How Significant is the Tea Party Movement?

[Exarch]

i can't get a realistic grasp on the tea party movement what with conflicting views from the media;

some media say it's a latent civil war movement just waiting to happen, a revolution in the air

others say it's just a minor protest by disaffected americans;

what's your view?

how significant is the Tea Party movement?

[Dan the Man]

Difficult to say. I would not call it completely insignificant, but I certainly would not call it Earth-shattering either. It will probably be important enough to at least get a mention in a US History textbook if not more.

[Mr. Scott]

I would call it a movement for reform within the republican party. To move the republican party to more fiscal conservatism and less government spending.

It is not a revolution waiting to happen though. Not even close.

[Col. Tartleton]

It's a conservative backlash to the first attempt at middle left rule in decades.

My opinions on politics bounce back and forth, but Obama seems to have a good grip of things. It doesn't look like it because he's got a lot of things in progress and nothing has been worked out yet. So it creates the perception that he's accomplished nothing. The only thing holding the economy back is the fear that it will get worse again. What's driving that? His detractors. I'd blame the economic problems on the political atmosphere. I might not agree with Obama ideologically but I think he's actually running a pretty moderate administration pretty effectively. Its way to premature for people to cast judgments and that's exactly what the Tea Party is doing. So I don't accept the Tea Party because they're being rash and I'm too conservative for that.

I'd like to have him finish a term before I declare him the Anti-Christ... Which is what the left did to Bush which is why I don't have a respect for the far left. Bush may not have been the best president but he was acting out of American interests as he understood them. Bush was too liberal IMO. You can say what you want, but Neo Conservatism isn't really conservative. Its the new right. Which may as well be another left.

[GrnEyedDvl]

The only thing holding the economy back is the fear that it will get worse again.

I would disagree with that. I know several business owners who drastically changed plans and reduced staff because of how tax law is being changed.

[Big War Bird]

I would disagree with that. I know several business owners who drastically changed plans and reduced staff because of how tax law is being changed.

I am one of those business owners, well at least my wife is. And yeah, the tax law situation, Obamacare and a few other things have us completely locked down until things shake out.

[Ahlerich]

i think the tea party is dangerous enough to accelerate the downfall of america as it reinforces the ignorant masses and distracts from the issues of the country and the necessaty to fix them

[LegionnaireX]

i think the tea party is dangerous enough to accelerate the downfall of america as it reinforces the ignorant masses and distracts from the issues of the country and the necessaty to fix them

Ignorant about what, exactly?

[Oldgamer]

i think the tea party is dangerous enough to accelerate the downfall of america as it reinforces the ignorant masses and distracts from the issues of the country and the necessaty to fix them

Ah! Those who disagree with the Left are "ignorant".

My friend, the Tea Party exists because the "masses" are not ignorant. Mr. Obama and the DEMs ignores this movement at their own political peril, as the last election clearly showed.

[Zadig]

I would disagree with that. I know several business owners who drastically changed plans and reduced staff because of how tax law is being changed.

My mom got a letter from her investment bank telling her that it was going to stop investing in American companies because of the new changes in taxes.

[C-Rob]

Too significant to ignore or that I'd like, but significant nonetheless.

[LegionnaireX]

It was certainly a very powerful force in this year's election cycle. Its results remain to be seen.

I just hope we didn't just elect a bunch of creationist, global warming denying, anti-gay, idiots into office. Plenty of those already exist in Congress, we don't need anymore.

If however, we have elected rational politicians with the guts to do what is right for this country, acting outside political pressures to reign in the debt and put us back on sound financial footing, then I think the Tea Party has done quite well indeed.

[Stark of Winterfell]

It was certainly a very powerful force in this year's election cycle. Its results remain to be seen.

I just hope we didn't just elect a bunch of creationist, global warming denying, anti-gay, idiots into office. Plenty of those already exist in Congress, we don't need anymore.

If however, we have elected rational politicians with the guts to do what is right for this country, acting outside political pressures to reign in the debt and put us back on sound financial footing, then I think the Tea Party has done quite well indeed.

Well several of the crazier sounding Tea Partiers weren't elected, so hopefully the most rational ones were the ones that made it through. We'll see in a few months I guess.

[43rdFoot]

Important enough maybe for a footnote.

[DarkArk]

Ignorant about what, exactly?

Oh, science, tax history of the USA, the President's personal history, how economies work, what the 1st Amendment really does, etc. By most of what they have been proposing I've found them to be shockingly ill-informed, the fact that the birther movement has any traction at all is evidence of this.

[Exarch]

seems to me the tea party movement is made up of so many disparate groups, sometimes contradiciting the other;

the one thing they seem motivated by is a distaste for the obama admin. and , most saliently, a desire for a return to the pre-bush era when american was a undisputed unilateral hyperpower

[Mr. Scott]

seems to me the tea party movement is made up of so many disparate groups, sometimes contradiciting the other;

the one thing they seem motivated by is a distaste for the obama admin. and , most saliently, a desire for a return to the pre-bush era when american was a undisputed unilateral hyperpower

Well the US still is an undisputed, unilateral hyperpower.
However, its image has been tainted in the past decade. Prior to Bush the US was seen as a force for good, triumphant from the Cold War. Now half of the world sees the US as an evil, imperialistic Empire. Although I see it as a fairly good, imperialistic empire.

[The Dude]

Well the US still is an undisputed, unilateral hyperpower.
However, its image has been tainted in the past decade. Prior to Bush the US was seen as a force for good, triumphant from the Cold War. Now half of the world sees the US as an evil, imperialistic Empire. Although I see it as a fairly good, imperialistic empire.

I think that the US fared much better as a nation in contrast to the evils of communism than it does as a nation in contrast to the evils of Islam. The thing is that in the cold war the enemy was a fairly united bloc of communist nations under the command of relentless dictatorships. Religion was oppressed, people had no wealth, the propaganda machine was functioning full time to indoctrinate everyone etc.

Compared to that, the US was a beacon of freedom and hope. It was fairly undisputed that they were "the good guys".

But now that contrast has gone. The new main enemy are supposedly muslim radicals, but how do we distinguish them from normal muslims? And what is a normal muslim, since Islam is so divided in itself? Some muslim countries are allies, some muslim countries are enemies. And here you start to see the foreign policy of the US falling apart because it's impossible to be consistent like against the communists. Now you start to see that some of America's motivations are not driven by ideology but by pure profit, and suddenly the construction of the Cold War looks almost innocent in comparison.

And how is it possible to present yourself as a front against religious crazies when homeland politics are defined by exactly those sort of people? The american political landscape is unimaginable, unfortunately, without a strong evangelist element. Be it muslim or christian, if you're a nutcase radical it's all the same to me where you're from. The only difference is that muslim radicals end up waging fairly visible jihads while christian radicals are more concerned with gaining political power. A nation so obsessed with god as the US is today has a hard time gaining credibility when it's supposed to be the force -against- religious extremism.

[Exarch]

Well the US still is an undisputed, unilateral hyperpower.
However, its image has been tainted in the past decade. Prior to Bush the US was seen as a force for good, triumphant from the Cold War. Now half of the world sees the US as an evil, imperialistic Empire. Although I see it as a fairly good, imperialistic empire.

good and evil are such relativistic terms which is why i'd much rather refrain from using them

after the collapse of the SU, the US was the undisputed unilaterla hyperpower, but even the policymakers and metternicht-wannabes (brzezinski) wanted to consolidate US hegemony to the extent that 'no other (country) would be able to rival it'.

that's why there was no 'peace dividend', why none of that $$$ that went into the defence department and the CIA got diverted into civil sectors as was expected; why the defence budget in fact increased considerably and why, most damningly, Bush, Cheney and their cronies were motivated to invade iraq.

US image has been tarnished since 2003 and a worldwide perception of decline was reinforced when the Great Recession happened and the US Fed failed to contain the recession; add to this, the major developing nations with booming economies who've been brought to the fore with higher economic growth and human capital and it reflects on your average american joe.
life was better pre 2003/pre 2001, and i can't say i blame them for wanting a return to that era;
what i do find ironic is that the Bush admin. under the command of cheney, wolfowitz, perle and co. sought to ensure a New Americna Century where the US remained the hyperpower it was during the 90s, that their actions succeeded in achieving the opposite.
the iraq war alienated american allies-this unilateralism that the Bush doctrine was in love with merely catalysed the 'rise of the rest'

[Oldgamer]

after the collapse of the SU, the US was the undisputed unilaterla hyperpower, but even the policymakers and metternicht-wannabes (brzezinski) wanted to consolidate US hegemony to the extent that 'no other (country) would be able to rival it'.

I just wanted to make sure that we were clear when the Soviet Union collapsed.

Brzezinski served President Jimmy Carter from 1977-1981, and arguably did nothing to bring about the USSR's collapse. The Soviet Union imploded in 1989, and fell in 1991, and its economy could not keep up with the US defense buildup under Presidents Reagan and George Herbert Walker Bush.

The only "prescient" thing that he ever did was predict the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1988, which he stated would take place in a "few decades". He did this in his book The Grand Failure.

Metternicht? I don't think so, my friend.