A Quote by P. J. O'Rourke
All previous populist movements were demanding things from governments, whereas the Tea Party is saying, 'Give us less, go away.' That's heartening to see.
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Like all populist movements, the Tea Party will eventually peter out. It won't succeed in returning America to the minimalist state of the 19th century.
The Tea Party has very close affinities with independent third-party movements like the George Wallace movement. The Tea Party is still inchoate, still trying to figure out what it's going to become.
Since in every European country between 1870 and 1914 there was a war party demanding armaments, an individualist party demanding ruthless competition, an imperialist party demanding a free hand over backward peoples, a socialist party demanding the conquest of power and a racialist party demanding internal purges against aliens - all of them, when appeals to greed and glory failed, invoked Spencer and Darwin, which was to say science incarnate.
The tea party saved the Republican Party. In a broad sense, the tea party rescued it from being the fat, unhappy, querulous creature it had become, a party that didn't remember anymore why it existed, or what its historical purpose was. The tea party, with its energy and earnestness, restored the GOP to itself.
Crossroads is second to none in our support of Tea Party candidates. In 2010 and '12, we spent over $30 million for Senate candidates who were Tea Party candidates. We spent almost $20 million for House candidates who were Tea Party candidates.
The Democrats don't like the Tea Party because the Tea Party engineered their defeat. The Republicans, some members, don't like the Tea Party because the Tea Party illustrates what they have to do to win and they're not really comfortable with that.
Extremists and populist movements are exploiting people's fear of those who are not like us. We can see the consequences in the form of terrorism and racially motivated violence.
The Washington establishment does not like the Tea Party. Don't you love all these politicians that run around and campaign as outsiders, anti-establishment, 'I'm not part of that Washington culture.' Well, then join the Tea Party, 'cause that's who's really anti-establishment, that's who's really a bunch of outsiders is the Tea Party. But you don't see those politicians who want to be considered outsiders joining or embracing the Tea Party, do you?
When I go about my own politics, I meet Tea Party supporters who I can work with in Congress, that I find common ground with. I find Tea Party supporters who won't let me get a sentence out without judging me. To say that there is a 'Tea Party supporter' is a gross generality.
We love to think this fundamentalism and terrorism is all about poverty, and, of course, it has a connection. You can see that these people not only are poor but they have no outlets. These governments allow no opposition. So what do people do? They go to Islam. It's the only organizational institution where they can express their feelings. But it's not about poverty. I've never seen a single demonstration in which the people have come out with signs saying, "Please give us better roads. Please give us new prenatal clinics. Please give us a new sewage system."
The fundamental weakness in the Tea Party machine is the stark difference between what the leaders of the Tea Party elite - plutocrats like the Koch Brothers -want and what the average grassroots Tea Party follower wants.
Part of why the Tea Party so deeply threatened the elite media is the tea party looked around and suddenly realized, there are more of us than there are of them.
I'm a believer in the Tea Party. I love the Tea Party. I love the people in the Tea Party. And, yes, I have a lot of different likes and maybe dislikes. And I don't know why.
I think we have a Tea Party mandate, and that Tea Party mandate is for good-government type of things, things like term limits, things like a balanced budget amendment, things like read the bills for goodness sakes, things like that maybe Congress should only pass legislation that they apply to themselves as well.
One thing Republican leaders, regardless of whether they love us or they hate us, have got to understand is there's no way in hell there will ever be another Republican president without the active engagement of the Tea Party masses and support of the Tea Party masses.
The Tea Party thing is only apt in some ways. The activism in the town halls, that looks superficially like it. But what the Tea Party did was, they went after the party, the Republican Party, as their vehicle. And parties is how you change history.
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