If you are wondering why the tea parties are popping up and what is motivating them when the first thing Obama did was pass a tax cut, this goes a long way to explain why:
My sense is that it is a delayed reaction in some ways to Bush, and his betrayal of conservatism. For all sorts of reasons, most of the current tea-partiers backed the GOP under Bush and Cheney, although some, to be fair, did complain about some of it. The pent-up frustrations behind conservatism’s collapse under Republicans were trumped, however, by the fruits of power, partisan hatred of “the left”, defensiveness over the Iraq war and torture, and, above all religious devotion to the Leader. Now that Bush has been removed, the massive damage done, and a pragmatic liberal is trying to sort out the mess in a sane, orderly fashion, they’ve gone nuts.
Think of someone like Glenn Beck.
He sat back and watched Bush preside over the worst domestic attack in US history, explode the entitlement state, engage in unending projects of nation-building in two of the most dysfunctional countries on earth, rip up the Constitution, and bequeath as his legacy a trillion dollar deficit, unprecedented domestic discretionary spending, a banking collapse and the worst recession in many many years. The right will take some time to absorb this but Bush was Carter II – with two full terms. All that rage at what has actually happened – bottled up by rank partisanship for years – has come bounding out. Hence the bizarre spectacle of a president just two months on the job being treated on the right as if he’s already Robert Mugabe. Throw in a little racial and cultural panic, add a world of genuine economic pain … and you have the Malkin surge.
Pretty much.
Just Some Fuckhead
lolwut?
These rightwing nutjobs are retroactively protesting a rightwing nutjob president they supported for eight years?
Klaus
Very unfair to Carter, but that is of course part of the Reagan-as-Saviour narrative. Carter was better than the whole eighties put together.
Ash
Huh? WTF is Sullivan on? All these wingnutters are just experiencing some sort of delayed reaction?
Uhm, how about…..THEY’RE JUST FUCKING STUPID?
And calling Bush Carter II? No, Bush is his own man. There’s absolutely no comparison to be made. But of course, as Klaus said, more of the Reagan saves the day meme popping up.
JenJen
Small nitpick, Cole… should’ve provided a warning that Sully’s post includes Malkin’s Defeatocrat Cheer. :-) Hadn’t seen it in awhile, OW MY EYEZ!
I disagree with Sully somewhat here; what I find the most annoying about the "Tea Party Movement" is that every one of these jokers, whether I run into them in person or on a message board, insists they didn’t support Bush, either. They immediately jump down your throat the moment you bring up the word "hypocrisy." See, Sully believes them, whereas I think they’re full of shit.
Also, isn’t it becoming more and more clear that these "Tea Parties" are little more than anti-Obama rallies? I don’t sense any kind of populist outrage among their ranks, I just sense that they’re Palinite Sore Losers who hate the President.
YMMV.
wilfred
I don’t care one way or the other about what these people do but I do admire them for showing at least a little bit of political consciousness.
The other day over a million French people took to the streets. What’s happening in Homeland? Where are the college students whose entire future is about to be flushed down the toilet once and for all. Where are the people who were so incensed about not having affordable health care? Do they think that will be back on the table once the Greatest Crisis in the History of the World is resolved… until the next one?
Is there any praxis left, or is just hot air on blogs and wanking about how the other side is worse?
John Cole
@Just Some Fuckhead: I guess I read it as that they were still just being partisans in denial about the last eight years. I can see what you are saying.
Matt
What a bunch of horseshit. Glenn Beck’s tears are a delayed reaction to the failed Bush presidency? Then why aren’t they throwing tea parties in Dallas outside the new Bush mansion to protest his "betrayal"? Fucking wankers.
jimBOB
The nutjobs are busy projecting their own pathologies onto the new opposition leader. Just like they’ve done for as long as I can remember.
I do think the right is only starting to come to terms with the damage done to themselves during the Bush II years. Whatever credibility they had was destroyed, and now their side is not only actively hated, but is also on the wrong end of demographics, as a new generation of confirmed non-goopers takes the stage and replaces the dwindling ranks of retired wingnuts.
I do think it’s unfair to Carter to compare his administration to Bush’s. The political forces that made Carter the tail end of New Deal liberalism were bigger than the man, but Carter himself is a decent human being who has done many worthwhile things. Bush is an ignorant, venal sociopath whose ex-presidential period promises to be as undistinguished as his pre-age-40 dissolute period.
Keith
Just call it what it really is: a movement that is defined as being a sore loser. Seriously, this isn’t about principles at all – they lost, so they want to do anything possible to delegitimize the winner as they did 16 years ago: Obama should keep W’s WH decor because of economic distress, Obama should do absolutely nothing except focus on the economy (and he should follow GOP principles in handling the economny), he should be impeached because God-knows-what.
These are children pitching a fit because they lost, just like they did last time. Nothing more.
Gump
God I hate reading your comments. It’s like one step up from youtube some days.
KRK
@JenJen asks:
Answer: Yes.
Shinobi
So how long do we have to wait before we diagnose the teabaggers with ODS? (Which conveniently sounds like Odious when pronounced.)
DJShay
Delayed reaction my a**. It’s partisan hackery plain and simple. "It’s ok if you’re a Republican" is their motto. And the only reason some did complain about it was because they were up for reelection and Bush’s approval numbers were so low. Don’t sugar coat it Sullivan.
Dennis-SGMM
@Gump:
jenniebee
Great, but only if it also explains why only a couple of months into the Clinton presidency the Vince Foster murder theories were promulgated by basically the same players.
Ash
@jenniebee: Man, they must have hated Bush Sr. a lot.
Dennis-SGMM
@jenniebee:
It’s simple: the President is supposed to be a Republican.
NonyNony
I think Sullivan loses his point when he uses Glenn Beck as an exemplar. Beck is a quintessential "football fan" political commentator – he has a side and he cheers when they "win" and boos when they "lose". Even more, he’s the partisan equivalent of the guys who strip down to their shorts and cover themselves in body paint in their teams colors – witness is "Doom Room" and other schlock. (A comparison a bit unfair to the body painters, so it’s not a perfect analogy).
But I do see something in what Sullivan’s saying, though I think he’s projecting his own "rationality" onto people. The folks he’s talking about aren’t nearly as "rational" as Sullivan likes to think he is. We’ve had 8 years where people who at least profess to hate government in all of its forms haven’t been able to criticize the President more than once or maybe twice (Harriet Meirs, maybe another I can’t recall right now) without risking being called RINOs and America-haters and kicked to the curb. Of that 8 years for 6 of them they weren’t even allowed to criticize CONGRESS without being called America-haters and RINOs.
It’s been rough to be a government-hating water-carrier for the government. And I think that’s a lot of what’s going on right now – finally, it’s OKAY to criticize the government again! Who cares where the ultimate cause of the problems lies, or who was responsible? Wave your teabags high, Republicans – it’s okay to hate the government again!
I seriously think that’s most of what’s going on right now – the intense relief of the Republican hardcore that they’re finally, after all of these years, able to be mad at the government again. It’s been a tough 8 years for the haters.
Hunter Gathers
This is what happens when your idiological stances turn into a kind of faith-based political doctrine.
Conservatism, in it’s current manifestation, has utterly failed. Everybody except the wingnuts realize that it has failed. But try explaining that to Malkin, Erickson, and the rest of the far-right goons. To the far-right, conservatism is thier religion. It is thier God. And to question thier God is tantamount to blasphemy. Anyone who does dare question it is cast out for not being ‘true believers’. Excommunication, if you will.
I say let them have thier stupid little tea parties, hissy fits and bouts of manic-depressive rage over whatever-is-pissing-off-the-base-this-week bullshit. Do they honestly expect that this collective mixture of fears (cultural,sexual, and racial) will lead them to the promised land? Do they really think that calling the gentle brother everything short of n####r is going to bring about the acension of thier White-trash Snow Princess from Alaska to the White House?
I’ve eaten my fair share of acid and smoked enough pot to kill a horse, and the garbage these people are slinging is hands down the craziest shit I’ve ever fucking heard. And I once had an hour conversation with a John Lennon action figure.
They have nuked the fridge in order to jump the shark.
Libby
Well, since it’s been at least 24 hours since I pimped a shameless blogwhore, I discovered that the organizers aren’t unaware that the rank and file look stupid. I think they’re in it for the tshirt concessions and the opportunity to pitch their own blogsites.
(Warning, link in post to Freeper thread. A first and last for me.)
jrg
"Apt Explanation" my ass. If "conservatives" were intellectually honest, they would not vote, or they would vote libertarian.
JenJen
@KRK: Right. Here in Cincinnati, we had one of the biggest "Tea Party" turnouts last weekend, a moment celebrated by Malkin and Beck alike.
When I went down to Fountain Square, just as a curious observer, it was immediately obvious from the signage and rhetoric that I had somehow stumbled into a time-warp Sarah Palin rally.
Here’s an interesting story on the guy behind the Cincinnati Tea Party from our newspaper (if you can call it that). The guy fancies himself some kind of awakened, non-partisan grassroots activist, but his own Facebook page going back to the election (comments sections in local papers can be illuminating when not infuriating) is littered with anti-Obama graphics, some pretty racist, some not so much.
MattF
I agree with the general point that winger behavior calls for diagnosis rather than reply– but I think the true diagnosis is "Stopped taking their meds when Obama won the presidency."
Libby
I’d also agree that it has nothing to do with delayed reaction to Bush. Judging from my trolls at DetNews, the cognitive dissonance has never been stronger. But they’re just the willing tools of the people who are making money on the outrage.
One thing I’ve been noticing is that wingnuts sound like the lefties did during Bush. It’s uncanny. Exchange a few nouns and some of the comments could have been something I had written in 04. Of course, I wrote my own posts instead of mindlessly parroting anyone, but it occurs to me that Beck and Malkin and Limbaugh etc, are all plagiarizing the left.
tom p
First nominee for best comment of 2009?
Libby
Really good point NonyNony. I also think that’s a big part of it. Not to mention these people prefer to dine on victimhood than work for change.
cleek
Sullivan gives these people faarrrrr too much credit; they are not acting as conservatives, they are acting as Republicans. they are doing things to try to discredit and weaken the Democratic Party because it helps the Republican Party. they can take logically-opposed positions from week to week because they are not championing a coherent political philosophy, they are championing a political party.
i’m sure most of them are actually "conservative" at heart, but the Malkins and Becks and Limbaughs are more interested in playing the partisan news-cycle-point-scoring game than they are about advocating conservative public policies.
the reason it’s so easy to attack them for being hypocritical conservatives is because they’re not actually being conservative: they’re being Republican. and they’re very good at being Republican.
Legalize
These assholes were aflicted with OBS the second Barack became a national player, i.e. the 2004 Dem convention. The "smarter" assholes saw that Barack was no John Kerry, and could legitimately express everything that is wrong with conservatism, and that the public might buy it. The stupider assholes listened to every shrieking lie about the man that the smarter assholes shat out for public consumption, and gleefully ate it up.
The teabaggers are in a very advanced stage of ODS. Malkin and Beck are looking to exploit this much like a TV evangelist would.
Little Dreamer
Bush wasn’t really removed, he was allowed to expire. When I think of removal, it conjures up visions of chains and forcefulness. No one on the so-called conservative side considered Bush a traitor until his presidency was out of date.
Little Dreamer
Malkin et al., are ministers of a religion, and that religion is one of hate, otherwise known as politics. No big surprise that they would act as opportunistic evangelical leaders would. It’s the same damned affliction.
Ash Can
I too think Sullivan’s theory is basically baloney — articulate and thoughtful, for which I give him points, but ultimately off the mark. The neo-cons he’s talking about are, and always have been, all about denial. Growing up, they were told that they can’t be mean, they can’t be rude, they can’t be selfish, they can’t be bigoted, they can’t be boors. Then along comes a socio-political-economic philosophy that says to them, "Sure you can be like that. In fact, it’s those other people who are the ones at fault!" Armed with this permission to maintain/resume their bad behavior, down becomes up, night becomes day, and bad becomes good. Emanating from this mindset of denial of their own fault, they deny that anything their side does is bad and anything the "enemy" does is good. Instead of the tea parties signaling a delayed reaction, they’re just more of the same thing; these people believe they have to fight whatever the other side is doing because by definition it’s bad. It drives the rest of us batshit because it’s profoundly dishonest and contradicts reality. But such is life in Denial World.
Svensker
I dunno, speaking as a former conservative/libertarian/Repub I think Sully’s argument has some validity. When Rush said he didn’t have to carry water for anyone anymore, there was a part of him that meant it. Of course, the resentment at Bush for being a dickwad has been subsumed under the generalized partisan hatred for anything not of the wingtard tribe, but I do think Obama started out with the wingers having un-dealt-with anger issues after 8 years of Dufus.
John Cole, Sully and I are all former righties — any other formers out there with their own take?
Surreal American
Oh it’s more than that. Bush is an Unperson to them. The GOP has placed him in the "the name be stricken from every book, tablet, obelisk and monument of Egypt" category. I guess the POTUS of the last eight years must have been some sort of Clinton or Carter type, at least as far as the economy was concerned.
If only the Repulicans had chosen a "real conservative" candidate for the last 3 presidential elections. He’s kinda like the "True Scotsman", only defined more ambiguously.
Nevertheless the Tea Partiers have to be angry at someone and Obama is currently in office. Since Obama’s American status isn’t "real" enough for them, he’ll do as a target for spleen venting.
feebog
Sullivan is way off when he uses Beck or even Malkin as examples. Beck and Malkin are in it for the money. Period. Sure, they tightly cling to cliched right-wing beliefs, but they do so because it supports a life style that would otherwise be unattainable.
These people feed off fear and hate because it pays well, first and foremost. The philisophical underpinnings are secondary at best.
D. Mason
This isn’t an apt explanation at all, John, at least not in the way you seem to think. This is a bullshit whitewash of pre-meditated maleficence. The right wing political media is trying to take down the Obama administration and Sullivan is making excuses.
As for the Carter II line, why not just call him what he is? Bush II.
Obama might one day fail on his own merits, if given the chance, but for now he is trying to do damage control in the aftermath of the Bush Economy ™. The sore losers on the right are throwing up roadblocks and they’re doing it in plain sight for everyone to gawk at.
I normally find you very credible and I know you have some respect for Sullivan but you both missed the mark here I think. The only way in which his words are apt is that they aptly reflect the clulessness of the writer, but I don’t get the impression you meant it that way.
p.a.
Betrayal!!?? Personification is more like it. Once again, conservativism is whatever conservatives say it is at any given moment. As some DFH said, conservativism can not fail it can only be failed. A f’in’ magic political philosophy.
Sully is ok-now, and if he and the other 0.01 percent of like-minded conservatives can reclaim the R Party from the authoritarians we can have a serious dialog. NaGaHaPen.
Tsulagi
That single almost run-on sentence pretty well sums up the glorious benefit from eight years of Republican stewardship in the form of Bush and his supporting teabaggers.
p.a.
sadly, I typed this (twice!!) sober.
Will Danz
What a bunch of shite Sullivan is trying to sell.
Once again, he invokes some mythological, PURE conservatism that never, ever existed and never will.
George W. Bush was a rightwing conservative. Rightwing conseratives voted for him. They supported him in droves right to the bitter end.
The result is what we saw. Despite Sullivan’s tender psychologizing of their alleged hurt feelings, Beck, Fox News, and nearly the entire elected G.O.P. are just sick fucking sociopaths who are UNABLE TO TAKE ANY RESPONSIBILITY, EVER.
bago
I constantly consider humanity to be in the state of mind where they are waking up at the scene of a car accident, still drunk, to the sounds of the lamentations for the newly dead, looking at their credit card statement and wondering where do we go from here?
Step One: Stop being a person killing drunkard who doesn’t care about the rest of the world.
Paulie Chestnuts
@p.a.:
Well put, p.a.. And apparently conservative’s adherents are so stupid they can’t weed out a ‘conservative wannabe’ (their words) in W during the primaries, or to nominate someone else after the first term.
Honestly, they really are exemplary in their lameness.
r€nato
this is manifestly unfair to Carter.
Carter inherited a lot of shit. The energy crisis, caused in no small part due to Arab oil embargoes related directly to our support of Israel. Talk about sore losers, the Arabs got their butts kicked by tiny little Israel and made the US pay for it.
Carter inherited the blowback from our 1950s coup which installed the Shah in Iran.
Carter inherited a demoralized military nursing its post-Vietnam wounds.
On the other hand, Bush’s disasters were entirely self-made. He ignored the many warnings of the 9/11 attacks. He instigated the disastrous Iraq war. He neglected the Afghanistan war to pursue said Iraq war. He purposely gutted FEMA, using it to dole out patronage jobs so that when a not-unexpected disaster struck New Orleans, the feds were completely unprepared.
Abu Ghraib. Constitutional abuses. Rampant GOP corruption.
the only way one could plausibly say Bush was a two-term Carter, would be if Carter had actually set out to fuck things up as much as possible.
(Carter still gets little credit for negotiating peace between Egypt and Israel, a truly monumental achievement [which still stands] considering they had been at war in the recent past)
Exactly. Ever since Reagan, right-wingers have decided that no Democrat could ever be a legitimate occupant of the White House.
guest
you know what’s odd? malkin herself was an anchor baby.
Shade Tail
Forgive my uncharacteristic outburst of unladylike language, but that is nothing but typical Sullivan-esque cow feces. These GOP dead-enders are not suddenly uncovering a steaming pressure-cooker of hate for Bush, they’re merely following their leaders’ orders.
To wit: everything bad is the fault of liberals and democrats, so blame them. And since there is a democrat running the White House, he is a convenient target for their demagoguery.
Never forget, the GOP is, by and large, the party of authoritarians. The leaders lead, and everyone else follows. When Bush was in the Oval Office, he was the leader and they followed him. Now he’s gone, so new leaders are taking over. And if the new leaders are trying to air-brush Bush out of the GOP, it is only because that makes blaming Obama for everything easier.