House of Eratosthenes

Pundits claim the tea partiers are angry—and they are—but the most striking thing about the atmosphere in Nashville was how cheerful everyone seemed to be. I spoke with dozens of people, and the responses were surprisingly similar. Hardly any had ever been involved in politics before. Having gotten started, they were finding it to be not just worthwhile, but actually fun. Laughter rang out frequently, and when ne w-media mogul Andrew Breitbart held forth on a TV interview, a crowd gathered and broke into spontaneous applause.
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Press attention focused on Sarah Palin’s speech, which was well-received by the crowd. But the attendees I met weren’t looking to her for direction. They were hoping she would move in theirs. Right now, the tea party isn’t looking for leaders so much as leaders are looking to align themselves with the tea party.
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If 2009 was the year of taking it to the streets, 2010 is the year of taking it to the polls. With ordinary Americans setting out to reclaim the political process, it’s likely to be a bumpy ride for incumbents of both parties. I suspect the Founding Fathers would approve.

The movement is the polar opposite of the President’s natural environment.

Barack Obama stands at the absolute pinnacle of evolution of the consummate politician. He makes a mess, keeps his silence while the outrage builds, and waits for just the right moment to make His first comment. And then the comment is always the same: Everybody is sick of these “greedy fatcats” who “made this mess in the first place” with “the failed policies of the last eight years”; but Barack Obama, “make no mistake,” He is on our side! He’s going to represent us, which means, everybody. But the greedy fatcats? They aren’t part of “everybody.” They are “lobbyists” and “special interests.”

Deep down, everyone knows Obama is lying about His intentions to represent “everybody” — there is no way that can be true, with a “leader” who so casually seeks to re-define and diminish this simple concept of “everybody,” placing “greedy fats” outside of it so He can start fighting them while persisting in this claim of His that He represents “the people.”

But those who persist in apologia on His behalf, necessarily persist in this hope that they will continue to remain a part of this false “everybody.” Hey, ninety-five percent of us are getting a tax cut. That must mean if you spend even a split second worrying about the other five, you’re automatically stupid.

The politician continues to chase after every single parade, to be the vanguard of every piece of anger that can no longer be suppressed: “There go my people, I must follow them for I am their leader.” The politician always acts like it’s His idea. Obama has even presented Himself as a voter-resentment sibling of Scott Freakin’ Brown. “People are angry and they are frustrated. Not just because of what’s happened in the last year or two years, but what’s happened over the last eight years.”

Well, there is a climate in which that works. And then there is the tea party movement. These are people who overall are newcomers to politics, but have figured out when Obama engages in this whittling-down exercise of the concept of “everybody,” that we all stand a good chance of being part of the shavings that end up on the ground. When the word “bonus” is used to incur populist wrath against property that we’ve rightfully earned, and then the populist wrath diminishes our sacred right to that property into a mere semi-constitutional inconvenience, this is an insult to and an attack on all Americans rich & poor.

These are people who are concerned about their children and grandchildrens’ miserable inheritance of our skyrocketing debt; that it is for the most part unnecessary; and they aren’t about to be mollified with some speech written three hours ago that hey, for this week, Obama has become a deficit hawk and is going to start streamlining the “budget.” Nor are they to be placated, after the speech, with some boilerplated remarks that everything’s alright because “everyone” thinks that speech was Obama’s Best One Evar.

They are, in the final analysis, appropriating the President’s favorite cliches, and putting real meaning behind them, meaning that the President Himself, perhaps, wouldn’t even be able to comprehend. Teachable Moment. Let Them Be Clear. For Far Too Long. Make No Mistake. Reject the False Choice. Hope…and Change.

Update: David Brooks has some less radical ideas for the Obama administration to try out.

…Obama could serve as a one-man model for bipartisan behavior. Right now, the Republicans have no political incentive to deal on anything. But the president could at least exemplify the kind of behavior voters want to see in their leaders. For example, he could take several of the Republican health care reform ideas — like malpractice reform and lifting the regulatory barriers on state-based experimentation — and proactively embrace them as part of a genuine compromise offer.

Sister Toldjah has a good laugh at Brooks’ expense:

Forgive me for laughing at what should be a serious piece. Brooks is suggesting a “return” to … honesty and bipartisanship, indicating that he seriously believes that President Obama was sincere as a candidate in promising a “return” to “transparency” and “honesty” and “reaching across the aisle.” Brooks needs to take his rose-tinted glasses off for once. Candidate Obama said what he needed to say and did what he needed to do in order to get elected POTUS. He told the American people what he thought they wanted to hear, made all the right moves, shook all the right hands, went on an overseas tour, and the MSM dutifully helped him the whole way by clearing his path of any inconvenient truths about his radical associations, his thin resume, and his flimsy list of “accomplishments” while serving as an elected official both in the Illinois state legislature and the US Congress as a Senator.

And now, after a year of watching Mr. HopeNChange morph back into the calculating partisan political operator he really is, many people – unlike David Brooks – are finally waking up and seeing beyond the empty rhetoric. So while Brooks’ O-friendly column is likely to earn him more sweetheart brownie points and more offers for “off-the-record” lunches with RahmboCo., his actual suggestions will fall on deaf ears…

Maybe if David Brooks weren’t so obsessed with keeping his approval ratings up with Beltway elites he’d be able to see that. Until then…

There has to be some way to make serious money off this dichotomy.

Brooks is not a lone voice crying in the wilderness. Everywhere you look there are people insisting that Obama needs more time to repeal the policies that led to the disaster that came before. Anyone who doesn’t give it to Him is a clueless Moron.

But the Brooks crowd, that’s the high-horsepower intellectual elite. They’re the smarties, they can figure things out. Well, we did everything their way, and now we’re being presided over — I’m sorry, ruled over — by their Special Guy. It’s not working out so hot, but if we show any skepticism about it at all we’re just further proving our thickheadedness.

Time comes for them to tell us what’s what and what-for, and we just get a rehash of the talking points we heard two years ago. That’s the “brains” talking.

It’s like receiving a condescending lecture from the guy who’s still waiting for Ed McMahon to bring a $100,000,000 check to his door.

Update: Blogger friend Phil links to his reason for loving Sarah Palin.

Suppose, I wonder…just suppose this. Pretend we could somehow round them all up, willingly or otherwise, all these Sarah Palin bashers. Not to get rid of them, just to collect them into one place, for some research. They aren’t hard to identify at all. They act as if the very next breath they take, the very next pulse from their heart, depends on convincing you of their deep, deep hatred and contempt for Palin. So identify them…then get them somewhere.

Self-important jerks…and harmless, otherwise-lovable co-dependent sycophants…who just don’t want to be the last one on the block to figure out [insert name here] is a stupid idiot, or doesn’t know what he’s doing. And never have been. Since elementary school.

Communists. In America, talking a good game about a “middle of the road” approach against “Wall Street greed”…but…with social constraints removed and left to their own desires, lacking in so much as a single moderate drop of blood in their red, red bodies. We’re not even socialists! We just want to take care of the earth! But having their druthers, they’d allow you to accumulate wealth only if they happen to like you. Hardcore commies.

Middle-aged women who are jealous of Sarah’s better looks.

I don’t see a whole lot of overlap among these three, or opportunity for overlap. Tying into the point I made up here, calling people stupid has a bonding effect. So the first group lives life that way, calling people stupid, acting like they’re handing down a conclusion reached from rational thought, but really engaging in it only for social reasons. The other two are doing the same thing, not to win friends, but to recruit supporters to some other cause. The commies want to promote communism. The middle-aged women want to lower the bar that represents the demands placed on them.

Communists, by definition, don’t care too much about making friends. Their economic model creates a survival dependency among individuals already, and in so doing damages the individual…which is a whole different post.

Frumpy old women don’t typically care too much one way or the other about communism, nor do condescending, insecure jerks.

And this is Palin’s weakness as a candidate. This natural emulsifying effect among mentally underpowered people, of “I think so-and-so is stupid.” It makes compatriots out of people who otherwise would not be.

It is also her strength. Very few people are going to say out loud “I used to think Palin was a dimbulb, but I’ve changed my mind”…and not too many more than that, are ever going to quietly do things that manifest such a change in thought. Palin’s only chance will be to shift the dialogue — and she can do this, she has the talent required to pull it off — on to policies. To make the 2012 election all about what the 2008 election was not.

You get Huckabee or Romney or Pawlenty in there, and we’re right back to arguing about who’s taller, has a prettier wife, is more likable. And the white guy, whoever that is, is still gonna get his ass kicked. Bank on it.

Speaking of Sarah and her speech and “notes” … did you see this?

Awesome. I think most people who think she’s stupid are guilty of wishful thinking.
- philmon | 02/13/2010 @ 10:17

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“I Suspect the Founding Fathers Would Approve”Saturday, February 13th, 2010

“I Suspect the Founding Fathers Would Approve”
Saturday, February 13th, 2010