A Growing Consensus: Tea Partiers Are Just Militant, Sore Loser Republicans

At a speaking gig last week for the Manufacturers’ Association of South Central Pennsylvania, Newt Gingrich predicted that the tea party movement would eventually morph into the “militant wing of the Republican Party,” rather than spinning itself off into a third party.

A few tea party types have taken umbrage at Gingrich’s use of the word “militant,” but there has been scant complaint so far about his describing them as Republicans. This is potentially significant, because not so long ago tea partiers would have loudly denied they were aligned with the GOP or any party.

Gingrich’s statement reflects a growing consensus that tea partiers’ assertions of independence may no longer be true, if in fact they ever were. The consensus is based in part on a series of polls of self-described tea partiers — here, here, here and here — that has confirmed the obvious: Tea baggers are conservatives with strong Republican leanings, including an abiding adoration of George W. Bush.

Even without the polling, the protesters’ bias has been clear from the start. During the Bush years, the folks who would become tea party protesters in the Obama era sat complacently by while the most inept and corrupt administration and Congress in modern history piled up abuse upon abuse and excess upon excess. It wasn’t until about a month after Barack Obama was inaugurated that — after eight long years of Bush, Cheney and the rest — these same folks suddenly found they’d had enough and started hitting the streets with their poorly spelled, often racist hand-lettered signs.

In an op-ed for the Miami Herald last week, Leonard Pitts suggested that the contrast — the hypocrisy — in the tea baggers’ attitude toward the government under Bush versus Obama is rooted in racism. That may well be, but it is indisputably rooted in something else — Republican partisanship. Here are the contrasts Pitts found between then and now:

[If] the tea partiers were truly only concerned about so-called “tyranny,” they’d have started howling when President Bush claimed he need not be bound by laws with which he disagreed.

If they were truly only worried about a “socialist” takeover of private industry, they’d have yelped when he took over troubled financial institutions.

If they were truly only anxious about the budget, they’ve have hollered when he spent a $128 billion surplus into a $407 billion deficit.

If they were truly outraged over their income taxes, they’d have screamed at Bush first, given that their taxes are the same as when he was in office.

It is telling that they “discovered” their burning concern over these things shortly after Barack Obama came to power.

On a similar theme, a diarist at DailyKos posted a litany of abuses (which she sourced to Rosie O’Donnell) that tea baggers tolerated up until the moment Bush left office:

We had eight years of Bush and Cheney, Now you get mad!?

You [tea baggers] didn’t get mad when the Supreme Court stopped a legal recount and appointed a president.

You didn’t get mad when Cheney allowed [Enron and other] energy company officials to dictate energy policy.

You didn’t get mad when a covert CIA operative got outed.

You didn’t get mad when the Patriot Act was passed.

You didn’t get mad when [Bush] illegally invaded a country that posed no threat to us.

You didn’t get mad when [Bush] spent over $600 billion (and counting) on said illegal war.

You didn’t get mad when [over $12 billion — 363 tons of shrink-wrapped one-dollar bills — flown into the war zone by Republican operatives] just disappeared in Iraq.

You didn’t get mad when you found out [top Bush administration officials, including Bush, Cheney, Condi Rice and others approved a manual that detailed methods for] torturing people.

You didn’t get mad when the government was illegally wiretapping Americans.

You didn’t get mad when [Bush] didn’t catch Bin Laden.

You didn’t get mad when you saw the horrible conditions at Walter Reed.

You didn’t get mad when [Bush] let a major U.S. city, New Orleans, drown.

You didn’t get mad when [Bush] gave a $900 billion tax break to the rich.

You didn’t get mad when the deficit hit the trillion dollar mark.

You finally got mad when the government decided that people in America deserved the right to see a doctor if they are sick. Yes, illegal wars, lies, corruption, torture, stealing your tax dollars to make the rich richer, are all okay with you, but helping other Americans…oh hell no.

And since it was health care reform that so enraged tea baggers that they finally got their fat asses up off the couch, we’d add this to the list:

You didn’t get mad when Bush gave free universal health care to 30 million Iraqis while 45 million Americans went without.

Of course, the tea party movement has been directed by Republican operatives from its inception. While some trace the beginning to a “tea party money bomb” by Ron Paul supporters in late 2007, the rise of tea baggery as we know it today began with a pre-planned on-air rant by CNBC reporter Rick Santelli on Feb. 19, 2009 — about a month after Pres. Obama was inaugurated — during which Santelli called for a new protest similar to the Boston Tea Party. The first round of nationwide protests was held eight days later, on Feb. 27.

Within weeks, well-paid organizers from FreedomWorks, a conservative corporate advocacy group headed by former GOP House Minority Leader Dick Armey, hotfooted it out in front of the tea party parade. Over the next few months, these professional organizers redirected the protesters’ rage toward a target that better suited FreedomWorks’ corporate investors, sorry, donors: health-care reform. Since then, the movement has been backed by FreedomWorks and similar corporate-funded right-wing partisan organizations, including Fox News — a fact tea party leaders have ignored while insisting they are politically independent.

If it becomes received wisdom among Beltway types that tea baggers are nothing more than run-of-the-mill, pissed-off Republicans — in other words, nothing new — the media’s fascination with them will evaporate, and tea partiers will find their soapbox yanked out from under them. If the consensus congeals quickly, their loss of credibility could even damage the prospects of tea-party aligned candidates running against Republicans in primaries this year.

And if so, the tea party movement will be consigned to the dustbin of history, alongside Perotistas, the Moral Majority and Dixiecrats — and Republicans will have yet another political fiasco on their hands.