E.J. Dionne Jr., in the Washington Post, on a “Tempest in a Very Small Teapot“:
Is the Tea Party one of the most successful scams in American political history?…
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Do the math. For weeks now, our national political conversation has been driven by 86,441 voters and a margin of 5,548 votes. A bit of perspective: When John McCain lost in the 2008 presidential race, he received 59.9 million votes…
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Even in larger states, the Tea Party’s triumphs were built on small shares of the electorate. Rand Paul received 206,986 votes in Kentucky, where there are more than 1 million registered Republicans and nearly 2.9 million registered voters. Sharron Angle won with 70,452 votes in Nevada, a state with more than 1 million registered voters.
__
Last April, a New York Times-CBS News poll found that 18 percent of Americans identified as supporters of the Tea Party movement, but slightly less than a fifth of these sympathizers said they had attended a Tea Party rally or meeting. That means just over 3 percent of Americans can be characterized as Tea Party activists. A more recent poll by Democracy Corps, just before Labor Day, found that 6 percent of voters said they had attended a Tea Party rally or meeting…
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And where are the progressives? Sulking is not an alternative to organizing, and weary resignation is the first step toward capitulation. The Tea Party may be pulling a fast one on the country and the media. But if it has more audacity than everyone else, it will, I am sorry to say, deserve to get away with it.
Dave
But sulking is more fun. More bitching about the Magic Pony Deficit!!
RalfW
I was musing this morning about the Pledge for America.
I suspect that what they’re not telling us is that after they win their Randian victory, we’ll be subjected to frequent TV pledge campaigns to balance the budget.
Of course the rich will just leave the country during these awful pledge weeks, and the huddled masses will pay big money to get American Idle and Extreme Makover: Home Edition back on the air.
Brilliant!
Brighton
Contrast the TP to the Green Party, which actually drew 2% of the vote in 2000 and has a 50-state organized structure – and getting absolutely no press attention whatsoever.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
The TeaTards are simply lifting a play out of the Atwater/Rove book of politics.
The fact that they’re doing it within their own party makes the irony that much better.
LittlePig
I think E.J. is barking up the wrong tree on this one. Democrats are never going to have Nuremberg style rallies like the TeaPartiers, because we’re not the seig heil party. It fails on that point – Democrats are not followers the way proto-Fascists, er, um, Tea Partiers are.
Since anything we say is going to turn into an instant-opposite-lie on Fox, I don’t know that rallies would buy a whole lot.
But then I’m not enthusiasm driven.
Steeplejack
This may sound crazy, but I think the Stewart/Colbert “Take It Down a Notch for America”/”Keep Fear Alive” rally on October 30 will be an eye-opener. I think attendance will be huge, and I think part of the message–intended or not–will be that there are huge numbers of Americans utterly fed up with the Republicans and the Tea Party bullshit. The pundits will have a hard time ignoring/minimizing it. At best they will claim “it’s all a joke” or it’s “too meta.”
ETA: I will be there, sporting some Balloon Juice apparel. And I have already convinced my brother (rich doctor) and some of his entourage (gay DINCs) to come. I was surprised at how easy a sell it was.
c u n d gulag
It sure looks to me like the Democrats have ceded any response to John Stewart and Stephen Colbert.
While it seems kind of weak, I’d rather have those two out there with messages than ANY Democratic Political Advisors (who I think are Republican wolves in sheep’s clothing) and all but a handful of politicians.
Democrats SUCK at messaging. But that’s all Republicans are good at.
LittlePig
It sure looks to me like the Democrats have ceded any response to John Stewart and Stephen Colbert.
Because the latter understand the Devil hates to be mocked, while the former fret and fumble.
mclaren
And the Koch brothers win again.
Had an interesting convo with some progressives the other day. When I mentioned The New Yorker article “The Billionaire Koch brothers’ war against Obama” and the fact that Kochs essentially financed the entire Tea Party movement, the progressives sneered and said “I’m sure it’s all a jewish conspiracy.”
Wow.
Just…wow.
And if you want to know why progressives always lose — well, there you have it in a nutshell.
master c
@c u n d gulag:
Totally agree!
Colbert and Stewart are the best men for the job.
djheru
But if it has more audacity than everyone else, it will, I am sorry to say, deserve to get away with it.
The audacity of dopes.
RalfW
@LittlePig: This. Exactly.
ruemara
@mclaren:
Oh please. You have a bigot circle to chat with and that’s why progressives lose. I rarely bring this out but, shut up, twatsquatch.
Short Bus Bully
The defining factor between the Repubs and the Dems is that the Repubs have worked since the dawn of the vote to DENY it to people. The Dems have worked to get the vote to more folks.
When lots of people excercise their right to vote the Dems always win. It’s pretty simple math.
cleek
@Steeplejack:
we have a vanload comping up from Raleigh. nobody knows what to expect when we get there, but hey, road trip!
this is probably exactly what will happen.
gene108
The problem with progressives is they aren’t pro-billionaire friendly in their views. They aren’t really capitulating, but when the other side has a parade of elephants to get the people’s attention, while you can only post fliers on street-lamps, hoping someone looks, you pretty much seem like you quit no matter how hard you try.
What billionaire, like a Mellon-Scaife, would want to plunk down millions of his own money to keep a magazine in print, even if it loses money, or pay to have people investigate a sitting President for any sort of scandal in his home state for example?
At some point, when all you have to offer a billionaire is the hope some fat slob down on the other side of town will get a pony, because you’ve raised the billionaires taxes and put in new rules and regulations about what he can do to keep making billions, you’ve pretty much killed off sources of start up money needed to compete with the right-wing media.
The right-wing media pretty much drowns out any other points of view in our country today.
We can’t win against that kind of total, focused, tide of bullshit, which doesn’t have to worry about losing sponsors (see Glen Beck), for example, because some rich muckity-muck will happily pick up the slack.
If liberals want to compete they need to find a way to get their own broadcast news network, increase the numbers of think-tanks and print media that cater to liberals and make sure these guys get on the talking-head news shows, C-SPAN, etc. to compete with right-wing media saturation.
WyldPirate
This is complete and utter bullshit from Dionne.
The reason the Tea party is getting the attention it is is because of our completely fucked up and dysfunctional media.
This dysfunction won’t change because the American people are, for the most part, complete and total idiots that like shiny objects, distraction, scandal and other bullshit. The media is simply “giving the people what they want” and laughing all the way to the bank.
It’s simple to see. Just look at what you see in the checkout aisle of the grocery store for “reading material”–the National Enquirere, Star and other such chickenshit.
The people want “bread and circuses” and that’s what they’re getting. As I society, we are getting exactly what we deserve because most people are fucking ill-informed and apathetic idiots.
Davis X. Machina
You need a con and a mark. The Left has neither.
gene108
@djheru:
There’s part of me that just says let the knuckleheads take over. Just dissolve all opposition to them. Let the people, who think they are right stew in the carp they are going to cook for them.
After eight years of Bush, Jr. with varying amounts of opposition, there was blow-back for the knuckleheads, but they just won’t quit.
I say give them what they want and when people say things suck, tell them STFU and remember the days, when they had alternatives but wouldn’t take advantage of it.
meander
The Tea Party also has a stable of billionaires and corporations behind it — including Fox News and their top opinion broadcasters — to organize rallies, hire buses, ghost write Op Eds and letters to the editor, and so forth. And also the luck to have all of the money focused in one direction. While there might be as much money in the progressive movement, it’s scattered all over the place.
Earl Butz
@mclaren: Those of us who have actually read the bilge you post on a regular basis here know goddamn well that you’ve never talked to, written to, or even spat on a progressive in your life.
Save it for a bigger site where no one’s paying attention. You could write a diary about your imaginary “convo” over at the Great Orange Satan and probably make the front page.
Allison W.
I’m sorry, didn’t the article ask where are PROGRESSIVES? yet I see comments about Dems?
jrg
@WyldPirate: Yep. This is why Republicans can still win elections despite failure after failure. They’re good at screaming and yelling.
Even if they’re screaming and yelling about complete B.S. like the “birth certificate controversy”, it starts to wear on you after a while. It’s an attrition strategy aided by our shiny-object-obsessed media, and it works.
NobodySpecial
@meander: There isn’t as much money in the progressive movement. There is no organized ability to take and pluck, say, a Conor Friersdorf from a tiny paper somewhere and plunk him down in the middle of a conservative news source, and have him become a new talking head for the conservative dialogue. Most jobs in progressive organizations are paid less – in many cases, not paid at all. That’s because there’s no billionaires who are willing to throw away ten percent of their total profits every year to make sure that progressive viewpoints they agree with are heard.
Warren Buffett will not part with his money to fund ads and talking heads to push for tax equity. The Koch brothers will fund all that and more at a loss to move the debate their way. There’s your difference.
WereBear
I really don’t get it… the crazy zillionaires spend sooooooooooo much money to make the proles’ lives miserable; and avoid paying taxes.
What are they spending on making the proles’ lives miserable?
So that’s the true goal?
gene108
@meander:
No. There. Is. Not. As. Much. Money. For. Liberals.
The funding for think-tanks, print media, et. al. is pretty much all for right-wingers.
They organized after Watergate, with think-tanks like the Heritage Foundation, while liberals didn’t think to compete on those grounds until sometime in the late 1980’s or early 1990’s, when it was clear liberals were losing.
There just hasn’t been enough money invested in the left-wing think-tanks, media, etc. to compete, not to mention the total lack of a dedicated 24/7 news network to compete with Fox News.
Janus Daniels
“… it will, I am sorry to say, deserve to get away with it.”
No, but most of our news media will, I am sorry to say, deserve to be done away with.
@mclaren:
Perhaps meant that progressives seem naive about political front groups, and deride even verified and well known stories of sock puppetry, astroturfing, etc. as conspiracy theories?
He could have a point, except that most reporting on everything from the Koch brothers through Lee Atwater through black box voting through more billionaires rigging the system comes from… progressives.
mclaren
@Short Bus Bully:
Actually not. The Dems put out a record percentage of voters in 2004. They still lost.
Billionaires who control immense media outlets like the Wall Street Journal and Fox News and bombard the public with The Big Lie until it becomes the truth have a lot more influence than anyone imagines. Combine that propaganda effort with the blizzard of white papers from intellectual-whore neocon think tanks, and the drumbeat of far-right talk radio, and you’ve really got a propaganda system Goebbels would envy.
Hard to realize just how big an effect that stuff has until you encounter people who spew back the Fox News talking points verbatim, or regurgitate a Limbaugh diatribe word for word.
Of course this is all sheer bigotry, according to brilliant minds like ruemara, so no worries.
Tom
Anyone else reading about the attacks on Obama for saying we can “absorb” another terrorist attack. I’ll admit that “absorb” was not the best choice of words, but reaction to it has been predictably asinine. Especially Giuliani:
So Obama can’t say we’d be able to withstand another successful attack while simultaneously doing everything he can to stop that from happening? By saying we can “absorb another attack,” then he’s some how NOT putting his efforts into doing everything to prevent another 9/11?
This statement makes absolutely zero sense.
aimai
Look, its a two way street: on the one hand, the media were desperate to find a counter-wave to the Obama landslide victory, a way to keep the Republicans who they routinely interview, and the money that the Republicans have to offer through think tanks etc…, viable players. On the other hand, Obama and the Dems shut down all attempts by typical Democratic constituencies and agitators to play a more obvious and vocal part in the new legislation and the new post election landscape.
Of course a serious green/gay/union/public option or *whatever* agitation from the ground up, with hysterical and overthe top August town halls, rallies, and letter writing campaigns would have gotten no traction in the mainstream media. How do we know this? Because it never has. The media has been ignoring and belittling the left as either a) elitist college kids detached from the real working class/blue collar white voter or b) welfare queens with their hands out for ever. From the current coverage of the DREAM act and the Arizona law you’d think that hispanic protests against Republican anti-immigrant stuff just a few years ago hadn’t paralyzed the Bush administration. But its all down the memory hole and as far as the press are concerned the only organized political party today is the Republican Party and the Tea Party.
The Democrats made a stunning error in demobilizing after the election. Its basically the same decision that Bush made in re the Iraqi army and its one that every government faces in a post war period. The Dems and Obama thought that winning the election meant it was time to turn the process of governing over to the governing class. They thought they didn’t need voters and rallies and money and agitation from the bottom up. They demobilized, shut down fundraising and organizing, told lots of funders to take a chill pill and basically, as Atrios observed today, told us all “I got this.”
I thought at the time it was a huge mistake. And it was–because they needed the raw, angry, energy of their voters to push through the health care bill, and now at the midterms. But you can’t tell people you don’t need them and then turn around and two months before a major election tell them you do need them. They get frustrated, complacent, rusty, disconnected. All armies do. You’ve got to keep your people in the game, keep them feeling needed and listened to. If you want them to re-enlist after you fired them.
aimai
NobodySpecial
@WereBear: It’s not enough for them to win, they have to win in such a way so that the other side feels miserable, and they glory in that misery. When they care enough about it to think about it.
Sociopaths are overrepresented in the wealthy. Not a new trend, but depressing all the same.
James K. Polk, Esq.
What’s the matter with Kansas?
Could be that using your money and the public airwaves to lie to the public is “Free Speech” as designated by the Supreme Court.
Plus that whole Citizen’s United case really fucks anyone without billions of dollars.
Agoraphobic Kleptomaniac
Yes. The tea-party is overblown.
Yes, they are winning with small voter turnout.
But comparing tea-party primary turnout vote totals with a presidential candidate nationwide is just… moronic.
Guess what EJ, O’Donnell recieved more votes in her primary than John McCain did in Delaware Primaries. (30,563 vs. 22,628). Granted, McCain was running against 6 other candidates, but if you took McCain+Everyone else excluding 2nd place Romney, you end up with 33,895.
I’m dispondant because someone so who is so clearly an opportunist charlatan is getting so much support. It’s hard to feel enthusiasm when this kind of lunacy is winning so much support. It’s also hard to care when you give people facts about how their taxes have gone down, how their health care benefits have increased, and all you get in return is claims about Birtherism, communism, and how the TARP was all Obama’s fault.
mclaren
@Earl Butz:
Thanks for screaming those ignorant lies, kook. You’ve destroyed your credibility much more effectively than I could. Keep it up, spit-for-brains. Another three posts and you’ll have run through your entire vocabulary.
Excellent! Not only am I scum, so is the Daily Kos. And what have you accomplished, compared to Markos Moulitsas Zúñiga ? Nothing, of course. You’re just another fat-ass loudmouth Internet Tough Guy who has done nothing, produced nothing, created nothing, changed nothing, accomplished nothing.
Meanwhile I’m gearing up to help get out the vote this November by volunteering at the phone banks in the local Democratic party organization, the way I did back in the fall of 2008 for Obama. You, of course, will continue sitting on your fat lard ass in front of a computer screen two-finger-typing in hysterical insults while munching cheetos.
And we wonder why progressives don’t do well in the general election…
bemused
Let’s hear it for liberal audacity…or is that an oxymoron?
eemom
@Steeplejack:
It’s not crazy at all, and I fervently hope you’re right.
I have 2 concerns: (1) about the “dismissing as comedy” point you raise, and (2) also, there’s apparently a much, much less publicized union-sponsored rally scheduled for October 2 that was supposed to be the serious Eff You to the TeaTards, and I’ve seen various blogobot complaints that it’s being upstaged by the Stewart event.
Whatever. I’ll go to both; no reason it can’t be done twice. Whatever it takes to amass a Mall-full of decent people REALLY trying to “take back our country,” let’s do it.
Paul L.
https://balloon-juice.com/2010/09/21/baby-youre-a-star/#comment-2052593
Here is chance to bash Reason Mag for criticizing a “Defender” of civil liberties running for Senate.
Backpage.com Calls Blumenthal’s Bluff
Kryptik
@Agoraphobic Kleptomaniac:
Don’t forget the worst offenders as far as being drawn into the con: the Democratic Leadership. Blue Dogs have us by the balls, and they seem all too eager to believe every single sack of shit the Tea Party tosses our way to the point of literally campaigning against their own goddamn party.
Davis X. Machina
@James K. Polk, Esq.: Cable doesn’t use the airwaves. Wouldn’t be covered by the Fairness Doctrine even if it still existed.
jrg
@mclaren:
Yep. After a while, it starts to wear down on everyone, even reasonable, educated people. It works because people naturally assume that “there can’t be this many crazy people”, or “no one would tell lies so consistently, and so brazenly”. It also works because the lies they tell are impossible to disprove using five word sound clips.
Example: A large number of people actually believe that the trick to getting more tax revenue is to lower taxes… They believe this despite the Bush deficit, and mountains of evidence to the contrary. That’s the “big lie” strategy in action.
Paris
“And where are the progressives?”
Washington D.C., 10/02/2010
nancydarling
Are any other BJers planning to attend the Stewart/Colbert rally on October 30th? My daughter is flying into NW Arkansas and we are driving to Fairfax, VA (have a nephew there). After the rally we are taking the train to NYC (niece in Brooklyn). I haven’t had a decent road trip since the summer of ’05 when my sis, another niece, and I flew to Alaska and my brother showed us the incredible sights. He moved to Texas in ’06—just can’t seem to get away from insane state politics. He lived in Palmer, AK for 11 years. Palmer is 6 miles from Wasilla. He can tell lots of stories about the Palin/Johnson clans. If any of ya’ll are going on the 30th, can we meet up?
RSR
>>weary resignation
that is a very good description of how I feel lately
Paul L.
@Davis X. Machina:
Progressives want the Fairness Doctrine to cover all communications. (Cable, Satellite, the Internet).
Anyone remember when Media Matters claimed that Democrats did not want to bring back the Fairness Doctrine?
Don SinFalta
“And where are the progressives?”
Probably not voting in Republican primaries.
WereBear
Yeah. When I realized just paying the taxes would be less money, the motivations shifted considerably.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
you guys are a lot more confident about the effect of the Stewart/Colbert rally than I am. I hope you’re right and I’m wrong. Not only will the media coverage be “isn’t that cute?”, but Stewart has been sounding increasingly like a hipster David Broder lately. During his interview with Carter, he drew an unbelievable false equivalence between people angry at Bush and those angry at Obama, and it wasn’t an outlying comment from him. Colbert, even through his stage persona, seems to have a much better grasp at what’s going on, what’s at stake, and who’s doing what.
Cris
He says that as though it’s insignificant. What was the vote margin in Florida 2000? Oh yeah, five hundred votes.
My point is, if a motivated, active minority knows how to appeal to a wider audience, their physical numbers aren’t that important.
mclaren
@aimai:
This is a really good point. No one has provided a good explanation for why Obama and company didn’t carry through with the netroots organization they built up during the election by mobilizing them with demonstrations or call-ins or write-ins or sit-ins or whatever to push congress on the legislation.
Financial reform and health care reform seem like natural venues to channel grassroots net activism. Letter campaigns to house representatives, sit-ins in the halls of congress, phone banks, that kind of thing… Why didn’t Obama follow through after he got elected with the kind of netroots mobilization his organization got going in the general election?
Why on earth were the Repubs the only ones running phone banks to bombard congress during the health care legislation? Reports claim calls into congress were running 5 to 1 against HCR. That’s something Obama’s people could and should have been to coordinate using the netroots.
I’ve read that the main guy responsible for coordinating Obama’s netroots campaign went into burnout and quit. Don’t know if that’s true. It’s very strange that Obama’s campaign would run the most successful internet-coordinated presidential campaign in history and then essentially abandon that tool when they had to deal with congress and move some legislators’ opinions.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Cris:
and they have unlimited funding (thanks to Roberts, ScAlito, and Thomas) and a media biased in their favor by cowardice and conditioning.
jwb
@Steeplejack: My prediction: the larger the rally, the less coverage it will get. Of course Stewart and Colbert can guarantee that the images get out to some extent, but I’m guessing the MSM will show pictures themselves only if it’s a bust.
On the other hand, I hear that Jon Stewart is now considered shrill, so that probably means the MSM is actually worried that Stewart has the power to shape the narrative out of their control.
geg6
@nancydarling:
I really don’t understand why anyone with a liberal bone in their body would attend this insult to progressives.
Stewart has been publicizing this stupidity as basically “the Dems are as bad as the GOPers!” rally. Fuck that and fuck him. He’s been banned from my household for this shit.
Personally, if I attend any rallies, I’ll be attending the one being put on by real progressives/liberals on 10/2.
Oh, and did I say fuck Jon Stewart? I did? Well, fuck him again.
cleek
@aimai:
right (as usual)
Steve
@Paul L.: You are probably better at nutpicking than I am, but I don’t know a single progressive who thinks there should be a Fairness Doctrine for the Internet. There’s only a small minority of progressives who want to bring back the Fairness Doctrine at all.
I guess the fact that the Democrats haven’t done jack shit to bring it back over the last two years just serves to demonstrate that it’s a secret plan.
Mnemosyne
@jrg:
Digby had a great piece a couple of days ago pointing out that the Republican strategy is to annoy people enough that they’ll tune out. A little taste:
geg6
@jwb:
No, Steward can’t be shrill because that’s only for DFHs. And based on the shit he’s been putting out there, Steward is most definitely NOT a DFH. In fact, he seems to be auditioning for Broder’s spot at the WaPo when that evil and stupid old bastard finally kicks it.
cleek
Stewart really needs to clap harder for the right things. it’s inexcusable that he’s not reading Digby posts for his monologues.
Lurked
@aimai:
The Democrats have demobilized after elections for as long as I have been paying attention. It seems to be one of the many serious structural problems with the party. I know, technocrats, serious-minded, want to focus on governing, blah blah blah, but at least in recent years they just have not seemed to understand that they have to win elections in order to govern. Some of it undoubtedly is because they are bought by powerful interests just like the Republicans, but the pervasive timidity and refusal to campaign and play hardball seems to go well beyond that.
Corner Stone
@Anne Laurie
Surely you have to see this as the narrative build it is, right?
When/if D’s take a whuppin this election, who do you think is being pre-set to take the blame for it?
That’s all Dionne is doing here, aside from some ridiculous mathematical comparisons that are nonsensical.
jwb
@aimai: I agree completely that it was a huge tactical mistake to stand down after the 2008 election. I keep trying to figure out what they were thinking, if the administration really believed that bipartisanship was possible and that asking your supporters to stand down was the best way of ensuring effective bipartisan efforts. I can only think that they couldn’t believe that anyone would take all of the nonsense on the right seriously—that people would tire of it. I suppose they really didn’t believe that it would be supported not only by Fox 24/7 but that it would be taken up in varying degrees by the other media outlets. Then, too, I think they were hopeful of cutting off the Republicans from much of the corporate cash, and for that to work they had to convince the corporate world that they were willing to push back against the left. That gambit obviously failed miserably, but I have to believe that was part of their thinking.
The Republic of Stupidity
@Tom:
Coming from Rudi, did you expect it to make sense?
And while we’re at it, let’s skip the chit-chat and get down to the nitty-gritty…
What was Rudi WEARING?
Was he in some carefree shoulder-less summer frock, or has he moved on to a navy blue wool number appropriate for Autumn? And did he wear the pearls?
jrg
@Mnemosyne: Good link. Digby nails what I was trying to capture. She’s a hell of a writer. This bit, in particular, is what I was trying to convey:
Corner Stone
@Lurked:
IMO, it probably has a bit to do with the demographics of who the D Party activists and admin types are. College kids who go to school and work full time, men and women in relatively lower pay ranges with family responsibilities.
IOW, IMO, people gear up for the fight, then get back to their everyday lives of keeping their heads down and making it to the next day.
Republicans, at least to my biased anecdotal thought, somehow seem to have more free time or money backing their passionate causes.
SIA
@gene108: That is exactly right. No platform, no power. The fact that the Democrats have done as well as they have is that much more impressive in light of the “liberal” media.
I was cheered by Rachel Maddow’s segment last night about how the WH appears to be seriously campaigning on HCR etc.
On another note, I’ve loved Jon Stewart since he pretended Teresa Heinz Kerry was speaking “dolphin” in her speech to the 2004 convention. BUT. I’m sick of him crabbing on the prez all the time. Also he’s inching towards that false equivalency thing more and more. Both sides are not the same.
(If this gets double-posted, my apologies. Used wrong email and went to Mod Hell)
Marmot
@Kryptik:
What is it with the “moderate” Dems, anyway? I read a report from TPM yesterday that they’d begged Pelosi, et al, to extend all tax cuts, including those for $250K+ earners.
Since about 1993, I’ve been agog at the Dems’ avoidance of economic populism. That’s a long time spent agog. Is it the overweening influence that wealthy donors can have early in a political campaign, such that “moderates” don’t want to alienate them?
Corner Stone
Of course, there’s also the article Atrios links to at Open Left:
I don’t give OL much regard in general but the author does have a point here. The irony is pretty thick.
jwb
@geg6: Doesn’t matter what we think, only matters what the media thinks. And if they say he’s shrill, well, then he’s just redefined the boundary for DFH. I guarantee you that if he really gets 300,000 or 500,000 at his rally and shows what a sham Beckfest’s numbers were, we’ll hear more about how shrill he is, whether he is playing an appropriate role in the political landscape, yadda, yadda, yadda—right after the media attempts to ignore the rally fail.
Glidwrith
@jwb: There was an interview of David Plouffe and if I may paraphrase: “The campaign encouraged the grass-roots movement to make it seem Obama was more connected to the little guy. It didn’t mean much but by the end of the campaign, it was amazing. It was actually real.”
We repeatedly saw evidence then and now that they didn’t want any grass-roots (or net-roots) support. We saw various requests to not donate to progressive organizations but just to OFA. Rather than ride the wave of support, they chose to force a top-down organization with no one but the establishment Democrats in charge.
danimal
Dionne’s article hits the mark. IMHO, the most effective line of attack on St. Sarah of the Northern World Order is that she is a grifter, an Alaskan carpetbagger who sold out before completing half a governor’s term. Beck hardly hides that he is a charlatan out to make a buck.
Characterizing the tea party as a scam is a clever (and accurate) way of getting the tea partiers attention, as well as a good hook for the media.
Kryptik
@jwb:
Don’t forget about reporting the numbers as ‘under 50,000’ or ‘significantly less than Glenn Beck’s own rally’ some such like that, especially if it breaches the hundred thousands mark.
Omnes Omnibus
@Corner Stone: It is, of course, possible to be very busy doing unhelpful things.
Joyful
The DNC was demobilized, too. And I hate the new logo, which reminds me of Target, which I’m boycotting because it gave (IIRC) S600,000 to a right-wing homophobe who’s running for the Senate from Minnesota.
Marmot
@mclaren:
I’m a little out of my element on this one, but “Overly enamored of bipartisanship and make-nice” is the best explanation I know for the Obama admin’s jettisoning of campaign-era activists.
gene108
I’m not against taking a dig at Code Pink / Cindy Sheehan, because at some level the outrageous groups undermine the overall cause.
PETA, Code Pink, et. al. turn off more people than anything to the causes they want to support by their antics. The people Steward purportedly is trying to reach get turned off pretty quickly by loud, over the top protests. Even if they aren’t aware of something and get some info because of a protest, the brashness of the protest turns them off before they digest what’s going on.
Pam C/femlaw
What are you talking about? There was no “stand down” or “demobilization.”
Phonebanks, massive responses at townhalls, letter writing campaigns, email campaigns, yep all of that happened for healthcare at huge levels.
OFA, HCAN and labor were out there in force on the ground, constantly, and I saw many other organizations and individuals online and offline who were highly engaged in driving pressure on Congress. In fact I saw this community responding in droves to make calls and pass the damn bill.
In fact, this overwhelming grassroots response is basically why the tea party and the GOP failed to kill healthcare during the August recess, which is what they intended, and why it refused to die after the loss of the Massachusetts Senate seat.
How is it we could magically get something passed that had been tried and failed for over 90 years, if there wasn’t that kind of pressure out there?
I wrote a summary of the fight shortly before final passage that goes into all of this, including the really huge #’s of people, calls, etc. involved: HRC: Not Exactly the Waterloo They Were Looking For.
numbskull
@Dave: And you’ve signed up how many voters this cycle?
Kryptik
@gene108:
So why are they so taken in with the loudest, greediest, most amoral and blatantly prejudiced groups that make up the Tea Party? Simply because ‘they’re not flaming leftists, so they must make some sense’? What the fuck sense does that make? The fact that the groups you list remain firmly on the fringe of the left wing, while the even loonier groups on the right wing not only get mainstreamed, but lauded by the same kind of folk you say get turned off by the Code Pinks and PETAs makes me want to bash my head into the pavement until I leave a pothole large enough to overturn a Hummer.
MattR
@gene108: I agree with this. I do get annoyed at Stewart for the false equivalences he pushes at times but I think in this case it was a necessary evil in order for him to reach out to the people he was trying to reach. And I think he was focused on the disruptive protests coming from the left (though of course you would never know that based on the media coverage). There was a poster elsewhere who said the biggest mistake Stewart made was using the word “moderate” to get the alliteration he needed. People immediately associate that word with things like “independent” or “non-partisan” whereas I think he meant it as “reasonable”
@Kryptik: I think the way the media portrays both groups has a lot to do with it. I am pretty sure there were a lot of people turned off by the ugliness at town hall meetings about HCR, but the media was not interested in covering that aspect of the story. And I think those are the type of people that Jon is trying to attract to his rally.
gene108
@Marmot: Maybe President’s don’t always keep the sort of organization they use for a campaign in tact, after they assume office?
As far as bi-partisan out reach goes, I think it had to be done. The country had gotten too bitter and even some of the GOP were willing to consider it, as evidenced by some early criticism, in 2009, of the Limbaugh’s of the world (though these comments were walked back).
Unfortunately the right-wing media machine has as much or more influence over the Republican Party as politicians in the Party.
Karl Rove is now on the outside looking in, with his clear headed analysis that O’Donnell was a bad move over all in Delaware, versus Hannity, Palin’s, et. al., who happily cheer and push the Angle’s and O’Donnell’s of the world.
What’s surprising is how quickly President Obama lost control of responding to criticism and attacks. His campaign was one of the best in history in knocking down any attack, which came his way and pointing out errors in his opponents. They seemed to completely lose control of the media, after getting into the White House.
gene108
@Kryptik:
As Dionne’s op-ed points out, only 18% of the country really supports the Tea Party. It isn’t mainstream, in the way the NFL is mainstream because the NFL is the most popular pro-league in the U.S. bar none.
The reason the Tea Party gets more attention than is warranted is because of the money backing them, Fox News giving 24/7 attention to them and giving people a visible platform, who for whatever reason lost their shit when Obama got elected.
Second, the Tea Party really is nothing more than conservative Republicans looking to finish taking over complete control of the Republican Party. As long as they are staying under the umbrella of the Republican Party and the Republican Party is one of the two major political party’s in the U.S., the Tea Party folds into something, which is already mainstream.
Marmot
@Kryptik:
Actually, yep. Tea Partiers, in their polarized, real-American-versus-interchangeable-enemies mindset, consistently portray themselves as normal, “heartland” Everymen. And the media buys it.
It’s not so surprising when you contrast the coverage of Tea Party rallies with that of, say, the 50K 1999 WTO protest in Seattle. Fringey lefties portray themselves and look like fringey lefties, while fringey righties think they’re apple pie. When they’re on TV saying crazy things, it’s still hard to show they’re nuts — hell, they’re overweight, white, middle aged or older, with kids and an American flag.
Kryptik
@gene108:
Even granting the small numerical size, you have to see that even those who don’t call themselves ‘tea partiers’ seem to fall hook line and sinker for the same exact fucking policies that the Tea Party rails for, despite being the exact same fucking policies the GOP ran on and implemented the 8 years prior, simply because it’s branded as something new, so it must be, and it must be serious because it’s not a Democrat proposing it!
FUCK all, I just…god. I feel so goddamned helpless because it seems like this whole fucking morass is totally impenetrable by any and all sense, and the only way to actually get through it is to go full on teabagger and give in.
Nutella
Dionne thinks that the compulsive coverage of Tea Part events by the MSM is obviously the fault of progressives for not being … what? Not being crazy enough? Not being Republican enough?
The MSM covers small Tea Party protests on the front pages and big anti-war or immigration reform protests in tiny footnotes or not at all. But they’re just covering the news as it happens, really they are.
See this for a depressing but all-too-accurate description of the MSM’s attitude towards ‘news’.
John S.
Enough with all the mental masturbation.
If Democrats, liberals, independents, progressives or whoever STAY HOME and DON’T VOTE, then whatever twisted regime we end up with in November is THEIR fault and nobody else’s. There simply are not enough Republicans and Teatards out there to sweep into victory unless everyone else stays home and pouts.
Obama and the Democrats shouldn’t HAVE to do anything to make people want to go out and vote. Voting is every citizen’s civic duty. Period.
Kryptik
@John S.:
I think a significant problem here is, to many, even those who are damn well going to vote simply because there’s no other choice, the impression is that, even if Progressive are threatening to stay home, the visuals make the case that the Democratic Party as a whole gave up long before any threats from the Progressives or ‘professional left’.
Mind, I exclude Obama from that, at least partially, because most of the rot has come from Congress and the mindless, spineless hacks within. Obama’s hardly blameless, but of the Congress, I can count the people worth saving on one hand. They’ve all been that goddamn worthless.
MattR
@John S.:
Great in theory . Not so much in practice. We shouldn’t HAVE to tell people that Muslims are allowed to build community centers and mosques wherever they want, yet here we are.
PS. My favorite thing about mental masturbation is the frequency that I can do it.
Rabble Arouser
@Marmot: I of course cannot speak for every situation, but in my experience, a core of wealthy donors has been the cornerstone of every successful campaign I have worked. When you have wealthy friends, you can hit them up for an impressive amount of money early on, which lends credibility to your run, and encourages others to donate to a given campaign or candidate. When you don’t have an inner circle of wealthy donors to hit up, you often start out low and slow, and while it can still be feasible to make a successful run, the odds start getting a bit longer.
FlipYrWhig
I have been told repeatedly that OFA does _a lot_ of grassroots organizing, still, and has done so throughout the Obama presidency. For some reason, though, that work hasn’t broken through to other segments of the online activist and quasi-activist community, and hence everyone keeps talking about how little mobilizing there has been. I don’t know what’s true, but I’ve definitely heard about continuous and ongoing mobilizing efforts.
John S.
@Kryptik:
Frankly, I don’t care what the optics are anymore. It’s just more mental masturbation.
In the retarded system we operate under, you can vote for incompetent or evil. You either get Speaker Pelosi or Speaker Boehner. Majority Leader Reid or Majority Leader McConnell. That’s it. Those are your only choices.
Yeah, it sucks, but again – those are the choices: incompetent or evil. Staying home in protest is a de facto vote for evil, pure and simple. It isn’t a protest or moving the Overton window or any other lofty concept. It’s letting a vote for evil triumph over your vote.
I will go out and enthusiastically vote for incompetent over evil every fucking time. And I have since I have been able to vote. It is my duty as an American citizen, and my moral obligation to do my part to keep evil out of office.
Jay in Oregon
This is fucking unbelievable.
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2010/09/man-without-mortgage-loses-home-in-foreclosure/
John Bird
@mclaren:
Wait, it was my understanding that the White House attempted to mobilize those groups after the election but without November to motivate them they lost participation.
Marmot
@Rabble Arouser: Thanks Rabble, I suspected as much. Is it your experience that this factor tends to cause candidates to shy away from economic populism? Or are there wealthy donors who understand that the better the middle and lower classes do, the better they will do too?
That seems like a really stupid question, now that I’m reading it.
John S.
@MattR:
That’s a really invalid analogy, but as you said, mental masturbation is fun and easy. I agree that the Park 51 issue should also be a simple construct, but it’s certainly not. There are many points of view, but it’s all irrelevant because nobody is holding a “vote” on the matter, and the fate of that project is really in the hands of the developers and nobody else, despite all the nonsense.
Voting in this country is a completely binary construct – it’s either one or the other. Evil or incompetent? What will it be?
FlipYrWhig
@Kryptik:
If you think the economy is bad because Obama is getting the government involved in too many things, and spends too much money on people who don’t deserve it (a range that goes from lazy poor people [health care, stimulus bill] to arrogant rich people [bank bailout]), some of the Tea Party rhetoric rings true.
In essence, the economy is bad; Obama has done some Big Things; ergo Obama’s Big Things are the reason why the economy is bad, so let’s stop ’em!
Actually IMHO the big issue is that the media is deathly afraid, especially in a world of shrinking audiences, of alienating right-leaning news-watchers. So they err on the side of taking all right-wing nonsense seriously, in order to show that they’re not “biased.” Thus the right gets a respectful airing, the left gets bupkes, and here we are.
You Don't Say
Loved this brief post on Krugman’s blog:
Waaaaah Street
A great piece about Wall Street rage by Max Abelson. Basically, they feel underappreciated. How dare Obama talk about fat cats, or suggest that runaway finance had something to do with the mess we’re in?
Bankers are offended. They speak of betrayal. Feelings have been hurt.
Did our nation’s elite always consist of such spoiled brats? I don’t think so. We’re in the new Gilded Age — but while the old robber barons said “The public be damned”, the new ones say “Ma! He’s looking at me funny!”
And these are the Masters Of The Universe.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@aimai:
This makes a lot of sense, as usual.
With benefit of a little bit of hindsight, it seems like Obama and his team jumped a little too quickly and too deeply into the nonpartisan business of governing, and left politics by the side of the road, which was a big mistake. I can grasp that some of this was under the pressure of events during the financial crisis in the fall of 2008, by which time the Bush admin had already mentally checked out and Obama, et. al. were effectively having to run the country from Nov 3rd onwards. But it does make me wonder if the US has simply gotten too big and too complicated to be a governable (in a positive sense, i.e. well governed) country any more. Maybe we should split up into smaller pieces.
jibeaux
I think the Rally to restore sanity has a lot of potential for amusingly understated signs — “I can spell reasonably well”, or “I think the legislative accomplishments thus far are fairly impressive, considering the substantial procedural hurdles in place.” There are satellite rallies in various places, but it looks like I’m just going to have to represent through cleek.
Rabble Arouser
@Marmot: Not a stupid question at all. I suppose in my experience it has really depended on the candidate. Last year I did field work for a city councilperson, and despite their economic populism, he was well supported by wealthy individuals and organizations. Of course, he was running for re-election, so I guess you have to factor that in as well…
Persia
Wow, I managed to bork that HTML nicely. Let’s try this:
My kitten, let me show you it.
MattR
@jibeaux: I am heading down from NYC with a friend and we are thinking about one of us making a Stewart inspired poster and the other a Colbert inspired one. I think I want to do a play on FDR’s “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself” but I haven’t figured out exactly how.
aimai
@John S.:
This is precisely the mistake that the Democratic hierarchy is making. of course Voting is a civic duty and its one that all activists and progressives take pleasure in exercising–so what? Their votes are locked in, whether they are voting Democratic or Green or whatever. The Dems have to make their case to the great, exhausted, middle class who can’t figure out what the hell happened to their hope and promise. This is a purely tactical issue, or strategic (I always get confused) but whatever it is its not some kind of moral issue in which the better people (already governing) get to lecture the masses on what is their duty. Because absent laws such as Australia’s laws on mandatory voting, people always have the option of staying home.
The Democrats have to make the case that they would have done better if they’d had a bigger majority and that they deserve to be given another chance. That’s the only chance they have. Shut up and vote already simply isn’t going to cut it. I wish it would.
aimai
Persia
@MattR: “The only thing we have to fear is fear” and “Fear everything,” perhaps?
John S.
@aimai:
What ever happened to personal responsibility (the real kind, not the fantasy GOP kind)?
At what point do people grow the fuck up and stop needing to be coddled and massaged and wooed in order to do what is in their own best interests?
I don’t disagree with you that the Democrats should be doing some things very differently, but frankly, that is immaterial to the stakes in November. Either voters wise up, or they get exactly what they deserve. And frankly, they will have nobody to blame but themselves.
And to clarify, my message isn’t one that the Democratic party can co-opt and effectively use. It is a personal message from one citizen to another. “Shut up and vote!” isn’t exactly how I would describe it. “Evil or incompetent?” is how I would describe it.
Seanly
Maybe the fascination with the tea baggers is the typical media bullcrap. I stopped listening to NPR news coz every other story was something about the wonder of the tea baggers. The whole thing is a scam and it fits that the Snowbilly Grifter Sarah Palin is their Queen.
Millions of Americans protest the war or for immigrants rights and that gets buried, but old white folks in tri-corner hats strung along by the same old conservative masters are a new force to be reckoned with.
Bokonon
As part of its attempt to seem “balanced,” the media has hedged and pulled its punches in its coverage of the ‘Baggers (with the exception of Fox, which is joined to the ‘Baggers at the hip, and promotes them at every turn). As a result, people get a relentless stream of neutral-to-positive coverage, and think the ‘Baggers are both a bigger and less toxic phenomenon than they really are.
The coverage is pretty much always the same: the media waves the optics and rallies in our face, and tell us that the ‘Baggers want less taxation and more freedom. Then they interview a few salt-of-the-earth types telling us that they are “very concerned” about the President’s agenda. Then the media outlet will tell us about the large number of people that showed up at the rally and that, gee, a lot of people wonder about what a big phenomenon this is, and what it means for the upcoming election. Next story up: why is Obama so unpopular with regular Americans?
Message delivered. Over and over and over. Why else do you think that the ‘Baggers stage events and spotlight hogging controversies all the time? It is designed to dominate the spotlight … flood the field … and guarantee constant and repeated coverage … and drown out the Democrats and traditional politicians, who aren’t getting celebrity-style coverage.
As a result of the weak-to-the-point-of-being-misleading coverage, most Americans are unaware of the ‘Bagger’s actual positions, or their corporate funding. And that plays right into the ‘Bagger’s hands, since they like to obscure those positions.
The news media HAS to realize that they are being played for fools, but they seem completely unable to respond – probably because of the orders from their managers and corporate owners. You know, the same ones that have told their news divisions to report on Sarah Palin’s Facebook postings and tweets as news.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@John S.:
There were times after the 2004 election when I would look upon some of my fellow citizens with a mixture of bitterness, loathing and contempt, and think to myself: “so, asshole, how does it feel to be a Good German?”. So yeah, the Dems suck at messaging, suck at politics, and too many of them aren’t much to brag about when it comes to molding policy either. But at the end of the day, the citizens of this country are the ones who really are responsible. In a democracy the people get the govt they deserve. Not individually, but collectively.
Bokonon
Seanly – funny that you raise the situation over at NPR. I can’t stand listening to their morning programming any longer – and have been prodding my local NPR affiliate about it.
The local NPR people tell me (with averted eyes) as discretely as possible that they hear me, and lots of people are complaining, but that they can’t do anything about the national NPR news programming … and that I should complain to those people about what is going on.
In turn, if you contact the national NPR people, they give you a high-handed, smirky line that your opinions are VERY important to them … but that they will strive to present news that they have determined that their listeners want to hear. And that in their opinion, that includes a diversity of voices, yadda yadda yadda.
I suppose that “balance” includes featuring people like Eric Cantor and Newt Gingrich and Mitch McConnell or Dick Armey or the Club for Growth, and giving them celebrity-style coverage instead of political coverage. Which lets these political actors catapult their positions through the media without any questions or factual challenges.
And folks? When you do that for one side of the political devide alone? That’s called bias.
The message is not too subtle. The national NPR people are telling us to shut up and accept what is being handed to us. The actual opinions of their listeners are less important than their internal determinations, and our protests are going into the trash can.
It all leaves us with a dilemma. I don’t want to hurt the local NPR affiliates just because the NPR board of directors was stacked with GOP party hacks during the last Bush Administration (which is when this garbage began, and they made a decided, considered turn to the right in their coverage – remember how they fired Bob Edwards?).
The locals still have good programming, and are worthy of support. But gosh almighty, that national news programming has become BAD. Relentlessly bad. Biased bad. Offensive bad.
How do you deliver a message to the hostage-takers without hurting the hostage?
Steeplejack
@eemom:
Re the union event: They’re a month apart! If your event is going to be upstaged by something four weeks off, you’ve got big problems that Stewart/Colbert rescheduling won’t fix.
Gotta blow for work. Back tonight.
eemom
@nancydarling:
I’m going and some others have said they are too. As it gets closer to the time I’ll be happy to organize a meet up somewhere.
As for where Stewart is coming from, I have a sneaking suspicion that his heart is in the right place, even if his monologues don’t always live up to Progressive Purity standards. He IS, after all, a fucking COMEDIAN.
FFS, Colbert pretends to be a conservative — and he spoke truth to power at that Press Corpse dinner in 2006 like nobody else in the whole miserable 8 years Bush was in office.
ThresherK
“Where are the progressives?”
Still trying to get on TV. Apparently the same “soft bigotry of low expectations” which allowed Shrub’s terminal ~30% rating to be fine, while Obama’s high-40s is crisis!!1!!one! applies to demostrations: One Teabagger equals two, five or ten people showing up for a lefty cause.
@Bokonon: Try this link for the most recent dissembling from the NPR ombud. Apparently, a “good job” is when the left and the right complain equally, there’s no liberal tilt in the actual reportage, but there is a perceived problem, and it’s all but admitted that there’s no way to make the right happy about it, but NPR will never stop trying.
Bokonon
Thesherk – I followed that NPR ombudsman link. It is pretty clear that NPR is treating this stuff as still another public relations exercise and a way to steer impressions … rather than an actual way of addressing problems.
And it is interesting that the ombudsman noted the “controversy” over “celebrity news coverage” by name. Think that they have been getting some complaints about this jive? Maybe just a few? How about addressing the substance of that “controversy”, eh?
All of this, while NPR attempts to sell us on the new and more “punchy” commercial style of broadcasting.
Davis X. Machina
@Bokonon:
I have attached a letter to my dead-tree pledge form for a couple years along these lines:
Dear NPR Affiliate: Find attached a check for one year’s family membership, reduced on a prorated basis. For every half-hour of non-BBC, NPR or PRI-produced news in your programming day, I have reduced my contribution by 2%. Whether you want to play more music, or deliver more actual news I leave to your discretion.
sherifffruitfly
Since when is Kentucky a “larger” state?
cleek
@jibeaux:
i’ll give a shout in your name…if i’m sober enough to remember
ThresherK
@Bokonon: So, which is your affiliate, and what programs are worthwhile from there?
This show is good. Also WAMC’s “The Media Project”.
However, McEnroe used to be on a big AM talker, in down a slot now held down by Disgraced Ex-con Ex-Governor Wife-beater John Rowland. I understand he will actually be broadcasting while in the hot tub his cronies provided for his vacation cabin.
Excuse me while I puke.
J.W. Hamner
Jonathan Chait makes the important point that:
1. Blue Dogs are afraid to pass a middle class tax cut because they are think it will be called a tax hike (on people making +250K).
2. Paralyzed by this fear, they are not going to vote on any tax cuts.
3. Thus they will let all Bush tax cuts expire, and “hike” taxes on both the middle and upper taxes.
Keen logic that.
John S.
That’s exactly how I feel.
eemom
@John S.:
me too. The problem is we are ON that ship that the fucking idiots are gonna sink. And our children are too.
Paula
You know, there are people who might debate the issue of whether the OFA did “stand down”. Like Al Giordano, for instance. I admit I take his stuff with a grain of salt, but I trust that he has more daily interactions with “regular people” who don’t read blogs than many of the people doing speculation in this thread.
As for whether the Democratic party told “traditional organizations” to leave the room, I have a hard time seeing where this idea is coming from. AFAIK the unions, national advocacy groups like the NAACP, and environmental organizations like Greenpeace are criticizing the administration openly but are still keen on working with them. What organizations were told to go away?
JAHILL10
@John S.: Thank you! And can I get an Amen!
Steeplejack
@MattR:
“FDR: The only thing we have is fear.”