Thread: What Do The Tea Party & Obama Have In Common?

They are both nebulous vessles that people project their own hopes and dreams onto.

Obama is in trouble because he sold "Hope and Change" and people defined that slogan for themselves. Then expected that result.

IMO, the Tea Party has a better chance for success because thier faith is in ideas like constitutional first principles, smaller government, fiscal responsibility, not individual people.

Or will the movement peeter out just like Obama's Hope and Change

Discuss....

Good article on CNN today, kind of touches on this

http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/09/...dle/index.html

Originally Posted by Mathematics

Good article on CNN today, kind of touches on this

http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/09/...dle/index.html

I don't get the article. What is the platform of a "moderate" party? What do moderates believe as a group? There is nothing there. It could only lead to more of the same. There is no "Change" in moderation. There is no revolt in independence or modereation. We need a revolt against the current government. (Bush and Obama style)

Obama's win was a backlash against the ills of right-leaning 'W' and his whack admin. The TeaBaggerz simply want a return to the conservative idealogy that fucked over the middle class in the first place. One is forward thinking, the other is backward thinking. What similarities???

if the tea party were to make significant inroads into congress it would not amount to much in terms of their ability to make change. being effective in washington requires consensus building probably more than anything else. this is where the problems begin and this is also the similarity. obama's administration has not been able to pull his version of change off (at least in the legible way they had hoped for), and the tea party makes a fuck lot of noise about "cleaning up washington" but they are outsiders who will just remain on the fringe and become ignored.

i agree with dbt that there is (unfortunately) no platform of a moderate party. i think s colbert said that is like being an "extra medium"

Originally Posted by Alaskan Rover

Obama's win was a backlash against the ills of right-leaning 'W' and his whack admin. The TeaBaggerz simply want a return to the conservative idealogy that fucked over the middle class in the first place. One is forward thinking, the other is backward thinking. What similarities???

WRONG. Obama's win was a backlash against Bush and what stupid people think are conservative principles.

Bush fucked up by doing big government shit. (Liberal)

Everyone but the Tea Partiers are mis-identifying the problem. There's a revolt in the Repub party because it veered too far to the LEFT, not too far right. Republicans have been nothing but Dem-lite.

We won't be *returning* to conservatism. We'll be tryinging it for the first time in generations if the Tea party gets their way.

Originally Posted by lemmycaution

if the tea party were to make significant inroads into congress it would not amount to much in terms of their ability to make change. being effective in washington requires consensus building probably more than anything else. this is where the problems begin and this is also the similarity. obama's administration has not been able to pull his version of change off (at least in the legible way they had hoped for), and the tea party makes a fuck lot of noise about "cleaning up washington" but they are outsiders who will just remain on the fringe and become ignored.

i agree with dbt that there is (unfortunately) no platform of a moderate party. i think s colbert said that is like being an "extra medium"

You may be right for this election cycle. But the T.P. has repubs and many dems running scared. If the T.P. can keep up the pressure with a clear message of a smaller more "constitutional" government, politics can change.

Obama's "Change" never had a chance because it is liberalism and American's aren't liberal. American's are conservative. Even cenrtist and independents like the T.P. message. When the T.P.ers wise up and put down the goofy signs and costumes, and pound on the message, 80% of us will be T.P.ers in political phylosophy.

Originally Posted by Downbound Train

You may be right for this election cycle. But the T.P. has repubs and many dems running scared. If the T.P. can keep up the pressure with a clear message of a smaller more "constitutional" government, politics can change.

Obama's "Change" never had a chance because it is liberalism and American's aren't liberal. American's are conservative. Even cenrtist and independents like the T.P. message. When the T.P.ers wise up and put down the goofy signs and costumes, and pound on the message, 80% of us will be T.P.ers in political phylosophy.

Pure Comedy Gold.

Originally Posted by Alaskan Rover

Obama's win was a backlash against the ills of right-leaning 'W' and his whack admin. The TeaBaggerz simply want a return to the conservative idealogy that fucked over the middle class in the first place. One is forward thinking, the other is backward thinking. What similarities???

Taxes at an all time LOW.. With 10 trillion new spending in the pipe.. Holy shit you libdouches are blind or stupid or both!

Originally Posted by Downbound Train

...American's aren't liberal. American's are conservative. Even cenrtist and independents like the T.P. message. When the T.P.ers wise up and put down the goofy signs and costumes, and pound on the message, 80% of us will be T.P.ers in political phylosophy.

Pogue Colonel: Whose side are you on, son?
Private Joker: Our side, sir.
Pogue Colonel: Don't you love your country?
Private Joker: Yes, sir.
Pogue Colonel: Then how about getting with the program? Why don't you jump on the team and come on in for the big win?
Private Joker: Yes, sir.
Pogue Colonel: Son, all I've ever asked of my marines is that they obey my orders as they would the word of God. We are here to help the Vietnamese, because inside every gook there is an American trying to get out. It's a hardball world, son. We've gotta keep our heads until this peace craze blows over.
Private Joker: Aye-aye, sir.

An except from the latest Rolling Stone article on the Tea Party.

It's taken three trips to Kentucky, but I'm finally getting my Tea Party epiphany exactly where you'd expect: at a Sarah Palin rally. The red-hot mama of American exceptionalism has flown in to speak at something called the National Quartet Convention in Louisville, a gospel-music hoedown in a giant convention center filled with thousands of elderly white Southerners. Palin — who earlier this morning held a closed-door fundraiser for Rand Paul, the Tea Party champion running for the U.S. Senate — is railing against a GOP establishment that has just seen Tea Partiers oust entrenched Republican hacks in Delaware and New York. The dingbat revolution, it seems, is nigh.

"We're shaking up the good ol' boys," Palin chortles, to the best applause her aging crowd can muster. She then issues an oft-repeated warning (her speeches are usually a tired succession of half-coherent one-liners dumped on ravenous audiences like chum to sharks) to Republican insiders who underestimated the power of the Tea Party Death Star. "Buck up," she says, "or stay in the truck."

Stay in what truck? I wonder. What the hell does that even mean?

Scanning the thousands of hopped-up faces in the crowd, I am immediately struck by two things. One is that there isn't a single black person here. The other is the truly awesome quantity of medical hardware: Seemingly every third person in the place is sucking oxygen from a tank or propping their giant atrophied glutes on motorized wheelchair-scooters. As Palin launches into her Ronald Reagan impression — "Government's not the solution! Government's the problem!" — the person sitting next to me leans over and explains.

"The scooters are because of Medicare," he whispers helpfully. "They have these commercials down here: 'You won't even have to pay for your scooter! Medicare will pay!' Practically everyone in Kentucky has one."

A hall full of elderly white people in Medicare-paid scooters, railing against government spending and imagining themselves revolutionaries as they cheer on the vice-presidential puppet hand-picked by the GOP establishment. If there exists a better snapshot of everything the Tea Party represents, I can't imagine it.

After Palin wraps up, I race to the parking lot in search of departing Medicare-motor-scooter conservatives. I come upon an elderly couple, Janice and David Wheelock, who are fairly itching to share their views.

"I'm anti-spending and anti-government," crows David, as scooter-bound Janice looks on. "The welfare state is out of control."

"OK," I say. "And what do you do for a living?"

"Me?" he says proudly. "Oh, I'm a property appraiser. Have been my whole life."

I frown. "Are either of you on Medicare?"

Silence: Then Janice, a nice enough woman, it seems, slowly raises her hand, offering a faint smile, as if to say, You got me!

"Let me get this straight," I say to David. "You've been picking up a check from the government for decades, as a tax assessor, and your wife is on Medicare. How can you complain about the welfare state?"

"Well," he says, "there's a lot of people on welfare who don't deserve it. Too many people are living off the government."

"But," I protest, "you live off the government. And have been your whole life!"

"Yeah," he says, "but I don't make very much."


I fear the author underestimates the TP movement. Hard to tell though.

Originally Posted by Downbound Train

I don't get the article. What is the platform of a "moderate" party? What do moderates believe as a group? There is nothing there. It could only lead to more of the same. There is no "Change" in moderation. There is no revolt in independence or modereation. We need a revolt against the current government. (Bush and Obama style)

Platform being 60-70% of the population isn't rabidly partisan and is ok with our politicians working across the aisle and *gasp* compromising on things to get needed legislation passed.

I think a vast majority of the population thinks things need to change in Washington, as the current system of partisan deadlock isn't getting shit done. But people arent willing to align themselves with the nutjobs on either side because the fringes of both parties are dictating the "platform", instead of the reasonable folks that tend to be a little more towards the center.

"The scooters are because of Medicare," he whispers helpfully. "They have these commercials down here: 'You won't even have to pay for your scooter! Medicare will pay!' Practically everyone in Kentucky has one."

A hall full of elderly white people in Medicare-paid scooters, railing against government spending and imagining themselves revolutionaries as they cheer on the vice-presidential puppet hand-picked by the GOP establishment. If there exists a better snapshot of everything the Tea Party represents, I can't imagine it." from Rolling Stone article above quoted by Bunion


That is awesome, that reaffirms everything I've been saying in 2 paragraphs.
It's a Social Security Medicrap Ponzi scheme and both parties are equally guilty on this 1. That's why republicans will never reform entitlement spending either, in a way they're the bigger hypocrites.

Originally Posted by Mathematics

Platform being 60-70% of the population isn't rabidly partisan and is ok with our politicians working across the aisle and *gasp* compromising on things to get needed legislation passed.

I think a vast majority of the population thinks things need to change in Washington, as the current system of partisan deadlock isn't getting shit done. But people arent willing to align themselves with the nutjobs on either side because the fringes of both parties are dictating the "platform", instead of the reasonable folks that tend to be a little more towards the center.

When a conservative Compromises, he loses.

If you believe the government should not be involved in something and you "compromise" what happens?? Will the government be involved or not at the end of that compromise?

Compromise is the root of all government evil. It makes you sound all fair and reasonable but it's the #1 tool of creeping socialism, stateism, liberalism, whatever you want to call it.

Compromise is for losers and lefties only.

Maybe the believers in tea party candidates as agents of positive change should read "Animal Farm"* again. I'm assuming you already read it in high school.


*Not "Animal House".

Originally Posted by Downbound Train

Compromise is the root of all government evil.

The constitution you're so fond of referencing was the result of our founding fathers compromising on their own individual ideas on how things should run.

Originally Posted by Downbound Train

It makes you sound all fair and reasonable but it's the #1 tool of creeping socialism

So compromise, and government officials working together on a common goal = socialism? Fear mongering about socialism was sooooooo 2008.

Seriously your logic is dizzying at times. But rest assured its the kooks like you that are giving moderates that nervous feeling about casting a vote for anyone associated with the Tea Party come November.

Originally Posted by Mathematics

The constitution you're so fond of referencing was the result of our founding fathers compromising on their own individual ideas on how things should run.



So compromise, and government officials working together on a common goal = socialism? Fear mongering about socialism was sooooooo 2008.

Seriously your logic is dizzying at times. But rest assured its the kooks like you that are giving moderates that nervous feeling about casting a vote for anyone associated with the Tea Party come November.

Pay attention. On issues where the choice is for bigger government or not bigger government, there is no room for compromise. A compromise can only mean a bigger government, therefore, the conservative loses.

What are these issues where both sides can work together for a common goal where a compromise = a smaller government? There are some, but nothing major.