Back in early April, I posted about the Impending Death of the Tea Party. Well, guess what ladies and gentleman of the Tea Party, it's here.
Because of the recent Debt Ceiling deal, the Tea Party surely feels completely deflated. They focused so hard on getting the "right" people elected, and those elected officials have nearly all let them down by increasing the debt ceiling by 2.4 Trillion dollars. The "cuts" associated with the increase in the debt ceiling are hardly real. They are loosely defined and they are spread over ten years. The first $900 billion in debt ceiling increase, though? It'll be here by February.
The Tea Party now has to make up it's mind. They only have two choices: roll over and die (and become nothing more than a blip in the political and economic history of this country), or change your focus and charge on.
The Tea Partiers surely have now realized that they are not supported by the Republican Party. The Republicans wooed the Tea party into bed on a first date by saying all the right things to them. Now, it's the next morning and the Tea Party is awakening to a note left on the pillow.
Stay focused on electing Republicans to office in the hopes they are going to reduce spending, and true fiscal conservatives will lose faith in you just as you have lost faith in the swarm of Republicans you elected.
Change your focus, though, to electing Libertarians (both large and small "L") and you have a chance to find your cause revitalized. You will be supporting officials who will be true in their support of limiting spending.
Support Libertarians, and you won't wake up some morning with a note on your pillow. Instead, you'll find yourself with a ring on your finger.
The best way for the Tea Party to stay true to its values is to remain independent of other parties. Libertarian, Constitution, etc, all had a beginning and the associated time when some smirked while others swooned. If they don't want to be disappointed again then after they evict the Republicans from the apartment they should change the locks so no one else gets in.
ReplyDeleteThe Libertarian Party has as much in common with the Tea ideal as the Republicans have, the largest difference is that Republicans have a much more realistic opportunity of being elected to office and hence have a better chance of advancing the Tea Party agenda. If Tea was aligned with the Libertarian Party the difference would be that fewer, if any, supported candidates would now be in elected office.