The Tea Party - Like them or not, they're winning.

"The more that you fear us, the bigger we get." -Marilyn Manson

Running errands for work yesterday, I saw several news network broadcasts in the lobbies of various businesses, predominantly liberal-leaning news networks like NBC, and coverage of the Tea Party Movement consumed approximately 1/3 of segments in their entirity. Of course, that being said, the two main topics of discussion of the Tea Party were its alleged participation in the acts of vandalism against HR Democrats who'd voted in favor of the Health Care bill, and how its a fringe movement that appeals far more to "GOP-leaning" Americans than Democrats, and is hence poised to hurt the Republicans in the upcoming elections (by splitting their voter base).

I've already discussed in a couple of previous posts that highly biased mainstream media outlets are NOT conspiracy-serving propaganda-mills; but large quasi-entertainment corporations that pander to a lowest common denominator target market of consumers, saying whatever is necessary to keep their core viewers from changing the channel, lest they lose their advertising revenue. And this slandering of the Tea Party is absolutely no different; if anything, it is the above phenomenon compounded. Here are a few inconvenient facts the media broadcasts leave out regarding the Tea Party, followed by a brief discussion of why this matters:

1.) The Tea Party is NOT a Political Party. The talk of split votes is kind of null and void considering that at this point, with roughly 3 weeks left before Congressional Ballot petition deadlines, no Tea Party organization has announced either becoming a political party or even endorsing any candidates, much less nominating them.

2.) Every Tea Party organization website I have visited, just like this blog, takes a very strong stance that it does not tolerate violence or illegal activity, including the promotion of these on their forums. So, while no doubt there are always a few sociopaths willing to throw rocks at people's windows in the name of any philosophy, any attempt to "frighten" people by tying in any supporter of the philosophy with the violence is very far-fetched in terms of working.

3.) The polls that ask Tea Party supporters their political affiliation do not allow them any option that does not specify one of the 2 major parties. They have the option of agreeing or "leaning" Republican or Democrat, but not of marking "independent" or any third-party affiliation. Considering the rampant political ignorance in this country, even among self-proclaimed anti-governmentalists, and the undeserved pedestal of political party affiliations; it makes perfect sense that in this situation, detractors from the mainstream agenda pushed through by an almost unprecedented majority control of the government by one major party will choose the other major party if given an "either-or" decision.

Now then, here is why every one of these is exactly what The Tea Party needs.

First and foremost, the Tea Party doesn't have the resources of many older political organizations, so free television coverage that consumes 1/3 of every major network's time is about the best favor anyone can do them. Sure, they may prefer coverage that is a little more accurate than just references to idiots throwing rocks at windows and claiming to be affiliated, but even this drives traffic to their websites and makes people talk about them. Fox News, the accepted conservative news network of the US, is probably tied a little closer to the leadership of the GOP than these liberal networks to the Democrats; and in 2003, when G.W. Bush's popularity began to take a nosedive, they were a little smarter in minimizing coverage of the variety of detractor groups rather than slandering them, most notably Iraq War protestors. I have my hypotheses for this difference in approach, but suffice it to say, Fox News succeeded at least temporarily in creating the false impression in Bush's opponents that he was still popular while they were isolated and disillusioned that they would not be heard, although anyone with any basic knowledge of politics realized this was very much the other way around.

Secondly, in light of the effect described above, spreading the falsehoods of vote-splitting and GOP-leaning are absolutely the contrary of what the DNC might want their propaganda mills to do if, in fact, these were their propaganda mills. Dictators in the most unapologetic police states, who have their media on a leash, would have the anchors executed for this type of reporting. Public opinion polls, even those conducted by liberal networks like CNN, show clearly that both the Health Care bill and Obama and Congress Democrats are extremely unpopular and seemingly on a mission to see if they can beat G.W. Bush's record for most approval rating lost in the shortest period of time. (This is a hyperbolic comparison, I'm not quoting actual speed-of-loss statistics.) So, doesn't it seem a little contradictory to help this situation by screaming on TV about a "fringe movement that identifies largely with the opposing party"? If people, particularly swing voters who came over to the Democrats in recent years due to Bush's unpopularity, aren't happy with the Democrats - and they're not - then you've just given them a place to find those who agree with their sentiment! The linking of violence and vandalism may stop a few people, but there are others it will drive to find out for themselves who these "barbarians" are, and looking at any of their websites they will quickly discover these are in fact non-violent activist groups who agree with them. As for vote-splitting, this farce is likely to hurt Democrats more than help them. Many of these networks' core viewers are hardcore liberals who affiliate with far-left parties such as the Greens and various Socialist movements. These people detest the Republicans, so this baits their continued watching of NBC, but they are largely of the view that the Democrats don't go far enough (ie: the elimination of Obama's Public Option). Sure, they'd rather see Democrats than Republicans in power, but if NBC is able to create the impression that the Tea Party will take votes from Republicans and make elections safe for the Democrats, they are more likely to vote Green or Socialist to voice their discontent with Democrats. If you don't think this affect is very real, you need only think back to the 2000 presidential election. Many far-left liberals thought Al Gore was too moderate for their liking BUT safely guaranteed the White House, so Ralph Nader's 5% in Florida secured Bush's victory. All the fraud and unfairness allegations don't take away from this fact - if Gore had had just 2/5 of Nader's votes in Florida, there would have been no controversy that made any of these possible.

If anything, the only accomplishment of slandering of the Tea Party is to give supporters of the Democrats the false hope that, come November, their supermajorities in the Federal Congress and many state legislatures are, for lack of a better term, not doomed. This isn't to say every single one of these bodies will switch to Republican majorities, but the days when bills like Health Care could be passed without a single vote from the opposition party, and the only moderates to be convinced are fringe-movements within the Democrats, will be long-gone. Conservative media continued to disseminate the idea that their majorities in Congress were unbeatable and would only grow up until election day in 2006, and then again that John McCain had a significant chance of winning up to election day in 2008. The only viable explanation for this is the confirmation of my theory that mainstream media outlets' primary concern is to PROFIT from people's political views, not shape public policy by informing them. In a traditional sense, this is a goal fitting for theater, not journalism; but theater is exactly what these networks are.

To re-iterate, the Tea Party is a movement that tries to unite Americans sickened by a decade of unaccountable government, particularly federal. If they were really a fringe-group of the GOP, it would make sense for them to work within that framework and openly identify with the Republicans; a multitude of groups fed up with the Republicans under Bush were active in election years from 2004-2008, but most of the ones to gain national press were strongly and openly tied to the Democrats, seeing them as a solution. The whole point of the Tea Party's non-partisanship and their continued resistance of the temptation to organize as a third party or even as a single united movement, is that they seek to unite a broad base of people who are disgusted with the status quo of American politics, and the race-to-the-bottom inherent to this two-party plurality system in which the elected politician only has to convince the voters that his opponent is MORE of a sleaze and a thief than he is. The movement rejects a partisanship because it does not have a clear political agenda, and could not form a policy platform that any majority of its followers would support. Instead, their goal is to drive voters to get informed and find out what their elected officials really represent rather than limit themselves to a party label, which is EXACTLY what is long-overdue in the United States. The last major shuffling of political affiliations in this country occurred under LBJ in the late 1960s when he took up the cause of the Civil Rights movement and many Democrats switched over to the Republican Party - this occurred because until that point, the Civil Rights groups were a fringe movement that agreed with neither mainstream agenda. 40+ years of stoicism is a long time for both major parties to become pets of crooked special interests, because stoic polarization means movements not affiliated with either party are unlikely to have much say in politics, and the longer this goes on, the more unaccountable the government becomes. The Tea Party is not a new idea, it is just an indicator that we have reached the point at which government cronyism has pissed off enough Americans to seek real change that neither major party backs, a point we have reached several times before at which the political arena has seen large shifts. I'm not indicating there will be a new major party while one of the two current disintegrates, or that the major parties will split and form two new parties, although these ARE possibilities. I'm only saying this is an indicator that Americans have once again had enough and the Tea Party has enough support that one or both major parties will be forced to accomodate them in their agendas, or face catastrophic losses as the opposing party does so.

I rarely make the commitment of support to any political organization, but this calls for an exception. Tea Partiers, I salute you.