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Democrats and other skeptics are desperate to dismiss the tea parties that popped up across the country today. Kansas City political consultant Steve Glorioso told The Star they were being staged by the “same far right fringe characters driven in large part by talk radio.”This eagerness to explain away this movement is telling, suggesting the skeptics see these gatherings as a real threat. Certainly the tea parties have an anti-Obama slant, but what we’re seeing is something outside the normal dynamics of Democrat-Republican tension.
The editorial goes on to cite one of the teabag astroturfers himself, Glenn Reynolds. I’m going to keep saying this until I’m blue in the face and until the right quits making this silly ass argument: We are laughing at you.
I’ll be the first to concede that the right scares the beejezus out of me when they’re in power. As one of my fellow liberal observers noted at the travesty they called a protest in Lafayette Park, can you believe these yahoos were running the country just four months ago?
Wednesday’s pity party was the best the combined work of conservative blogs, talk radio, Fox News and a few lobbyists could muster. It turned out to be the same band of wingnuts who went to Sarah Palin rallies last fall but with even crazier things to say and believe (Abolish the federal reserve, Obama is a socialist, and of course Obama is not American).
That goes as well for the Twitter triumphalists like Patrick Ruffini and William Beutler. History may prove me wrong, but I highly doubt any medium thrives at a grassroots level when its consultants leading the way. The progressive blogosphere came about because folks – regular folks – were fed up and not being listened to. For me it started when the dotcom I was working at began slipping underground and a combination of free time and the 2000 election spurred me to action. We were echoing what the right did a generation before with political books and talk radio – things that came out of the Goldwater/John Birch movement and became mainstream conservatism.
I have studied enough history to know that these political changes are not permanent. And while I feel the Democratic party is clearly moving in the right direction and has America’s backing, the last 8 years shows that none of this is permanent. But for a vital political movement to survive, Democrats learned that the safe and cautious consultant Dems that helped Bush’s agenda on issues like the war in 2002-3 were not the way to go. My guess is that the Republicans will learn that a bunch of consultants on Twitter getting the Birther rubes whipped up for ANSWER/Code Pink style protests is not the way back to being a serious political force.
“It’s good for people making 5 figures to pour Salada into rivers because 8 figure earning Fox and Clear Channel hosts will have to pay 3 percent more in taxes”- E. Thomas McClanahan
As long as the Internet remains open and free I think sanity will prevail (perhaps only eventually) because with conversation that is not only up/down but side to side there is little that escapes notice and none of the rest that escapes comment.
There will always be a deliberately ignorant fringe and folk who want to lead them, but without the ability to corral the conversation, there will be somebody yelling BS at your every lie and being heard and passed on if they are accurate, or met with a counter argument if they are not.
In seeing the history of Pacifica Radio told today I suddenly see why it was that Berkley and San Francisco became such a Liberal hotbed as it was getting information that was totally unavailable to the rest of the country and no propaganda system can stand up to an alternative voice no matter how it is vilified.
Atrios nailed it:
And by the way, the war in Iraq was really fucking stupid. Letting Bush’s wildly irresponsible tax cuts for the wealthy expire (as originally written) is not.
Oliver, you’re just as much a consultant as the people behind Top Conservatives on Twitter. More so, really, given that you literally live inside the Beltway plus work for an organization supported by George Soros, the Clintons and any number of top-down-ish consultants. And I don’t think I’d call myself a “triumphalist” — I’ve made it very clear the future of Twitter activism is not set — I’m just pointing out what the right has accomplished so far. Your insistent pushback against that observation speaks volumes.
When I started my blog I was working at a dotcom in the entertainment industry in Los Angeles. I never had a job anywhere near politics. I didn’t even know that much about politics. The same can be said for the vast majority of the liberal blogosphere. Media Matters didn’t even exist! Which is my point. The liberal blogosphere wasn’t created by those people, and it would never have worked if it had been. There was a point where the Dem establishment didn’t understand WTF was going on with blogs and actively fought against them.
Your insistent pushback against that observation speaks volumes.
My pushback is insistent because this idea you’re pushing is just silly. Revolutions like this don’t work in political movements when consultants thrust it on everyone else. As I keep saying but somehow you don’t wanna listen.
Yes, it’s good that these idiots are marching themselves into irrelevance and in that respect I can only cheer them on. But there are some dangerously sick and violent people in those crowds, and we should be worrying about what they might get up to.
Umm, Beutler, we’re not worried about the (purely imaginary) POLITICAL impact of your sad little idiot-fest. We’re worried that you’re inciting lunatics to commit violent acts.
I didn’t even know that much about politics.
Good to see some things never change.
And as for “We’re laughing at you?”
Great, fine.
Read Gandhi.
And keep laughing.
You bet we will, “Gandhi”. Keep the comic relief coming.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/4/16/720524/-Teabaggers-v.-Democracy
Heh.
@Oliver And GOP consultants had to start somewhere, too. This reminds me of nothing so much as now-discarded 1990s alternative rock angst about “selling out.” Authenticity is in the eye of the beholder, and I’m sure you think your more-grassroots-than-thou shell game is honest.
@Steve Right, I believe you are very worried that people a few clicks to the right of you are going to turn out just like that kid in Pittsburgh whose favorite website was not Instapundit, but Stormfront.
1. No, I’m worried about the potential for violence among gun nuts carrying Obama-is-Hitler signs, who are being egged on by Republican politicians openly calling for sedition. And if you weren’t a contemptible creep, you’d be worried too.
2. People a few clicks to MY right voted for Obama. People personally known tome who are MORE than a few clicks to my right would vote for him now if they could, and this shows up in polls as solid support for Obama among independents. But hey, apart from the potential for violence I’m quite happy that you idiots are dragging the Republicans toward the same graveyard where the Whigs repose. Have at it.
1. No, I’m worried about the potential for violence among gun nuts carrying Obama-is-Hitler signs, who are being egged on by Republican politicians openly calling for sedition. And if you weren’t a contemptible creep, you’d be worried too.
2. People a few clicks to MY right voted for Obama. People personally known tome who are MORE than a few clicks to my right would vote for him now if they could, and this shows up in polls as solid support for Obama among independents. But hey, apart from the potential for violence I’m quite happy that you idiots are dragging the Republicans toward the same graveyard where the Whigs repose. Have at it.
Do you really think Richard Poplawski STARTED off on Stormfront? Get real. I can tell you that the guy who shot up the church last year wasn’t on Stormfront. He was reading all the books from the FoxNews crowd. Specifically he said in his own suicide note that Bernie Goldberg provided his inspiration to kill liberals. I await with baited breath your explanation of that one.
Read Gandhi.
And keep laughing.
As long as you keep comparing a movement of ultra-wealthy corporate sponsored non-minorities protesting marginally higher taxes of the wealthy to Gandhi, then we’ll keep laughing. Mm-kay?
Oh, and let us know when “you win.” Mm-kay?
Authenticity is in the eye of the beholder, and I’m sure you think your more-grassroots-than-thou shell game is honest.
Dude, Fox News. Dick Armey. Seriously. You got nothing.
Dude Oliver what the fuck is up with your site these past few days? is your sever dying?
Tell me about it.
And William its not a purity contest. Maybe the right can line up behind consultants and that works. But my guess is it won’t.
I’m a “contemptible creep”? Whatever, man. Now I remember why I don’t bother commenting on this site.
Action shot of Oliver Willis, twittering away:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_oKWxWOEilyQ/SeZpFeseYlI/AAAAAAAAAmE/7WVffy83ABc/s1600-h/IMG_3303.JPG
SEXY
They laughed at Ghandi. They laughed at Galileo. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.
It’s not until the right-wingers realize that the party establishment and Fox News are hindering, not helping, their path to power that things will get better for them. It’s going to take a while for that to happen. When that does happen, they’ll start experimenting with dozens of different things, and one of them will be successful. Taking their cues from the top of the hierarchy about what they should be doing is bound to fail, because they’re only experimenting with one tool at a time.
Wow, that lady standing on the bench is TINY!
Duros62: “Wow, that lady standing on the bench is TINY!”
Or really far away.
or, overshadowed by oliver.
CSS: or really far away
Looks to be only about 5-6 bricks further than OW.
Or is he just really big?
Matt,
If Ghandi were alive today, HE would certainly be laughing at the teabaggers.
Ghandi was the most “liberal” of all modern political figures, maybe a little to the left of Jesus. He amassed no fortune from his activities. He went to prison several times for his beliefs and he was stridently NON-violent, the direct opposite of the right-wing. He accomplished something: he liberated millions of people from colonial rule. He sacrificed his life in the end to a fanatic assassin similar to any of the current crop of gun waving right wing extremists. I don’t seem to see too many “liberals” waving guns or symbols of them to make their point.
The teabaggers would do worse than to emulate Ghandi, but of course if they did, they wouldn’t be teabaggers.
Gandhi! Not Ghandi. No. It’s Gandhi. Gandhi Gandhi Gandhi.
Who, by the way, bears absolutely no similarity to these yahoos. Gandhi:
–openly disobeyed an unjust law (Salt March)
–repeatedly risked his own safety to protest injustice
–eschewed violence in any form, including self-defense
–fasted for several weeks to protest oppression and to bring an end to violence
Skip a few meals, teabaggers. Then we’ll talk.
Skip a few meals, teabaggers. Then we’ll talk.
A few?