Quote:
Originally Posted by Winter_Sucks
What doesn't the "tea party" form an actual party instead of trying to bend the Republican party toward their ideals? Just create an actual party and platform and field candidates who adhere to those ideas.  |
I'm going to give you a serious answer, although I don't think you really want to read one. If not, go back to whatever you were doing and ignore the one person that's interested in having a serious conversation...
There's a couple of reasons that there's no official "TEA" political party.
First and foremost, it's a grassroots effort, not an organization with a defined structure and hierarchy. People throw around well-known names and make claims about who's "running the show" in an effort to demonize the movement, but the raw fact is that there are individual TEA Party groups in every major city in the country, and in many smaller cities and towns. Any affiliation they have with each other is loose, at best, and any funding they receive is exclusively from within their own ranks - typically just to cover the costs of the meetings they hold.
Second, and of much more importance to anybody with any individual political power, our government operates within what amounts to a two party system. There are other parties - I'm a registered Libertarian, for instance - but the two major parties will not likely ever see a serious challenge from a third party. Not for a long time, anyway. Right or wrong, like it or not, that's the practical reality of our political system.
The TEA Party movement is huge, and not only are we vocal,
we vote. Contrast that to the 18-to-whatever crowd that loves getting together with their friends to party at a political rally for some hip, cool politician, but when election day rolls around, they can't seem to be torn away from whatever they're doing to actually take an hour to get to the polls. Both parties know and understand this, and both are responding appropriately.
The Democrats are responding by manipulating their constituents into calling us names and deriding us at every turn in an effort to discredit us, because what we stand for (fiscal responsibility and a small, Constitutional federal government) is the polar opposite of what the Democrat party has come to stand for. They can't attack our position, because we're only asking that they follow the rules of the document that defines their roles as the leaders of our nation, and to spend our tax money wisely. Who can honestly argue with that? Nobody, which is why we have things like what can be found at the link in the OP. Nothing but childish name calling and demonizing, which is
exactly what the Democrat leadership has asked it's followers to do.
The Republicans have responded by identifying a large and influential voting block make up of a disproportionately high number of independents, and they're trying to capitalize on that. You don't win elections, especially at the higher levels, without support from the independents. Since the Democrats want nothing to do with us - and they've made that abundantly clear - the Republicans are trying to capture this new demographic. Who can blame them?
Since Republican principles are much closer to TEA Party ideals than those of the Democrat party, it's also a much easier sell. Contributing to that is the positions on social issues that many Republican candidates hold, which are often closer to those of many individual TEA Party participants. A very important distinction to make, however, is that the TEA Party movement is NOT, repeat NOT about social issues. It's about fiscal responsibility and limited government, and nothing else. Everyone's entitled to their opinions, and many will take advantage of the movement to climb up on their soapbox and proclaim them, but the movement starts and ends with the principles I've been discussing throughout this post. That must be clear and well understood, if you have any interest whatsoever in knowing who we are and what we're promoting.
If we
were to form an official political party, it would have several significant ramifications.
Most notably, it would fracture the conservative vote, which is currently enjoyed almost exclusively by the Republican party. This would be to the delight of the Democrat party, of course, as it would mean that they would have virtually unlimited control while the other two parties were engaged in a power struggle that could take decades to resolve. We recognize that, and while the Republican party isn't our ideal representative party, we understand that it's better to work with the lesser of two evils and work to put some of those conservative principles I mentioned before back into practice. The Republicans haven't been much better than the Democrats for a long time when it comes to the things we're fighting for, but they're still salvageable. I don't know that the Democrat party, as a whole, is.
It would also give our opposition a formal structure to attack and tear down. As the movement is currently structured, there's no central authority on which a concentrated attack can be focused. That's why our opposition is all over the place in their efforts, unable to drill down to the one person or idea that defines us. The race card has been tried, and tried, and tried again, but it hasn't worked, and every time it's played, its effectiveness is diminished. It's all but worthless now, but they're still dragging it out. Like I said, an honest person can't attack our principles, so it's all they have, and they just won't give up on it.
Finally, it would force the movement to take positions on a lot of issues that aren't central to its purpose. What we're demanding as a movement is very limited in scope, and for a political party to gain any real traction and start winning elections at the congressional level or higher, it has to have stated positions on virtually every major issue, whether it's fiscal, social, foreign policy, etc. Since we're not interested in those things in the context of the movement, the formation of a "TEA" political party just doesn't make any sense.
Now I've seen your posts in other threads, and like I said, I don't think you were genuinely interested in a serious answer to your question when you posed it, but you got one anyway. Maybe you've learned something, or maybe you've got a little different perspective on the movement now, or maybe you missed the point entirely and will continue your childish attacks of the movement and those participating in it. Time will tell. See you in 2012.
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