When any small group of fringy leftwing kooks and nutcases protests anything, the leftwing punditocracy gravely stroke its collective chin and warns of the rising tide of popular indignation. But when thousands and thousands of Americans participate in more than 600 protests against taxes and federal spending in cities all across the nation, the left sneers at the symbolism and dismisses the protests as unrepresentative and contrived.
Marc Ambinder was the rare exception in the liberal punditocracy who questioned the official party-line.
The… tea-party enthusiasm on the American right has provoked a fairly typical reaction from the organized American left. It’s a fake. It involves tea bags and (a) Dick Armey. It’s got the consistency of astroturf, not natural grass. …
In the age of hyperconnectivity, just what would an organic grassroots movement look like, anyway? Are people who’ve organized on behalf of causes before forbidden from joining? Can the movement not accept help and money from outside players?
Ambinder’s right, of course. And the scale of yesterday’s protests ought to be considered far more significant in the light of the consideration that protests and street theater are not really our thing. Conservatives write angry letters to the editorial page and argue with liberal friends. We don’t typically march around in public waving signs.
Conservatives tend to be busy and productive people with responsibilities. It’s a lot harder to assemble a mob of mortgage-paying adults with jobs they need to be at than to get yourself a gang of students and urban slackers ready for a lark. The thousands seen yesterday obviously constituted only the smallest tip of a much larger iceberg, an iceberg which does reliably vote.
Mark
I attended the rally in Hartford yesterday. A few of the people I talked with were Democrats, though not of the left-wing persuasion.
David Gatch
I was at the Atlanta Rally and there seemed to be some democrats there as well.
I got the impression that there was a general dissatisfaction with both parties. For the most part what Congress and the past and current Presidents have done is to commit economic treason. A pox on both their houses……
Maggie's Farm
A few Friday evening links…
I know it’s a cheap shot which is beneath Maggie’s, but that photo (Caption This) from Wizbang isn’t a person walking a dog: it’s a dog walking a person. I just use the photo to make the point that, in general, it only takes about 3 hours (9…
Thalpy
Results of inattention or complacency are especially aggravating since they can often be avoided, but from a standpoint of demography, we are at or near a permanent tip point politically in our country. John McCain’s wait for the Hispanic vote would turn out to be endless, and the expanding gimme class vote was never in play for Republicans even though considerable pandering went on during the campaign.
We can now only hope that the tea parties represent a resurrection or awakening–a return to the proven conservative principles that have made this a great country.
daedalus
Tax Protest was and is an issue.
Actual abolishment of the non-federal
non-reserve system is an issue.
Am not at all interested in “Conserving”
that crap party the GOP.
Am not at all interested in Democrat Party of progressive enslavement, or liberation of
savages.
The Demos and the Repubos can GET
LOST.
Please Leave a Comment!