Its Not "Bi-Partisanship", Its Tyranny By the Center.

For those of you as "thrilled" with the Lame Duck Session managing to pull together and pass the majority of its rotten agenda as I am, let me explain to you why this isn't a cause for concern.

Lame Duck Sessions have a well-deserved reputation for un-accountable and corrupt policies pushed through by retiring or ousted politicians serving their special interests, especially in years when control of one or both houses will shift once the new Congress is sworn in. They are an opportunity for the defeated majority to engage in all the "midnight legislation" voters don't approve of, based on the philosophy of "they didn't re-elect us anyway". However, THIS Lame Duck Session has been very peculiar and illustrates a trend that both party leaderships continue to pretend not to notice, but that will hit them right between the eyes the day the new Congress is sworn in. I realize the term "bi-partisanship" is a fairly recent invention, but I think the level of inter-party cooperation we've seen in this Lame Duck Session is almost unprecedented in the history of Congress as a whole, much less in Lame Duck Sessions which tend to see very unilateral movement.

Obama may have peddled "bi-partisanship" for the last two years like it was going out of style, but in practice the Democrats did almost everything unilaterally: stimulus bills, Obamacare, climate change treaties - hardly any of this got a single Republican vote and most of it had significant revolts from the fringe left, but the supermajorities allowed the establishment Dems to ignore these conditions while chanting "bipartisanship" like groupies on LSD. Well, it would appear the midterm election instantly brought everyone back from the 1960s Collectivist trip. I remind you that its called a Lame Duck session because it is still the old Congress, not the one we elected in November, and yet NOW, despite one of the most unilaterally operating compositions in history, NOTHING is passing without massive inter-party compromise. The stimulus and unemployment extension that this same Congress passed unilaterally on multiple occasions died in Lame Duck Session TWICE. The Republican hostage-holding of the Lame Duck Session was bad for other reasons, but don't be fooled by the insipid rhetoric that Democrats HAD to compromise to keep the under 250k tax cut. The House passed it and the Senate was blocked from voting on it rather than poised to fail it, the new Senate could have voted on it the day it took power, and despite Republicans having gained a net of 6 seats, it would have passed just fine; I'll discuss why in a moment. It was a similar story with the rotten-to-the-core-as-usual budget bill, START, and the drowning of the one decent economic proposal of the session in the DREAM Act - each of these votes saw 0 party unity on either side of aisle. Obama's party still has super majorities in both Houses, and he's had to compromise and woo a large number of Republican votes to pass his Lame Duck session agenda, known historically to contain the most unaccountable and unpopular one-sided policies.

The reason for this is very simple. The Democrats were obviously punished in this election by voters for their assinine unilateralism in an economic meltdown, but no matter what John Boehner or Mitch McConnell says, the Republican establishment got a thrashing, not a "mandate". Unfortunately for them, Democrat unilateralism came too soon after the unapologetic and wanton tyranny of Bush Jr. and his Republican Congress, and the memories of those days are still too fresh even in the minds of the uninvolved and ignorant American electorate. THIS is why Republican establishment candidates dropped like flies in their own primaries; if we gave the GOP any kind of mandate, it was a mandate toward austerity, NOT compromise. The fact that Boehner, who once spearheaded the doomed austerity campaigns against Obamacare and the stimulus packages, is now as willing to sell his testicles to Obama as Obama is to McConnell and he is absolutely unsurprising. But what is heartening is that Boehner and McConnell are as unpopular among Republicans as Obama and Reid among Democrats despite having gained significantly on paper. In this Lame Duck Session, their sudden enamorment with bi-partisanship has only succeeded in giving Obama enough votes to make up for his revolting fringe, and pissing off their own base ever more while they're at it.

This trend is about to become exponentially worse. The Republicans may have gained a net of 63 seats in the House and 6 in the Senate, but the change in composition is a lot more than this. The 63 is a NET number because Republicans actually picked up 69 or 70 new seats in the House, but lost 6 or 7 to Democrats, adding up to a total of almost 80 district take-overs from one party to the other. And neither the House nor Senate net accounts for the dozens more seats picked up by new legislators who have replaced retiring members from the same parties. These new legislators had to win a primary with no incumbent within their own party to get to the general election, and while the media was obsessed with reporting on incumbents losing primaries, it grossly under-reported just how badly non-incumbent establishment candidates got slaughtered in open seat primaries across the entire country; and this refers to BOTH parties, not just Tea Party vs establishment Republicans. Seeing as the old Congress with mostly establishment legislators has already begun to revolt against party leadership in light of this election, come January we are going to see the kind of austerity this country hasn't experienced since the late 1930s and the derailing of the New Deal.

In short, the short-lived "bi-partisaship" we have seen in this Lame Duck session is nothing more than the death throws of the obsolete corporate and special interest cronyism of both party establishments; cronyism that we've had to choose the lesser evil of for decades but that is now having to join forces against the country's ever-growing disgust with it - not "compromise" - to get things done. Once the new Congress takes power, these establishment proposals will get equal amounts of votes from both sides of the aisle and STILL not have enough to pass, now THAT will be entertaining to say the least. I have this crazy theory that for any kind of representative government to work, it has to be made up of multiple factions that strongly disagree on everything rather than loosely defined party lines that are identical with the exception of the special interest that holds their leash. I'm not saying any of these are saints, but we are finally approaching an age in which Congress will be fragmented between at least 4 dramatically different factions - Progressives, the stalwart social conservative and civil libertarian factions that the Tea Party will almost invariably split into - who will still come together for economic votes, and the remnants of both party establishments that may as well merge into a faction called "the old corrupt luddites". Of course there will be alignments and alliances on various issues, but the 3 former factions agree in that they absolutely detest the 4th, and whether or not it declares any sort of formal unity, it will continue to take electoral beatings until it is reduced to insignifcance. Its not a mandate for either party, its a mandate to get rid of both. Viva the re-alignment, its about damn time.

Black November Continues: Falling stocks and marching fringes.

You all remember the Time Magazine cover with Glen Beck's face with his tongue stuck out and the caption 'Mad Man', double-punning in reference to an article about his looney nature and the anger he represents that Americans harbor against their government, particularly the Democrats? Well, the cheerleaders of Totalitarianism at Time Magazine - the same publication that named George W. Bush and Joseph Stalin man of the year TWICE EACH - can make fun of Glen Beck all they want, I agree he's a clown; but as my predictions in this post-electoral world continue to be verified, it becomes obvious Republicans weren't the only angry Americans in the last 2 years, and it wasn't just the Democrats people were angry at.

Although Banking Pope Bernanke continues re-arranging of the deck chairs, the Titanic held together by duct tape that is the stock market is accelerating on its downward path, and this is seemingly no surprise to anyone other than Mr. Bernake himself. The reason is very simple; the economy never recovered from the Fall 2008 crash. The pre-2009 Congress squeezed through the bank bailout, and then Obama came into office and has allowed the same rescued banks to limp along with his stimulus deals. Well, the stocks have gained some ground but unemployment is still in double digits, multiple state governments are still on the verge of insolvency and the housing crash hasn't gone anywhere - the FHA and other stimuli have at best delayed and spread out the onslaught of foreclosures, but they sure as hell haven't stopped it, helping only the same megabanks that caused it in the first place to avoid drowning in worthless foreclosed properties. Call investors "greedy capitalists" all you want for not wanting to buy shithole properties at 1.5 times their market values because the banks are subsidized and have no incentive to sell it for what its worth - it won't convince them to hand their money over to Goldman Sachs. Unlike the boys at Goldman Sachs, these investors are skilled economists if they endured the recession WITHOUT billions in bailouts from the Federal government. Well, this midterm election just severed the corporate stimulus needle, and that includes the Bush Jr. capital gains tax slashes which look like they will only be preserved for the middle class, so now the 2008 crash is being carried out to its logical conclusion - the purging of the assininely irresponsible investments that caused it. Make no mistake about it, THIS Congress isn't going to bail out anyone - not the banks, not the auto industry, not AIG.

AND for all you detractors who think I'm just being a groupy for the Tea Party again, it has more to do with the ensuing Democrat split than the Republican split. Nothing is funnier than all the crusty old Democratic establishment goats that got sent home 2 weeks ago griping in their departure speeches that Pelosi should step down. YOU OLD FARTS DIDN'T GET RE-ELECTED AND SHE DID, that means the American people don't care what YOU think, just pick up your cane and go home. I'm not a fan of Pelosi as many of you can imagine, but Pelosi is very much a Progressive fringe Democrat - she didn't support the Patriot Act or Bush Jr's wars, she endorsed Obamacare in its original form - which was laughable from a practicality perspective but at least not a complete sellout to the medical cartels, - and so forth. The establishment tried to pin the party's unpopularity on this fringe to get rid of it, but it turned out that wasn't who the American people wanted to get rid of, as evidenced by Democrat incumbents dropping like flies in their own primaries, just like Republicans. The stimulus and the bailouts have always been a primarily Democrat endeavor, but the Progressive fringe has always included the minority of liberals that voted against it like Bernie Sanders and Dennis Kucinich; Pelosi's re-election as minority leader today demonstrates the fringe is powerful within the party and the majority of the election's beating was sustained by the establishment. As for Republicans, there have always been some in the establishment that supported bailouts and stimulus - Bush Jr being a prime example - but the 2006 and 2008 elections sent large numbers of them packing, and the Tea Partiers who have taken their place and broken more of them in the primaries this year are vehemently anti-stimulus. McConnell and Boehner making haste to appease the Tea Party fringe is a rather laughable spectacle after how hard they worked against them - but even if some co-optation on that side of the aisle is unavoidable, the Tea Party has shown what a serious threat it can be and continues to encroach on establishment bids for Congressional leadership, so stimulus is not getting any new support from the right.

Where this leaves us is at an interesting political cross-roads. My prediction is that Obama will actually GAIN popularity in the next 2 years, reconciling with some of his liberal base as he goes back to his roots. He WAS a Progressive fringe Democrat until he became President - voting againt the wars and the Patriot Act at least, if not the bailout; but the sickening likes of Harry Reid and John Kerry have forced him to play both sides. If this happens, however, the establishment that is backed by megabanks, medical cartels, and public unions is not likely to support his re-nomination for 2012. Remember the circus of the Obama/Clinton "unity rally" after they spent months dousing each other in shit in 2008? Well, neither of them was the incumbent back then, and if in 2012 the establishment firmly endorses a different candidate, there are likely to be no unity rallies, but two separate Democrat Parties with their own candidates. This has happened multiple times in our history - 1860, 1896, 1912 - people just assume it can't because they have short memories. Of course, if the Democrats do split, it will hand the presidency over to the Republicans - the splitting incumbent parties lost all those elections mentioned above - but THIS is where the Tea Party becomes crucial. You will all recall that in the 2008 Republican primaries, Ron Paul and Mike Huckabee demonstrated considerable support, and these two candidates can be said to represent the libertarian and social conservative wings of the Tea Party, respectively. When neo-con John McCain managed the nomination, Americans showed the GOP establishment just how much we love them, handing them the first landslide defeat in 28 years. If the Tea Party can squeeze out the 2012 Republican nomination for someone who is disliked by the establishment despite co-optation attempts (Ron Paul would be excellent for this purpose), what's left of the old GOP is not likely to endorse a 4th candidate, but they MAY endorse the Democratic establishment candidate, effectively forcing the establishments out of both major parties. This may sound far-fetched, but it HAS happened before as well. It is unlikely that another neo-con will get the Republican nomination, but if some formerly establishment "suddenly-Tea Party" turncoat like Michelle Bachmann or Sarah Palin can manage it, solidifying the Tea Party's fusion into the GOP, the best we can hope for is the Democrat establishment joining the Republicans (a la 1968) or fading away, re-aligning only the Democratic Party, and even that may not necessarily happen. Call me optimistic, but I will not be surprised if the current party system has seen its last election - and if it has, good riddance to it and its rotten New Deal hybridity.

The Tea Party Movement Hits Puberty.

I'm sure the entire country is familiar with the various recent controversies surrounding the Tea Party and the accusations of racism against it, particularly by the NAACP; and the ensuing coverage of the firing of USDA employee Shirley Sherrod and the Tea Party Federation's explusion of Mark Williams and his Tea Party Express. There are many opinions to be had on the various events and what has really precipitated them vs what is being said in the press, but the purpose of this post is to argue that these events are evidence that the Tea Party has matured into a steady political coalition that other political players are forced to take seriously rather than attempt to marginalize and pretend it is a "fringe" or "radical" movement that won't last or will be swallowed up by existing entities.


Accusations

As stated in my first post regarding the Tea Party, accusations are usually the first sign a political movement is succeeding and the elements it threatens find it credibly dangerous. Remember the last time you saw a negative campaign ad against a 3rd party candidate in the US? Me neither. Furthermore, the more ridiculous and marginalizing the accusations against a new movement, the more credible their threat typically is. The status quo has expended immense resources trying to define the Tea Party before it was able to define itself, mostly sticking to accusations of terrorism and racism. But this "he's the greater evil!" strategy borrowed from the dichotomous political campaigns both major parties have gotten so used to has backfired colossally, succeeding only in driving traffic to Tea Party websites and ensuring it coverage and attention in the media, which has alllowed it not to only define itself but enough exposure that the government and other organizations have no choice but to take the effects of the Tea Party's statements on their PR seriously.

I'm not entirely sure what to attribute this backfiring to, but two factors stand out to me. The first is the ease of information dissemination on the internet - marginalizing someone on TV or in a national newspaper just does not lend the same results it did 20 years ago because people can type the name into Google and access various viewpoints and some factual information. The internet is not perfect and has 9 fabrications for every 1 fact, but TV and newspapers share this quality and accessing 10 different viewpoints online costs a fraction of the time and effort required for the latter mediums. The Tea Party also tends to appeal to a younger crowd that is familiar with the internet, increasing this effect. The second factor is the rampant across-the-board dissatisfaction with both political parties; the abysmal incumbency approval ratings and the landslide success of CA's Prop 14 in June that ended closed-party primaries despite massive anti-campaigns from BOTH party establishments being evidence for anyone who isn't convinced. Americans have been sick of the childish tug-of-war between the two major parties in the current system for at least the last decade, and a new coalition that adamantly refuses to align itself with either of them is bound to thrive in such a climate. It is notable that early attempts to marginalize the Tea Party, particularly by left-leaning, pro-Obama elements, focused hard on painting it as a fringe movement of the Republican Party (in my opinion to prevent it being viewed as a real alternative), but the abysmal popularity of neo-con Republicans and the success of candidates like Rand Paul and Sharron Angle in Republican primaries rendered that strategy obsolete very quickly.


Political Reaction

The firing of Shirley Sherrod by the USDA was in many ways the first sign that the Tea Party was a force to be reckoned with. On a personal level, I feel sorry for Mrs. Sherrod - the story she told in the distributed video was an illustration of her personal growth from intolerance to tolerance and, flawed as the government is at administering equality, becoming an honest advocate of using for this purpose. On the other hand, the irony of a federal bureaucrat crying on national TV that the federal government was unfair to her in responding to the rumors threatening to damage its PR was hysterically amusing. Welcome to the real world, Shirley - this is how everyone NOT employed by the Federal government feels every time we have to deal with it, sorry to break your fairy-tale concept of it being fair and protecting people's rights. More importantly, however, the incident showed that the Tea Party had grown powerful enough politically to use the same tactics its opponents use and be successful. The NAACP and other angry left organizations have used accusations of racism and intolerance for decades to destroy politicians and bureaucrats, in some cases legitimately intolerant ones and in others just ones that happened to use the wrong wording at the wrong time; this works because the PR damage from the accusation alone is so brutal that distancing is always cheaper for the party or bureaucracy than standing by the accused, and the simple premise that such organizations are self-interested dictates they will choose distancing in an overwhelming majority of cases. The fact that the Tea Party was able to use this same dirty tactic successfully illustrates that it has access to public opinion, and access to public opinion means the government has to take you seriously.


Internal Culling

Of course, having the power to sway public opinion is a double-edged sword, meaning that for the first time in its existance the Tea Party is becoming answerable to it. The final illustration to me that the Tea Party has matured into a long-term political force was today's announcement of the separation of political clown Mark Williams and his Tea Party Express, and David Webb's refusal to succumb to the pressure from the left to agree that Mark Williams represented a racist element that the Tea Party now sets out to purge.

I, personally, have always agreed that the Tea Party has its racist elements, and have always adamantly said that this is a necessary evil. The Tea Party is a political coalition and in a pluralistic democracy, political victories can only be achieved by uniting elements that are radically different between themselves but oppose the incumbency. The NAACP and other groups on the left have an abysmal track record for taking any kind of responsibility for the racist elements within their own ranks for the same reason - they may not advance a cause of black or latin militance, but these elements vote with them and there is no need to alienate their guaranteed support. No majority in this country will or has ever agreed on anything close to resembling a party panel, every political party in our history has been a coalition of various interests, and re-alignments happen when new coalitions are formed by elements that endorse neither party. Considering the Tea Party's open opposition to race-tested handouts - such as Affirmative Action - and social welfare in general, it makes sense that many racist groups stuck in a pre-1960s mindset of segregationism and white supremacy who see these policies as an agenda for a takeover by an inferior minority find the Tea Party's opposition to them attractive. But you don't HAVE TO be a segregationist or white supremacist to think that these policies are abysmally destructive to the economy and furthermore, that their economic damage hurts minorities disproportionately highly. Politics is about impact rather than ideological intention, and white supremacist votes in opposition to these policies count the same regardless of their reasoning. The negligible amount of white supremacy present in the Tea Party is nowhere close to enough to change its goal from constitutionalism and fiscal conservatism to one of racism and segregation, so as with the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s, it is hardly a cause for concern.

So why didn't David Webb say all that? Precisely because The Tea Party is now an established political organization vulnerable to public opinion and cannot afford to admit having racists among their supporters just like the NAACP can't fess up to theirs. Mark Williams was expelled for the same reason Shirley Sherrod was fired - he was becoming more of a liability than an asset to the self-interested movement; and this is good news for the Tea Party and its supporters.

The Tea Party becoming pre-occupied with public opinion signifying its maturity as a political movement is only part of the picture. The Tea Party has also entered a stage in its existance where it can afford to choose who belongs in it and who doesn't - a luxury few grassroots organizations can afford because they need any and all exposure. This is a crucial step in the development of a non-partisan coalition that eventually creates a re-alignment in the political system. For all the angry left's attempts to marginalize the Tea Party as a faction of Republicans, the establishment of the GOP had no qualms in trying to spin these allegations in their favor and paint the Tea Party as their impending return to power. My opinion has always been that "neo-conservative Republicans" are none of the above and that the Sean Hannities, Glen Becks and Sarah Palins of America should be ostracized by the Tea Party rather than welcome in it. I have not forgotten their blatant and unapologetic support for George W. Bush's shirking of the Constitution, runaway spending on a fairy-tale foreign policy with no clear objective, and accusations of treason and support of terrorism against anyone that thought their civil liberties were more important than the previous administration's insipid concept of national security. Whether you label them conservative or liberal, these are policies becoming of a tyrannical and unaccountable government that the Tea Party, in principle, does not endorse. For the last few months, I was becoming concerned that at least a partial co-optation of the Tea Party by old neo-con elements was a possibility, but the expulsion of social conservative looney Mark Williams is hopefully the first step to it divorcing itself from these elements now that it has gotten big enough not to need them for publicity. I contend that David Webb was correct that nothing Mark Williams said in his satirizing of the NAACP as an organization that favors slavery as a means of black dependence on the government was expressly racist. But his other antics like marginalizing all Muslims as Islamists although Muslims in general are the most vehement opponents of Islamic Fundamentalism (you would be too if these idiots were blowing themselves up in your city, even if they claim to share your religion), claiming that open borders are a tool for human trafficking (like anyone would need to be trafficked if they could just cross the border) and so forth are exactly the idiotic nationalist rhetoric the Tea Party does not need in its ranks. Nationalism is collectivism - it is giving the government the authority to rig the economy in favor of one class over another; the nature of that class being decided by citizenship or religion rather than ethnicity or social class does not make it less tyrannical or less contrary to the scientific principles of a successful free market. The Tea Party has begun to sprout chest hair and define itself as 'this and not that', a refreshing notion both for those hopeful that it will lead to a desperately needed political re-alignment and those who believe nationalist elements belong on the big government side of the emerging system, holding hands with the socialists and globalists they have spent the last decade mudslinging against and drowning out the real alternative of limited government.

Once again, Tea Partiers, I salute you.