I suspect that many Republican politicians sincerely see their own party as composed of sober businessmen, plus crazy people wearing tricorne hats, plus crazy people waving fetus selfies, plus crazy people jabbering about Mexicans. The behavior of establishment Republican politicians can be seen as trying to placate/gull the various crazies so that the real work of the business lobbies can finally get done.
Amusing sentences (“fetus selfies”). In thinking about this, I am inclined to differentiate between two aspects of the Republican base. On the one hand, there is the Tea Party. On the other hand, there is the Trump/Fiorina Party.
At one point, I thought that the Tea Party’s issues were the bailouts, government spending in general, and Obamacare. On those issues, I am with the Tea Party and I share their disappointment with the Republican establishment, as represented by John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, and John Roberts.
The Trump/Fiorina party looks different. Trump wants to appeal to xenophobia, and Fiorina wants to mobilize the right-to-lifers. If the Republican establishment would prefer to be softer on immigration and less obsessed with the abortion issue, then I am with the establishment.
Of course, Democrats and the media do not see this distinction between the Tea Party and the Trump/Fiorina Party. They use Tea Party as an all-purpose boo-word. So they treat Trump and Fiorina are synonymous with Tea Party.
But to me the difference matters. And I am struck by the disappearance of what I thought of as the Tea Party as a factor in current politics. I hope that in the next several months the Tea Party comes back and the Trump/Fiorina Party recedes.
In an essay that I saw after writing this, Jerry Taylor makes the case that the Republican race, and in particular Rand Paul’s poor showing, is an indication that libertarianism is weak among the masses. And he also throws some cold water on my own hopes:
According to a survey conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute, more than half the Tea Party is made up of the religious right while only 26 percent—the smallest ideological bloc within the group—can be loosely described as Libertarian. And Tea Partiers have always manifested a large degree of nativist populism.
Have a nice day.
Libertarians don’t have to be well represented in the population at large to be influential. They’re a sizable minority in the tech sector, especially in what’s being dubbed “fintech” (finance tech), which includes lots of bitcoin/blockchain experts. Coming off a stint as an editor at a fintech site, and going to loads of related conferences, I can confirm this.
And of course libertarians wield power through conservative think tanks.
Libertarian whining about a lack of power or influence is just so much nonsense.
Nobody is whining. But we also believe a vast majority of people should be able to see the truth. We are getting the government they deserve. So we’d be justified if we whined a little.
So they have more power than their numbers in the general population would predict, but they SHOULD have even more, and would if the American people weren’t so idiotic.
Gotcha.
Correct.
Do you need me to provide examples where voters are simply wrong?
But you are wrong about one thing. I don’t want any influence at all, unless people who get to vote are easily shown to be wrong.
For just one example, because the employer health insurance deduction is popular and unsustainable that has helped politicians implement really bad ways to try to phase it out. This is voters being flat out wrong and if one libertarian was clear thinking on the issue he should be made emperor for a day to fix this issue.
I see the establishment position as lip service to unification and the Tea Party position as our way or the highway along with the failure to acknowledge their weakness leading only to obstruction and posturing, including feigning surprise at their own weakness. With libertarians only 5% of the population, assuming they all vote Republican, would represent 10%, but many probably aren’t politically active.
That statement as written is probably wrong. If you are using a definition of “libertarian” so tight as to be only 5%, you’ve probably leap-frogged past the ones who do vote to the ones who refuse to vote.
I am relying on the Kaiser polls of what voters actually believe rather than what they assert.
And I bet you’d get similar numbers for similar polls properly identifying conservatives and progressives.
I view the tea party as fundamentally, pardon the pun, outsiders.
Tea Party = outsider + motivation
The libertarian opportunity was always to add education to the motivated outsiders. Never fear. The insiders will screw things up again. Maybe soon.
Jerry Taylor: “And Tea Partiers have always manifested a large degree of nativist populism.”
What is “nativist populism”. I take it as a slur like “dumb stupidists”. It doesn’t apply to the Tea Party movement.
Trump is the populist with a nativist message. “Let’s make our country great again”. It is quite effective. Trump is the only candidate shouting out his proposals, rather than issuing vague press statements. I have to like that.
The Tea Party wants lower taxes and less debt. This more specific appeal didn’t excite the masses.
I suggest that Republicans and conservative Democrats like the “strong horse”. The Tea Party didn’t become strong enough. Trump makes the reasonable case that he only needs votes; he has the money. People are likely to support him because he can stay in and win, and so he can win.
Aside, I thought the Tea Party had a problem with attracting money. There were many committees labeled Tea Party, and some were probably scams. I wasn’t able to figure out which were real or fake and what their plans were. Many pointed out that the decentralization of the Tea Party movement meant no focused influence over politicians.
Bush II said that a bunch of complaints is not a plan (he was right). Well, howls are not proposals, and “making America great” (ah, imagine the rabid screams if a liberal dared to say America is not great) surely is not a proposal, if much, is a goal.
John, the lack of howls is because you left out the most important word in Trump’s slogan “Again.” His message resonates rather than offends because it says not, as you imply “America sucks, but I can fix it” but rather “America was great, then They screwed it up, but I can singlehandedly make it great again.”
Trump’s slogan is vacuous, but it’s not something that should elicit howls at the suggestion that America isn’t great from enthusiastic Nationalists.
Just imagine someone talking of making America great again when a Republican is living in the White House. Come on, I still remember the rabble-rousing rhetoric wielded against anyone suggesting that invading Iraq was anything less than a great idea. America- i.e. the American government– could not do wrong then, deficits didn’t matter, jobs were irrelevant (remember the jobless recovery?). Maybe “greatness” is a state of spirit.
And, again, Trump is as short of specific proposals as anyone else.
Anyone remember Obama in 2008? Change we can believe in; yes we can; we are the people we have been waiting for(?); oceans receding (elect the anti-Canute), etc.
Trump has a slogan, which is a slogan. He also has a website with three policy papers. He also has a book from 2011 which lays out his thinking. And he has another book coming out in a few weeks. Trump has been more forthcoming about his actual plans and ideas than most candidates. But that does not fit the media narrative, so it is not mentioned. Incidentally, his piece on gun rights is superb. He explains how he plans to make America great again. You may disagree with his proposals, but it is incorrect to say he does not have any.
When it first appeared, I paid attention to the web sites of various Tea Party groups popping up around the country. I agree that the movement was much more broadly libertarian at first.
In fact, at first it seemed that the Tea Party was purposely avoiding social conservatism and nationalist issues.
It appeared to me to take a turn when the GOP establishment along with the Palin / Bachmann types tried to hitch their wagons to the growing Tea Party movement. I was always afraid that the GOP would squash the Tea Party. They did.
I never attended any Tea Party functions, but I still get emails from a local Tea Party group that I subscribed to. Sadly, their meetings revolve very much around social conservative and nationalist issues. That was definitely not the case years ago when their focus was on fighting cronyism and government spending. Sigh.
“in particular Rand Paul’s poor showing, is an indication that libertarianism is weak among the masses. And he also throws some cold water on my own hopes Evidence # 58772”.
I don’t get it: the Religious Right got more than half of the group, (loosely defined) libertarians got 26 percent. What are the other Tea Party ideological blocs and what they got?
Most Tea Partiers were made of people who believed America hit is high point from 1960 – 1964 before Open Border and the Sexual Revolution mucked everything up. (I suspect there is a very small minority against Civil Rights.) Now I know the Tea Party and Trump/Fiornia/Carson has a ton of contradictions such as Fiorina & Carson don’t reach their position without the 1960 movements and Trump has been divorced a couple times.
And Rand Paul 2016 Primary run has been a complete failure as he is no where his father support. (I blame his very unclear rightward move on foreign policy but could be wrong here.)
Maybe Trump strongly believes in marriage…just not THST marriage.
I had to override 3 autocorrects to get “believes” and then it let’s me type THST. The NSA is targeting us through spell check!
Dr. Kling,
Your are being uncharitable when you call Mr. Trump’s position on illegal immigration an appeal to xenophobia. There are good reasons to oppose the massive influx of impoverished workers. There is fondness for the rule of law, for example, and objection to the suppression of wages at the low end. You don’t have to agree with this position, but must you defame it as arising from unreasoning fear?
Ken
Arnold, do you have any new thoughts of why libertarian thinking is rarer than we assume it should be? Is it still the “Fear Of Other’s Liberty”?
I think you missed the boat on this one. The so-called Tea Party was the name given to the rapid coalesce of opposition to the high-handness of the Obama regime. That opposition gave the Republicans control of the House and then the Senate. The Democrats hate them and the establishment Republicans hate them, too. The two parties in DC like or are at least comfortable with the power the status quo gives them. The Republican establishment has done its best to prevent the election of candidates it did not like and to ostracize elected officials it does not like.
As far as the “nativist” slurs, there is widespread feeling that the borders should be controlled, and the immigrants let in should be subject to some orderly process. Since the establishment Republicans do not want to control the borders, at least those in DC, Trump is the only current alternative. As far as abortion goes, the Planned Parenthood videos unmasked the reprehensible practices of that organization, which does not deserve taxpayer support.
Any large group or movement will have members with a variety of views. Does every one have to be defended? The thrust of this group is in the right direction. The elites, even the conservative or libertarian elites, have a visceral cultural disdain for so-called Tea Party members, as people “not like us.”
Groucho Marx said: “I don’t care to belong to any club that will have me as a member.” So it is with the Tea Party membership. It is an ideology without an association because those who hold it do not trust the club will stay true to its faith.
It is conveniently forgotten that in fall 2008 the House of Representatives voted and rejected TARP. The financial markets threw a fit and the nation’s elite including political, corporate and media threw a tantrum. Another vote was taken and this time TARP passed. A few months later the new president presented his plan for the further socialization of the economy. In disgust the Tea Party went national.
The Tea Party message is popular with the people because the ideal of fiscal conservatism is attractive. People want to believe they are self-sufficient and not reliant on society. But the threads of socialism run deep in American society and the politicians are captured by the government bureaucracy and by corporations, who feed off of it. This not only makes it impossible for Congress to reform existing socialistic programs but it compels them to create new ones.
The Republican Party benefited from Tea Party enthusiasm but GOP leadership had no intention of changing its ways. The clarity of this exploitation has, once again, disillusioned small-government idealists and driven the Tea Party into the woods. But by supporting “outsider” Republican candidates and rejecting the insiders the “outsiders” are getting their revenge, if only for a moment.
Another question is how is the Tea Party disappearance related to the fizzling out of Occupy Wall Street?
I think the answer is that these were both anti-establishment movements ‘of the moment’ that emerged in, and leveraged the pent-up energies generated by, the sudden economic downturn and the government interventions (i.e. wall-street bailouts) that followed, and … well … the establishment simply won.
There were people who tried to turn these groups and their emotions into a cohesive organization with a coherent philosophy and long-term goals, but that wasn’t ever possible, partially because of the media headwinds for the Tea Party and despite their tailwinds for OWS; because we already have the parties we can have, and without organized coordination, the populist grassroots are nothing compared to the establishment lawn-mowers.
I find it quite contradictory and odd that the same people who go on about how great democracy is also tend to be the same people who use ‘populist’ as a term of derision.
The tea party was more or less an ethnic pride rally for people who aren’t allowed to hold ethnic pride rallies because their ancestors founded the country.
Trump has cut through the triple bankshot ideological cover and simply gone to directly advocating policies in the interests of the core population of America.
“Trump has cut through the triple bankshot ideological cover and simply gone to directly advocating policies in the interests of the core population of America.”
Apparently, at websites like this one, what you describe is called “xenophobia.”
BTW, I very much doubt that all or even most people in the Tea Party were descendants of the country’s founders. But I don’t think that’s essential to your point.