The Tea Party Message
Atrios offers the view that nobody can say what the Tea Party crew was protesting: “The problem is that it was never clear what they were protesting. So far Obama has cut taxes for most of the population and… well, that’s it.”
I don’t really think that’s right. As Ross Douthat says, you can think of them as protesting the implied future tax increases associated with the current projected deficits.
Indeed, I don’t really think there’s any “problem” with the Tea Parties except for the fact that they’re dead wrong on the merits. Had we implemented what I take to be their preferred policies—no bailout, “spending freeze,” and tax cuts; something along the lines of Jim DeMint’s alternative stimulus plan—we would have millions of additional unemployed Americans, more malnourished children, more cutbacks in city services, a longer recession, slower long-term growth, and higher budget deficits. It’s too bad that such a large minority of the public has such drastically wrongheaded views, and it’s really too bad that conservatives elites spend a lot of time misinforming their constituents rather than acting responsibility. But there’s no reason that the 30 percent or so of America who espouses hard-right political beliefs shouldn’t wave signs and talk about their point of view.
53 Responses to “The Tea Party Message”
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April 16th, 2009 at 2:10 pm
Now, no one can tell me that “White Slavery” is racist.
April 16th, 2009 at 2:10 pm
Does that guy even know what “white slavery” is or does he think it means enslaving white people?
April 16th, 2009 at 2:10 pm
But there’s no reason that the 30 percent or so of America who espouses hard-right political beliefs shouldn’t wave signs and talk about their point of view.
There’s very good reason to be worried about the X% who think that superfascist terroristo-pirate secret muslim communist Obama is going to throw them into “white slavery,” and the Y% with itchy trigger fingers who are waiting for the black helicopters. I suppose we should be glad that they’re only waving signs.
April 16th, 2009 at 2:11 pm
I really doubt that if you wandered around the teabaggings asking people what they were protesting, or simply read signs, that anything as coherent as Ross’s explanation would emerge as the dominant theme.
In other words, that is what Fox News, Ross, and the GOP in general wants you to believe the protests were about. But I see no reason to take their word for it.
April 16th, 2009 at 2:11 pm
Please, this was Fox News et al ranting against non-Republicans. That’s it, that’s all. (For fuck’s sake, there was a sign which read, “Cut Taxes Not Military Spending”).
April 16th, 2009 at 2:13 pm
Re: Does that guy even know what “white slavery” is or does he think it means enslaving white people?
Forced whoredom, if I’m not mistaken?
April 16th, 2009 at 2:13 pm
The Tea Party protests aren’t about anything. They’re events so that the seriously stupid and resentful can get together with other stupid, resentful people. The GOP courts these folk and eggs them on because that’s all the GOP has left.
April 16th, 2009 at 2:15 pm
Yes, white slavery is forced prostitution.
The guy up above who is waving the sign probably shouldn’t worry.
April 16th, 2009 at 2:18 pm
The guy up above who is waving the sign probably shouldn’t worry.
Maybe he was a very misguided counterprotester explaining his support for Obama.
April 16th, 2009 at 2:19 pm
Forced whoredom, if I’m not mistaken?
Obama’s planning place a surtax hookers’ services? Now he really has gone too far.
April 16th, 2009 at 2:19 pm
IMHO, the future implicit problem related to this article is that we may still have a prolonged recession [or even depression] regardless of what any WW gov’t has done or will do.
Any rationale that an economic collapse may have been less severe owing to what WW gov’ts did do to stimulate, will most probably be invisible to the majority of a hurting electorate.
April 16th, 2009 at 2:21 pm
Glad to see Ross is still a douche hat.
April 16th, 2009 at 2:22 pm
I really doubt that if you wandered around the teabaggings asking people what they were protesting, or simply read signs, that anything as coherent as Ross’s explanation would emerge as the dominant theme.
That’s the point. Incoherence makes it easy for Dick Armey and the other corporate whores who brought out the peasants to say that the “meaning” of the protest happens to align with their personal interests.
April 16th, 2009 at 2:25 pm
I think Matt’s summary along with Douthat’s is probably a fair notion of the core ‘ideas’ behind the ostensible reasons for the organizers behind the protests.
Depending on how things proceed, it may eventually be a good thing that grassroots conservatives get used to popular protest and demonstration as a vehicle to air their concerns. Or they could just keep getting fringier and nuttier. Things like that happen across the ideological spectrum.
April 16th, 2009 at 2:36 pm
Jeffrey Davis Says:
April 16th, 2009 at 2:15 pm
Yes, white slavery is forced prostitution.
That’s what it used to mean. There’s no reason to think that this teabagger doesn’t have his own understanding of the term. Clearly he resents being led by an African American president. As is often the case with nutbar conservatives, if they aren’t calling the shots, they’re being enslaved.
It’s unsurprising that misguided “populists” yet again are rejecting reality-based class analysis (one that might invoke the term “wage slavery”) for one that relies largely on racial enmity.
April 16th, 2009 at 2:39 pm
White slavery. lulz. so ignorant.
April 16th, 2009 at 2:40 pm
Yglesias, once again, grabbing whatever incomplete theory justifies his favorite government programs. This is intellectually bankrupt.
April 16th, 2009 at 2:42 pm
Teabagging Dick Armey fears White Slavery. Strange Times.
April 16th, 2009 at 2:44 pm
Taxes don’t necessarily ever have to increase. If we grow fast enough tax revenue will increase without rates having to. That said, if we do have to raise taxes in the future, we can always just soak the rich.
April 16th, 2009 at 2:47 pm
Jeffrey Davis Says: The Tea Party protests aren’t about anything. They’re events so that the seriously stupid and resentful can get together with other stupid, resentful people. The GOP courts these folk and eggs them on because that’s all the GOP has left.
Exactly! No one’s taxes have been increased. The tax cuts for the rich don’t expire until next year, so if these folks had problems with the current (GWB) tax code, why weren’t they protesting this time last year?
The assbackward GOP is grasping at straws and the idiocracy that showed up at these “tea parties” are a bunch of ill-informed buffoons who are really upset that a Black man is president.
Did anyone else notice the distinct lack of “color” at these teabagging events? Looks like they could find enough Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, Native Americans stoopid enough to join their tea party!
April 16th, 2009 at 2:54 pm
Fear the marauding Dick Armey of teabagging white slaves! “They are marching right into your midst, to cut the throats of your sons and your wives”.
April 16th, 2009 at 2:54 pm
“Had we implemented what I take to be their preferred policies—no bailout, ’spending freeze,’ and tax cuts; something along the lines of Jim DeMint’s alternative stimulus plan—we would have millions of additional unemployed Americans, more malnourished children, more cutbacks in city services, a longer recession, slower long-term growth, and higher budget deficits.”
Perhaps, but beyond the TARP funds, hardly any of the “stimulus” money has been spent yet. As a result, it’s far too early to declare this policy choice a success.
It’s not entirely clear to me why we should prefer fiscal spending stimulus to, say, suspending the payroll tax (employer and employee) for some period of time. Suspending payroll tax collection would cause firms would be immediately more profitable, give people more discretionary dollars on day 1, and decrease the risk of large-scale government spending waste/inefficiency. It would also hit the economy much sooner.
April 16th, 2009 at 2:54 pm
“I really doubt that if you wandered around the teabaggings asking people what they were protesting, or simply read signs, that anything as coherent as Ross’s explanation would emerge as the dominant theme.”
That’s exactly right. The pamphlets and emails promoting these events focused on complaints about bailouts and government spending, and if you’re feeling charitable you can credit the ringleaders with principled opposition to deficit spending and/or delayed tax hikes. But judging by all available evidence, the people who showed up at these events were just an assortment of malcontents who hate liberals in general and Obama in particular.
Anti-war protests always attracted a bunch of flaky off-message people protesting everything from drug laws to aid to Israel. But there was never really any doubt that the theme of the protest was opposition to the war in Iraq and other specific actions by the Administration. The teabaggers, on the other hand, are protesting a President who has been in power for less than 3 months and has stuck pretty closely to his campaign platform.
I see no reason to believe these gatherings are anything other than an expression of ressentiment toward the fact that Obama won the election.
April 16th, 2009 at 2:56 pm
Now, no one can tell me that “White Slavery” is racist.
Well, it seems to me that if you’re going to complain or warn specifically about white slavery, you’re strongly implying that enslavement of other groups is not worth complaining or warning about. Which, you know, is pretty racist.
April 16th, 2009 at 2:59 pm
Douthat argues that one might criticize Obama’s policies. You agree, with the proviso that such criticism is invalid. So far, neither you nor Douthat have said anything about the Tea parties or, for that matter, Obama.
Black asserts that they didn’t have a coherant argument, not that Douthat can’t think of a coherant argument (provided it isn’t required to have anything to do with reality).
The tell, red flag, give away, is “can think of them as.” You are explicitly asserting that Douthat is not only ignoring the recession and describing an invalid critique of Obama’s policies, but is also ignoring the actual Tea parties.
Of course he can think of a coherant argument pro and contra Obama (he’s, you know, smart). However, that doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with the tea parties. Are they making a coherant argument for bad policy or are they expressing tribal hostility ? One has to look at them and what they say to find out.
There is an actually valid argument that, given spending, a tax cut is a tax shift, that, given the federal intertemporal budget constraint, stimulus spending implies an increased present value of taxes. As you note, this doesn’t mean the stimulus is a mistake. Both you and Douthat seem to think that, if there is an argument for a conclusion, and there are people who reach that conclusion, then they made that argument. This is nonsense.
Consider. 14th century quacks say “I can cure the plague” (they are ranting). Yglesias paraphrasing Douthat writes “you can think of them as saying “I can cure the plague by purifying penicillin from the exudate of the mold penicillium” (You are ranting).
The only evidence you present, the photograph, suggests that Black is right. Why do you conclude that he is wrong ?
April 16th, 2009 at 3:00 pm
Mattyoung 17,
The advocacy against DeMint’s stimulus plan isn’t the point of this post. It’s only there to make a larger point about people having different opinions about politics (which may actually just be an excuse to post this picture of this guy with the poster). He doesn’t try to justify (except through a link) his opinion with any “incomplete theory” (I for one think a theory that claims to be complete is a theory to be viewed with the suspicion worthy of a protester who imagines himself some sort of 18th century minuteman) as opposed to Yglesias offering those casual assertions while making his general point about these protests themselves being mostly harmless exercises in politics that he finds wrong-headed (and may or may not be). Hooray for diversity of opinions, but there is still space to criticize opinions for being wrong or expressed in hateful ways. That sort of thing!
April 16th, 2009 at 3:02 pm
I think the original Tea Party idea came from Ron Paul’s crew, who have had legitimate grievances against both mainstream Dem’s and Rep’s. It was then subsumed by Fox News/ the Republican Party as a general hate Obama/Dems festival. That die-hard 30% will never be appeased and it is not worth trying. However, that die-hard 30% can chase away the moderates and destroy the parties electoral prospects going forward as long as Obama can get people back to work.
April 16th, 2009 at 3:03 pm
This post is just an excuse to get that picture of the guy with the poster.
(I said this before, but it was too dense.)
April 16th, 2009 at 3:03 pm
Call me old-fashioned if you will,
but I liked seeing the Iraq war protests even though I was pro war,
I like seeing the teabaggers out in force even though I support Chairman Maobama’s attempt to appropriate the means of production.
I liked seeing the protester “against Capitalism” at the G20 summit in London even though I support the G20
I just like it when the masses come out to protest because it unnerves the elites.
And partly why I supported Obama throughout the primaries – besides the fact he was most like to win in the general – was the fact that he’d drive the teabagger types absolutely crazy. (granted it might have been worse with Hillary)
I mean Obama has only been in office 12 weeks and he’s destroying the country? Come on.
April 16th, 2009 at 3:07 pm
Just ask any economist. The reason is that most people (and employers, in the case of the employer share of payroll taxes) will save a goodly chunk of the tax cut, which doesn’t put anybody to work. There are plenty of data to show that tax cuts have what in economics jargon is called a smaller “multiplier” than spending.
April 16th, 2009 at 3:07 pm
Man Matt has such a problem with typos!
Matt, its Ross Douchehat. I know you are typo prone but comon.
April 16th, 2009 at 3:14 pm
I just like it when the masses come out to protest because it unnerves the elites.
One of the problems with protests is that it’s an obsolete art form: it no longer unnerves the elites.
Also, I was leaning Hillary before the primaries because I thought she would freak out the right-wingers more than Obama would. I turned out to be totally wrong, there. The freakout over Obama is something the likes of which I never could have predicted; even moreso than Hillary.
April 16th, 2009 at 3:31 pm
Getting you to address their concerns in a serious manner means they win, Matt.
April 16th, 2009 at 3:36 pm
If you wan’t a little deeper insight into this tea party stuff, read this, Matt.
http://www.takimag.com/article/are_the_tea_parties_radical_and_paranoid_enough/
April 16th, 2009 at 3:46 pm
What Douthat misses is that the Iraq war protests at least had a moderately coherent prescription: don’t invade Iraq.
In contrast, if these protests are against future deficits, what is the prescription? Obama’s budget reduces future deficits relative to a realistic current-policy baseline. Rupublicans are unable to come up with an honest or considered alternative budget that improves on this. Future deficits are driven largely by the decline in the social security surplus and increasing medical costs. You want to have a protest that endorses social security or medicare cuts (or tax increases for that matter)?Fine, do it. Contra Douthat, it’s not about having a ten-point plan, just a proposed direction.
In the absence of an coherent alternative proposal, though, you might as well protest the weather.
April 16th, 2009 at 3:50 pm
Personal Anecdote:
I was walking back to work from the Metro near Lafayette Park (DC) and I saw two teabagger women wearing ceremonial 1700’s garb with a label affixed to their retro hats reading “Tax the Poor.”
It was so sad but funny and I could hardly contain myself. In a fit of ironic solidarity I yelled “You are true patriots. The poor have had it soo good for so long. You tell ‘em…
At first they were excited and hollered back. But noticing my condescending tone, they sort of looked confused and saddened that I didnt think they were real revolutionaries.
April 16th, 2009 at 3:59 pm
Any sentence that begins, “As Ross Douthat says . . .” is headed for a bad end.
April 16th, 2009 at 4:04 pm
The Tea-baggers are pissed because a real social/economic, urban, educated liberal was elected to the highest office in the US, demonstrating that their ‘culture war’ has been lost (or at least set back a few years). And this is threatening to them. It impinges on their perceived ‘right’ to discriminate against or harm gays/minorities, to discipline their children by hitting them, to compete only against other whites in the market-place, to practice religions which publicly espouse bigotry, etc, etc. The idea that the outrage is due to Obama’s economic policies and the ‘future taxes’ they will incur, is ludicrous: Bush ran up the deficit by 6 trillion and nobody on the right sneezed.
April 16th, 2009 at 4:23 pm
They didn’t say ‘boo’ about “implied future tax increases” when Bush was running up the deficit (in his case, with no fiscal justification). In fact, the right has never cared about deficits when Republicans were running them up. Transgenerational debt was always a Perotista issue, to the very limited extent that it had any traction at all.
More importantly, there is not one single item on the most coherent bill of grievances you can imagine for them, that wasn’t on the table last November. They lost, and they need to get over it.
April 16th, 2009 at 8:45 pm
Matt,
You know lots, but none of it is true.
In 1920 the US had the biggest GNP drop ever. Luckily, Wilson had had a stroke, so was out of the game and his advisers weren’t doing much. Warren Harding followed this by saying he would not freeze, but cut spending and taxes. Result? You’ve never heard of the recession of 1920. But you’ve never heard of this because you guys all have your heads up Paul Krugman’s ass.
April 16th, 2009 at 8:57 pm
I hope some of the trashier signs were people doing a version of the look at me dance. I wouldn’t take them seriously.
I would prefer a pro-tax tea party, since on balance we like defense and social insurance, but dislike 4-6% of GDP structural deficits. Mr. Bush never ran those kind of deficits in good times as the Obama budget projects. It would stop taxing/bankrupting their grandchildren or whatevs. A bit unrealistic, but I would support a trade-off of higher government revenues but less deadweight loss from tax compliance. For whatever it is worth Cato estimates it around $300 billion. It could be as tough to find as phantom wasteful spending, but I think it is worth trying.
April 16th, 2009 at 9:40 pm
Where in the fuck for fuck’s sake is the sign that said “Cut Taxes not Military Spending” — because I cannot find it anywhere.
April 16th, 2009 at 9:48 pm
He took the country from a war footing to a normal economy after a war ended!
Of course the economy recovers after a war.
EconomicHistoryFAIL!
April 16th, 2009 at 10:03 pm
Actually, Healthy Markup, I have commented on the recession of 1920-1921 before (on this blog, I believe). However, the causes were more, as I recall, the backlash result of the inflation that was used to finance World War I rather than due to tax and spending cuts.
It should also be noted that the government did virtually nothing to try to “fix” the recession, and it was over after about a year. (As opposed to the Great Depression, where Hoover pushed for, and got, lower interest rates and money creation by the Federal Reserve, wage increases, a ban on short-selling, farm subsidies, and atempts at increased expansion by business at a time when they had no capital). So much for the left-wing claim that the free market cannot solve recessions.
Warren Harding followed this by saying he would not freeze, but cut spending and taxes.
Of course, notice that Harding could not actually enact any of his preferred policies until March of 1921, as he was not President until then.
April 16th, 2009 at 10:12 pm
Just because some recessions quickly resolve themselves doesn’t mean all of them will. This is like claiming that the bailout is unwarranted because there was no bailout in the 2001 recession (when the banks were perfectly fine).
And how is that Hoover’s pitiful attempts at market intervention caused a 25% drop in GDP, and Roosevelt’s massive New Deal caused a (partial) recovery?
April 16th, 2009 at 10:30 pm
eh, you are too charitable.
what exactly do you call a manufactured fake “grassroots” movement that almost singularly believes in a set of demonstrable lies, and who just seem to, for whatever reason, have trouble keeping from making all kinds of inflammatory racially-based comments while “protesting” the tax cut they just got but are claiming they didn’t get? is that really people just airing their views? come on. it sure as hell is not.
yes, they’re wrong about the things you mention. but this is a white, white, white as hell crowd, they are people who have waited all of nearly 3 months to suddenly realize that deficits are bad. 4 months ago they were theoretically bad, but now that a black man is president, suddenly deficits are impeachable offenses, and Barack Obama talks like Arnold from ‘Diffrn’t Strokes’.
there are the Ron Paul nuts in these crowds who would be out there any other tax day any other year dressed all weird and acting almost cutely archaic, and they’re weird, but pretty harmless. the ‘new additions’ to this crowd are people mad that a black man is president, and really, that’s about it.
April 16th, 2009 at 10:57 pm
Joe from Lowell,
What happened to the US economy at the end of the Vietnam War? Big recovery? Oops.
Even with the example of 1920-1921 fresh in their minds, Keynesians predicted a huge recession for 1946 as a result of the massive (2/3) cut in federal spending. Aaaand, an oops for the Keynesians.
April 16th, 2009 at 10:59 pm
Glaivester,
Sure, but Warren Harding’s non-policies were only a continuation of Wilson’s stroke-fueled inactivity. And are you saying inflation lead to 1920?
April 16th, 2009 at 11:07 pm
will,
Bailouts are unwarranted because they’re destructive. Can you or any fan of Obama tell me how different his “necessary stimulus” is from his campaign platform? The rule for big federal spending is simple: in a recession, it’s a stimulus; in good times, it’s the reasoned use of a surplus.
Beyond that, please read these two posts which explain why stimulus spending is so dangerous and note (if you haven’t read much of Keynes) that none of Shedlock’s claims about his
thinking are exaggerations.
April 17th, 2009 at 8:40 am
We weren’t on a war footing during the Vietnam War, so ending that war didn’t involve ending the restrictions of a war economy. More HistoryFAIL for you!
April 17th, 2009 at 9:09 am
On a local (Memphis) news broadcast Wednesday evening, they interviewed a woman protesting at one of these “tea parties”. They asked her what she was protesting about. Her first answer was “lots of things”, but when the reporter pressed her for specifics, she was able to name a few.
Among her complaints was the claim that her farm subsidy had been decreased.
April 17th, 2009 at 9:52 am
Joe from Lowell,
My point is that sharp reductions in government spending lead quickly to an improved economy, which is the opposite of what Keynesians claim. They claim that without fiscal stimulus (which can include pyramid-building or ditch-digging according to Keynes and Krugman) that an economy in recession won’t right itself and that a sharp drop in government spending will lead to a deep recession. Can you give me some metric of war-footingness that I can apply to wars so that when I give you a counter-argument (like the Vietnam War) I’ll know you won’t just make up stuff because you like to argue?
April 17th, 2009 at 7:02 pm
Glaivester,
Sure, but Warren Harding’s non-policies were only a continuation of Wilson’s stroke-fueled inactivity. And are you saying inflation lead to 1920?
Yes.
And Harding’s non-action is why we recovered so quickly.