The Dark Side of The Republican Tea Party
Tea party protesters repeat the conservative catchwords of Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan, who built their careers fighting the “creeping socialism” of civil rights legislation, Social Security and Medicare.Tea part conservatives have grasped rewritten history and an anti-American agenda founded on bizarre theories and utter ignorance of public policy. Which reminds many Americans of Bush's platform in 1999. Obama versus the Republicans, now 'til Election Day
Tea partiers also have echoes of a well-known grass-roots movement of the 1950s and ’60s — the John Birch Society. The JBS organized in upper-middle-class neighborhoods and among business groups for anti-Communist and conservative causes.
In tone and substance, tea partiers even sound like the JBS did. When they claim that a moderate American president is a “Communist,” it recalls the old JBS attacks on “Communist” President Dwight Eisenhower.
As today’s tea partiers shout their slogans to end the Federal Reserve, abolish the Internal Revenue Service and restore the gold standard, they seem to be lifting a page from the old JBS playbook.
For its part, the JBS followed in the tradition of the Liberty League, a right-wing citizens’ group organized by the DuPont family in the 1930s to overturn President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal.
Yet commentators resist linking tea parties to this radical right.
Perhaps this is because of the Liberty League’s association with shadowy corporate conspiracies. Or it could be because of the John Birch Society’s reputation for secrecy and extremism. But the lineage of today’s tea parties doesn’t change just because they parade in the glare of a major TV network.
Instead, commentators prefer to call the tea partiers “populists.” Exactly what links tea parties and historic populism usually goes unexplained. But part of the logic is that the tea partiers have angrily taken to the streets — like pitchfork-wielding Populists of old.
But the original populism of the 1890s had little to do with that pitchfork stereotype. Populist farmers and workers listened to lectures, read reform literature, joined associations and voted for independent candidates.
They rarely marched.
The one exception offers a useful lesson for today. The nation’s first march on Washington was in the spring of 1894. The country was gripped by a terrible depression. Jacob Coxey, an Ohio Populist, led a march of the unemployed, some from as far as the West Coast. “Coxey’s Army” arrived at the Capitol on May 1.
These Populists sought to petition Congress for help. With local and state governments in fiscal ruin, only the federal government had the resources to keep millions of working families in their homes.
Coxey petitioned for a Good Roads Bill to create jobs and build the infrastructure of prosperity.
As for funding it, Coxey proposed that the Treasury literally print money. The Populists believed — with good reason — that inflating the currency would reduce the weight of mortgages and debts, stimulate investment and pull the economy out of its deflationary death spiral.
Now, let’s turn to the recent big tea party march. The Tea Party Express spent three weeks crossing the country, arriving in Washington on tax day, April 15.
As in 1894, the economy is mired in a deep recession. But real parallels end there.
"You would have thought at a time of historic crisis that Republican leaders would have been more willing to help us find a way out of this mess," Obama added. "Particularly since they created the mess."
Instead, Obama accused the Republicans of making a "political decision" to not cooperate, figuring, "if we didn't do anything, and if it didn't work out so well, maybe the other side would take the blame."
"So," he added in turning to the Nov. 2 congressional elections, "after they drove the car into the ditch, made it as difficult as possible for us to pull it back, now they want the keys back. No! You can't drive!"
