The Fundamental Significance of the Tea Party Phenomenon

O.K., the title seems pretentious; the use of the word "fundamental" in context may suggest that I am laying claim to some special insight. Maybe, maybe not. That's for the reader to decide.
In short, I think what is most important in the Tea Party movement is unity; unity that transcends, and may ultimately overcome, the politically-driven balkanization of America. (1)
This unity, as I see it, is certainly not a lock-step agreement on most issues, but it seems clear that there is a consensus on certain principles, ideas and approaches strong enough to trump other areas of disagreement.  It is the unity suggested by e pluribus unum.


There are several ideas that animate the Tea Party movement (TPM), but that of constitutional government bids fair to be the greatest. There is a listing of Tea Party principles on Wikipedia (under the "Agenda" heading) that seems to be broadly true but curiously (2) incomplete.  It fails to mention, for example, liberty, support for free markets, individualism, national defense (3) and for the 2nd and 10th amendments.  Notice that the items listed flow largely from the constitutional principle of limited government accountable to the people.  And there is a strong element of common-sense -- the real-world observation that behaviors are followed consequences.

It is important that the Tea Party not be directed by the kind of centralized (state and national) leadership familiar to us in established political parties.  Indeed, the greatest strength of the movement may lie in its decentralization, and a case could be made for calling it the Tea Parties movement.  Commitment to founding ideals and local leadership may be the sufficient organizing force.  Driven by ideas of limited government,  fiscal responsibility and individuality, the movement's voting and spending behaviors will reward, on the one hand, and hold to account on the other, politicians without regard to party affiliation.  To be sure, the movement is conservative, reflecting the majority of Americans.  For that reason it is ideologically closer to the Republican party than the Democrats.  But it is essential that the Tea Parties influence election outcomes on the basis of principle rather than party.  Republicans who are not conservatives will likely be punished, and Democrats who are conservative -- if such there be -- will be rewarded.

Predictably, Progressive statists regard the Tea Parties with fear and loathing.  The ideals of the movement run directly counter to all they represent: ideals of individualism, free markets -- capitalism (4) -- limited government and the Constitution meant to restrain its powers. In fact, the Western tradition itself, which under the Founders' hands, reached its highest point.

The left's mendacity in demeaning the Tea Parties is virtually boundless.  They have characterized participants as ignorant and uneducated, religious bigots, hateful and violent, militia terrorists, racists (of course), homophobes, xenophobes, nativists and whatever other unpleasant traits they find in their own reflection but fail to acknowledge.

Liberal politicians like to point out that the TPM is not greatly concerned with big government ideals of "Social Justice", and, in this, they are largely correct.  Social justice is a noble-sounding construct that gives government the power to redistribute taxpayer monies to competing factions.  In doing so government is able to divide opposition into grievance-parsing competing groups, take a growing percentage of revenues for government expansion and create dependent classes of reliable voters.  The net effect is to divide the nation, erode civil society aggrandize the power of government and destroy the economy. The process is nicely described by Robert Weissberg, who says,

"[It begins] by uncovering some "gap" between haves and have-nots. Contemporary examples include differences in health care quality, life expectancy, educational attainment, home ownership, obesity, internet access, credit card fees, fresh produce in supermarkets, superior day care, salt and trans fat consumption, university faculty appointments, visits to national parks, corporate salaries, illegitimacy, home libraries, high school dropout rates, stock ownership, and countless other conditions."

Later he comments,

>Gapism is a brilliant political strategy to destroy limited government. Handy statistics are readily accessible, and armchair computers [sic] analysts can achieve egalitarian social justice without leaving home. Public employee unions are, needless to say, hardly disinterested bystanders.

 
Despite the efforts of legacy media, Hollywood, academe, well-funded liberal websites and and statist politicians to mis-characterize Tea Party supporters, they have had less effect than one might imagine.  The left hopes fervently to find ways (by provocation and infiltration) to make the case that the TPM is inherently violent, and the public should fear them.  But statistically and anecdotally the left -- past and present -- owns violence. 

United by the power of the Founding ideas, largely autonomous in its grass-roots manifestation and strongly opposed to the divisions of identity politics, the Tea Parties may ultimately unite the plurality of America. 


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(1)  Balkanization is the result of identity politics.  Cynical manipulators pit classes, groups and individuals against one another to accumulate power. It is a divide-and-conquer strategy that sails along before the wind of Identity politics (mostly, but not exclusively a creature of the left) has created a web of fault lines that threatens the core of the republic -- a flourishing civil society.
(2)  As I have previously written, Wikipedia is more often than not a good source of information about matters that are not politically charged; regarding matters that are I am -- on occasion -- surprised to find articles that are accurate, complete and unbiased.
(3)   Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) often told reporters that voter concerns about national security were a major factor in his victory at the polls.
(4)  The very term, "capitalism" has been the object of attack at least since Marx, and it proceeds apace under American and European collectivists.  In the 1940's F.A. Hayek noted:

It is now often said that democracy will not tolerate "capitalism".  If "capitalism means here a competitive system based on free disposal over private property, it is far more important to realize that only within this system is democracy possible.  When it becomes dominated by a collectivist creed, democracy will inevitably destroy itself.  [my emphasis]

 -- The Road to Serfdom, University of Chicago Press, 1994.  Pp. 77-8