Possible Effects of the U.S. Midterm Elections

THE TEA PARTY

The Funding

Flickr: Fibonacci Blue

It began sometime in 2009 as a “grassroots” movement protesting what their members considered as too much government spending and too much government, period. Specifically, the protests arose in response to the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act (2008), the America Recovery and Reinvestment Act (2009), the Healthcare Reforms, and the Tax-Reforms (which would charge higher taxes to persons making more than $250,000 a year). On the surface, whether one agreed with their views or not, the movement seemed to be just that – a grassroots movement whose main engine was the dissatisfaction of regular middle class families.

But this may not have been so. A CBC-sponsored documentary titled Crashing the Tea Party has suggested that the ‘movement’ never even initiated as a grassroots movement. It claims that its funding came from many corporate donors all “looking for a friend in congress.”

This is called “astroturfing”: the concealment of a movement being funded by a small minority of society with partisan interests as a grassroots movement borne from a majority of people with homogeneous interests.

There are three main groups and a coalition of the conservative media networks, with Glen Beck as one of their most outspoken supporters, who support and fund the movement.

Among the three groups are: FreedomWorks, a conservative group run by Richard Armey, a former Texan Representative and one of the forgers of the “Republican Revolution” of the 1990s; he is seen by some as a “de facto” leader – although the movement holds that they have no set leader – and is in charge of recruiting and training ‘protestors’. Another group is called Don’t Go, a free-market political non-for-profit group which had its unofficial beginnings during a 2008 offshore drilling debate which they won. And finally Americans for Freedom, an advocacy group started and funded by the billionaire Koch brothers and owners of Koch Industries; this group alone has sponsored and organized over 1000 rallies.

Taking this into consideration, coupled with the fact that many of its “unofficial” leaders and sponsors are former politicians and current industry owners, it is apparent that the movement has a specific political agenda. Indeed, Sarah Palin who is considered by Reuters the “queen of the Tea Party,” has announced that she is a hopeful candidate for the 2012 Presidential Election.

The Ideology

Given that the American economy has experienced a very slow recovery and is in the midst of a heavy deficit, the people are weary to see government spending on social programs instead of helping them recover jobs. Legitimate worries such as these have been pinned to the overall Tea Party Ideology which demands a less intrusive government, a rigorous adherence to the Constitution, and a reduction on government caps that may limit the flow of business.

What takes precedence in the rallies is the importance of conservative politics and the need to reduce the role of government to National Defense. The slow pace of the recovery has many fearing that a recovery may not even be feasible if pollution caps and social programs continue to receive heavy funding. What the rallies demand is that the government let the invisible hand of the free market reign so as to help business flow freely and allow the creation of jobs.

However, amidst provocative anti-establishment and pro-freedom rhetoric by Republican supporters, the central tenets of the ideology seem to dissolve into an inflamed distrust of government.

It appears as if the proliferation of free market policies meticulously organized and delivered by sponsors of the Tea Party has cluttered the real reasons as to why they are emerging from a crisis in the first place. As it has been proved, it was precisely the lack of cohesive regulations that allowed bankers to irresponsibly extend credit-loans so toxic that the entire world was at the cusp of a global financial crisis not three years ago.

Both the cutting of taxes for 95% of working-class families and having potentially averted a world-wide financial depression through bank bail-outs are now losing their momentum as leaders of the movement fear that these steps are only the first of many to be taken towards a socialist economy.

Moreover, some leaders in the African American Community have suggested that a case of xenophobia may also be “simmering” inside the American melting pot as a result of the Tea Party. Indeed, the New York Times has aligned the Tea Party more closely with the American Patriot movement than with the Republicans – a movement more closely associated with, among other issues, anti-immigration advocates. As the African American Community Leaders point out, looking at the hordes of protestors one immediately gets the sense that one is in the presence of a homogeneous Conservative, Caucasian and Middle Class crowd.

On its underbelly, this phenomenon may prove that Americans may be “chang[ing] their minds on change,” as Mitch Porter, a Columnist for the Toronto Star suggest.

(A window into the Tea Party’s worldview.)

In a broad political context, the strong influence of the Tea Party seeping into congress means that conservative politics in America can expect to be not only rehashed and re-strengthened, but most likely to reign supreme in the next elections.