not "stand down easily or very soon."
    Skocpol notes "moderate Republicans" do not have as much power in Washington or in state capitals and points to Cruz as being "very well positioned to garner unified Tea Party support in the 2016 GOP presidential primaries." The Chamber of Commerce will reportedly spend $50 million to wage war against the Tea Party, along with Karl Rove's American Crossroads; Skocpol believes unless those groups defeat the Tea Party, it may well win many permanent victories.
    "During the last election cycle, no far-right candidate ever consolidated sustained grassroots Tea Party support, as those voters hopped from Rick Perry to Herman Cain to Newt Gingrich to Rick Santorum," Skocpol writes. "But this time, Cruz may very well enjoy unified and enthusiastic grassroots Tea Party support from the beginning of the primary election season."
    Skocpol also sends a warning to Democrats who think that the Tea Party will fade because of a few bad polls.
    "Once the October 2013 shutdown ended in supposed total victory for President Obama and his party, many Democrats adopted a cocky swagger and started talking about ousting the House GOP in 2014," Skocpol writes. However, she warns that "a clear-eyed look shows that Tea Party remains powerful and has achieved victories that continue to stymie" Democrats and their statist agenda.

    http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Governm...-Likely-to-Win
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    Grudging Harvard Prof: Tea Party Is Here To Stay

    December 30, 2013 by Ben Bullard

    Despite all the mainstream media punditry that’s ready to shovel dirt over the casket of grass-roots conservatism and truly liberal (as opposed to radical progressive) thought, at least one Harvard professor thinks the Tea Party isn’t going away anytime soon.
    Harvard sociology professor Theda Skocpol actually believes Americans are more fed up today with the ossified stubbornness of the political class than they were in 2007, when “Tea Party” became a household phrase.
    It’s clear from the tone of his article that Skopcol is anything but an apologist for conservative values (he calls sequestration “draconian budget cuts,” conservatives “saboteurs” and Ted Cruz “arrogant”), but he sees the future written in Americans’ present disgust with the government they have now:
    Americans may resent the Tea Party, but they are also losing ever more faith in the federal government—a big win for anti-government saboteurs.
    Then he ponders how to be rid of “the damage the Tea Party is inflicting on American politics” and faces some realities that, though he laments them, are hard to ignore:
    For one, at least three successive national election defeats will be necessary to even begin to break the determination and leverage of Tea Party adherents. Grassroots Tea Partiers see themselves in a last-ditch effort to save “their country,” and big-money ideologues are determined to undercut Democrats and sabotage active government. They are in this fight for the long haul. Neither set of actors will stand down easily or very soon.
    Also worth remembering is that “moderate Republicans” barely exist right now. Close to two-thirds of House Republicans voted against bipartisan efforts to reopen the federal government and prevent U.S. default on loan obligations, and [John] Boehner has never repudiated such extortionist tactics. Tea Partiers may not call for another shutdown right away, but they will continue to be able to draw most GOP legislators and leaders into aggressive efforts to obstruct and delay. In the electorate, moreover, more than half of GOP voters sympathize with the Tea Party and cheer on obstructionist tactics, and the remaining Republicans and Republican-leaning independents are disorganized and divided in their views of the likes of Ted Cruz.
    …Finally, Democrats need to get over thinking that opinion polls and media columns add up to real political gains. Once the October 2013 shutdown ended in supposed total victory for President Obama and his party, many Democrats adopted a cocky swagger and started talking about ousting the House GOP in 2014. But a clear-eyed look shows that Tea Party obstruction remains powerful and has achieved victories that continue to stymie Democratic efforts to govern effectively — a necessary condition for Democrats to win enthusiastic, sustained voter support for the future, including in midterm elections.
    Those pesky obstructionists! If only they’d allow Democrats to “govern effectively.”
    Of course, those who watched Democrats shut down the government, blame the Tea Party, and then proceed not only to get everything they wanted in the first place – but to rewrite the rules of Senate procedure to their benefit – see a very different set of political motivations than the ones Skopcol sees.
    It’s almost as if, grudgingly, progressives are already trying to take control of the narrative for the kind of political fight they’re (finally) realizing they’re doomed to face in the years ahead.

    Filed Under: Liberty News, Staff Reports

    http://personalliberty.com/2013/12/3...-here-to-stay/
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    The Republican Establishment and The Tea Party Need to Stop Fooling Themselves

    October 17, 2013
    Benjamin Domenech




    Begun, the wound-licking period has. I think this piece from Ace is about as good of a summing up of why we got to the point of shutdown, and why it achieved nothing, as I’ve read yet.
    “The Republican Establishment is, as one might guess, conservative by temperament. It resists change, moreso than the the Democrat Establishment (which almost seemed eager to confess they were fully Men and Women of the Unreconstructed Left; they just needed an excuse to say so). The only way this marriage can be saved – if it can be at all – is for the Establishment to stop fighting the Tea Party on everything, and instead begin plotting politically-savvy ways to forward the Tea Party’s way of thinking.”
    The balance of what’s possible with what the base wants is a delicate thing, and Republican leadership sure hasn’t figured out how to achieve it. That Bismarck line about politics being the art of the possible is being bandied about a lot lately – John Podhoretz used it regarding the medical device tax. Jonah Goldberg deployed it here, regarding the shutdown deal. But I’ve always had a problem with it, because I think it ignores the reality of modern political tactics. Politics is the art of the possible, yes, but it is not exclusively that. It is also the art of destroying your opponents. The left understands this, which is why The Nation doesn’t think this is a real victory for Democrats: it was a missed opportunity to really, really, for reals, kill the Republicans with fire from the sky.
    “Because the deal only includes minor concessions, the Beltway consensus is that it represents a resounding defeat for Republicans, who “surrendered” their original demands to defund or delay Obamacare. In the skirmish of opinion polls, that may be true, for now. But in the war of ideas, the Senate deal is but a stalemate, one made almost entirely on conservative terms. The GOP now goes into budget talks with sequestration as the new baseline, primed to demand longer-term cuts in Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. And they still hold the gun of a US default to the nation’s head in the next debt ceiling showdown. Surrender? Any more “victories” like this and Democrats will end up paying tribute into the GOP’s coffers.”
    And for those screaming about permanent changes to the way things happen in Washington – nope, that’s not happening either.
    But back to that “art of the possible” idea – assume you have two options on the table in the current economy: a reduction in the corporate income tax rate, or a reduction in personal income taxes for middle class families. Assume further that option 1 is likely to succeed, and option 2 certain to fail. Option 1 would allow Democrats to build themselves up with corporate donors, while also allowing the media to slam Republicans as typical greedy corporatists… while making it more difficult to achieve option 2 in the future. In this frame, there’s no question from my perspective that you take option 2, even if option 1 represents good policy. This is a basic disagreement over how to approach bad policy which has been going on for decades: do you try to fix it, or do you refuse to help fix it in ways that make it less damaging to various constituencies, instead making the case for overall repeal? Lost in the shutdown scrap has been the reality that Obamacare’s terrible launch has done enormous damage to the idea that it could ever represent the foundation for any future free market reforms, and done a great deal to build the case for those who stuck to overall repeal. We’ll see now whether the right can pivot to making that case.
    It seems to me the real lesson of the shutdown is to stop lying to yourselves about what’s possible. House leadership lied to themselves about their ability to sell the debt limit plan to the caucus. Ted Cruz lied to himself about what the House leadership would do and what the end game would look like. John Boehner lied to himself about what he could get through the caucus. Paul Ryan lied to himself about the willingness of the caucus/POTUS to back his grand committee solution (or that the Senate wouldn’t screw him over on it). Senate leadership lied to themselves about their ability to sell a deal to House GOPers. And conservatives lied to themselves about Boehner’s last minute deal being worse than what they’d get. Republicans of all stripes have to stop fooling themselves – but given the lack of trust between the factions and the embedded resentment which runs so deep, this is unlikely to occur.
    Unification needs to happen for the party to succeed in 2014, and have any hope of repealing Obamacare in 2017. It needs to happen soon. Lick those wounds faster.

    [Originally published on The Federalist]



    Benjamin Domenech

    Benjamin Domenech (bdomenech@heartland.org) is a senior fellow at The Heartland Institute. Domenech... (read full bio)

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