You do have to give John B. Judis credit for his TNR article “Four Myths About the Tea Parties (and why liberals are too dismissive of the movement).” The four myths he choses are genuine myths that have traction on the Left, to wit:
1. The Tea Party is not a movement.
2. The Tea Party is a fascist movement.
3. The Tea Party is racist.
4. The Tea Party is a conventional Republican group funded by big business.
Many of the arguments he presents are pretty good, but as is usually the case when the Left analyzes the Right, wide swathes of What We’re About — and in some cases historical perspective — are missing utterly from the article.
For example, to debunk Myth 2, he uses a bastardized definition of fascism from The Anatomy of Fascism that the Left promulgates:
…a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.
Judis rightly denies that the Tea Party fits this description, yet were he to use the original definition of Fascism that Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism restores–a “heresy” of Marxist socialism that is national rather than global, and wherein the state controls the means of production without actually owning them–there would be no need to explain why the Tea Party doesn’t fit.
It’s his argument against Myth 3, though, that prompted this post. After correctly observing that the Tea Party cannot be reduced to a racist movement the way the Citizens’ Councils of the 1950s could–who were ostensibly for states rights but actually for racial segregation–he attempts to explain what we are. And makes a spectacular omission:
The Tea Party…. fits above all into the framework of American populism, which has always had right-wing and left-wing variants, and which is rooted in a middle class cri de coeur?that we who do the work and play by the rules are being exploited by parasitic bankers and speculators and/or by shiftless, idle white trash, negroes, illegal immigrants, fill in the blank here.
That phrase I put in boldface is surprisingly accurate insofar as it identifies the productive class as the protesters, but look at whom we supposedly blame: bankers, Wall Street, layabouts (“negroes”? really? Who but Joe Biden uses that term anymore?), and illegals.
Do they really hear us complain about Wall Street (outside of complaints about the bailouts)? Has anyone been blaming the economic crisis on the idle and the non-white?
What about the towering national debt, the threat of hyperinflation, the misbehavior of the Federal Reserve, a congressional class who believes that the electorate need to “be stood up to” when they object to Obamacare and Cap and Trade? What about the insolvency of the entitlement programs, the takeover of GM, the explosion of the federal bureaucracy, the impossible-to-sustain benefits packages for public employees, the unread bills that they jam through?
What about politicians who openly reject the notion that they need to operate within the bounds of the Constitution? Who use the “good and welfare” or commerce clauses to justify any legislation at all? What about a CIC who believes that his own country is so arrogant and harmful to the rest of the world that it needs to be defanged, taken down a notch, brought down to size?
Not to mention the disdain and snobbery from costal aristocrats who think that we’re too stupid to know what’s good for us, so we can be safely ignored.
Is that so hard to understand?
This is what I want to know: Does this staggering omission owe to a deliberate decision to obscure What We’re About in an article that proports to elucidate same?
Or is he minding his readership, and so includes only those things that they’ll understand, i.e., moldy stereotypes about conservatives from the 1960s, and refrains from offending their gentle sensibilities by acknowledging that what we’re really against is what they’re FOR.
Or is he genuinely blind?
I can’t tell. I really cannot tell.
h/t Insty
Robert Reich in favor of fascism.
I do not know Judis’ motivation to latch on to “parasitic bankers and speculators and/or by shiftless, idle white trash, negroes, illegal immigrants, fill in the blank here”, but might speculate a tie to a goal similar to the goal Kurtz attributes to Obama, namely, “His long-term goal is to polarize the parties along class lines, thereby driving the country substantially to the left.”
Robert Reicshhhhhh-uh:
Um, yes, we would. It’s those “economic stresses” that prompted us to take to the streets. It was TARP and their other monstrosities that convinced us that Wall Street and Washington (both R and D) were, well, maybe not “conspiring against us”, but were clearly in it for themselves and we “little people” (i.e. workaday, middle-class taxpayers) mean nothing to them.
The taxes. They’re too high because the city needs money.*
Preach it, Brother Chui!
Lots of tea party people don’t know that’s what they are yet I think.
Maybe it is a mix of both – he may have a somewhat deeper understanding, but remember he is writing for TNR… Hard to say “They are genuine, and the successor to a great American political tradition” to the folks reading that publication, in most part.
I’m guessing that Judis is in the camp that believes that the Tea-Pertiers can’t possibly understand the macro-economics surrounding the issue of public debt; and that he probably thinks that anyone who is not of a Keynesian outlook is an irrational nutter.
So instead he looks toward the usual group hate and tribal/class divide explanations that is the prisim through which the identity politics/class warrior crowd see society.
Just my two cents, and admittedly I’m not too familiar with John Judis and TNR.
Because of the epistemic closure…
A particularly stupid comment at TNR:
Blah, blah, blah… The entire comment consists of the same lame-ass conventional Lib-Dem talking points we see from the trolls on a daily basis (dog-whistle again? Ohferfuckssake!), but the highlighted bit is so egregious I had to point it out: TEA party protesters are nothing if not completely anti-authoritarian.
And the rest of the comments? Jumpin’ Jeebus on pogo stick, those people are blinkered idiots.
Inasmuch as we’re not on board with the idea of the productive turning over their wealth to the unproductive at threat of violence, he’s not so far off. He mistakes a part of the thing for the thing itself, but you gotta cut him some slack — real-life issues are notoriously difficult for the Reality-Based Nuance Brigade to fully comprehend.
He just can’t resist that old “they’re too stupid to vote their own best interest” meme.
And what if he succeeds and finds the “class” that supports him is 10% or less of the population?
What he has done, in reality, is make a reasonably sincere and honest effort to drive a square peg into a round hole.
There are two quotes that explain the libtards search for ways to explain the TEA Party phenomenon that so befuddles them that they resort to myths:
1. There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
2.Kaffee: I want the truth!
Col. Jessep: You can’t handle the truth!
Not for nothing, but I know some bankers who work pretty fucking hard. Harder than I want to work anyway, and also almost definitely a shit-lot harder than Judis did writing this article. Doesn’t really connect well with the article, but I’m not all that pissed off at bankers. I am incensed at public employee unions, unions in general and the Foghorn Leghorns in Congress, even if, and I mean this, even if they like the soldiers, smoke the dope and want the homos to marry.
Thanks, Jeff. Sorry for forgetting to send a title along.
#10 geoffb
No. His only frame of reference is economic interest. A liberty interest is beyond his ken.
#13 LMC
Many years ago, when I was in law school, I dated a girl whose father was a senior partner in a big firm in Memphis. He still worked Sundays, sometimes. I decided then that they could have the money.
BTW For those with the Kurtz book Mr. Judis shows up on pages 149-150 and 381-382.
What is he doing there geoffb?
let me guess he’s a commie too. no sarc
He wrote The Emerging Democratic Majority in 2002.
He was right but I wonder if he also predicted it wouldn’t last even five years.
carville wrote a book about that too. must have been the thing to do in proggland
He was part of the NAM (the SDS successor) group. Former editor at “Socialist Revolution”. He left them in 1975 to work the electoral process to build a majority movement for socialism that would take over the government and form a new society. They had the socialist periodical “In These Times” as their forum.
Thanks for the precis geoffb. So perhaps, given that account, my suspicions of Judis’ motivation aren’t too far off.
They are cut from the same cloth, yes.
Uuum, no. It’s pretty much just “government”.
Wall street and speculators and banks all played by the rules government set up. That businesses try to profit is no new thing, it’s government that was corrupt. And by government I mean the crooked bastards in congress.
The shiftless and idle white trash ain’t my problem til government takes my wages to support them. That just encourages more shiftlessness.
Negros can work side by side with me; government policies are what make victims of minorities by pandering to them. All of government needs to be blind as lady justice when dealing with the people. Equal treatment under the law. The only identity group government should recognize is “citizen”, or “foreigner”.
Illegal immigrants are a problem with only a magnitude that equals how blatantly government refuses to enforce immigration law. They’re pretty fucking blatant.
Another few blanks I’ll fill…we don’t want our leaders going around apologizing to foreign leaders for us. We don’t want to side with Israels enemies. We don’t want to abandon Poland and Nicaragua, or play nice with Venezuela. We don’t want the Executive branch suing a state for enforcing a constitutionally sound law. As citizens, we don’t like being treated as the enemy by our President if we didn’t vote for him, or don’t like his vision for America. These aren’t Tea Party issues, but I double dog dare you to find a Tea Partyer that disagrees.
I think Judis is working from the Dem script. He knows…
How come none of these brilliant leftists have figured out that 2008 was the solution, not the problem, and the solution was thwarted by government? I have no opinion about bankers or Wall Street other than they would be eating out of dumpsters but for the generosity of the US taxpayer. Odd that some cockamamie story has to be made up, complete with racism and class struggle to explain the gut level reaction to such stupidity.
Derek
No, Lee, I don’t think he does know.
Like most leftoids, he doesn’t actually perceive the world, he sees the stereotype he’s built up. From time to time something in the real world resonates with the stereotype, but the best he can do is get something that’s colored by his preconceptions. Most of the time what he sees is a bit of the stereotype that’s, what, activated(?) by something in the real world.
One of the big problems is that Marx has models for proletarian revolutions and oppression by privilege, but there’s nothing in there that models a bourgeois revolution. It just isn’t possible by his theory-set, so it’s puzzling.
Regards,
Ric
“Like most leftoids, he doesn’t actually perceive the world, he sees the stereotype he’s built up”
You’re very likely right.
I do, however, take self denial with a grain of salt. The T-movement is conservative, lots of talk of the Constitution, and the ideas of the founders.
To say we are feeling exploited by Wall Street and illegal immigrants is a mere variation of “bitter clingers”. It seems too cynical to be cluelessness.
– Fuck Marx, and the Lenin he rode in on.
– The Left is intimately familiar with all things Marxian, since Progressivism is Marx lite. Just their usual masterful job of projection. I doubt he even noticed his definition for Marxism read like a typical Progressives Bio.
Long time no see, BBH. Hope all is well.
What about the towering national debt, the ….Is that so hard to understand?
Excellent questions, it would be great if they were on every voters mind this weekend.
– Yo bh. Did a re-locate to new digs. Lots of fits and starts, as usual for any move, but things are smoothing out nicely.
Good deal, BBH.
– Has feets been behaving his staunchy little self?
Heh, ‘feets has been ‘feets.
– I hear you, and after all, any other kind of feets would pale in comparison.
– Oopsie. My bad.
Hi Mr. Hunter I wanna a new place real bad but moving is something I’d rather do later
Moving. Something I’ve done too many times.
It’s a royal pain in the arse, whether across the hall or across the country…
– Hiyah feets. Wait. Is that cupcake crumbs I see on your fingers?
– You need to get a pail ‘in wash your hands.
it is a pain a big expensive one but I’ll probably move everything to storage gradually first
I see what you did there BBH.
– This was definitely a positive move for us. Much newer, cleaner, and cheaper, plus we were just sick of the old place really. Time for a move.
I had a pancakes n bacon one this week it was very very very tasty … it wasn’t my fault … then guess what I discovered? This is awful.
Gooey butter cake!
It’s evilicious. It’s at the soul food place I finally got around to going to. Way better than Roscoe’s.
– Yeh, I’m busted Bob.
hf, can you get a recipe for the G-B-C and promulgate teh evils?
– Now if you can add a lemon custard to that buttercake feets you’ll be in cake heaven.
This is not how we make weight.
Wind sprints is right.
hah I will see… I bet not though … it’s so indescribably good kinda like cheesecake except at room temperature and gooey and buttery and very very America
it’s gooey like it shouldn’t be able to retain cake form and yet it does … and the crust is like no other – cause of it’s been soaking in the gooey buttery goodness I guess
never has had it but looking online we find:
1 (18.25 ounce) package yellow cake mix
1 cup butter, melted
5 eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 (8 oz) package cream cheese
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 cups powdered sugar
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Mix cake mix, butter, 1/2 tsp vanilla, and 3 eggs.
Pat into a 9 X 13 inch pan.
Mix cream cheese, 2 eggs, 1/2 tsp vanilla with a mixer. Slowly beat in powdered sugar. Pour over cake.
Bake for 40 to 45 minutes. Cool.
I know Mr. bh next week and for many weeks after that I’m on restriction it’s coming up on two years next march for when I quit smoking and by then it’s time to bring the I can eat anything I want as long as I don’t smoke chapter to a close
damn it
And the Paula Deen version apparently built to kill more slowly:
1 18 1/4-ounce package yellow cake mix
1 egg
8 tablespoons butter, melted
Filling:
1 8-ounce package cream cheese, softened
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
8 tablespoons butter, melted
1 16-ounce box powdered sugar
that sounds about right – there was a discernible cheesecakey reminiscent crustyness on top from the baking
if you ever come out west I promise I hook you up
I like the first recipe better
my druthers tend in that direction too. I think I can safely say I’ve never bought a margarine of any sort, stick or tub. Life without les oeufs? Impossible. Sugar? More, never less.
– Yes, yes, the weight thing can be a real downer, but assessing California’s immediate future for the next ten years or so, I’d just as soon think happy thoughts because we’re going to have to go through a real calamity before things will get back to any sort of normal. Hopefully the water and money will run out soon which will give us a chance.
My arteries just slammed shut in anticipation. Mmmmm.
the water n money’ll last longer than this tasty bottle of piss-coloured rum I bet
– Bicardi’s purple label feets. Might as well go top shelf if you’re going to hammer your liver.
I eat stuff like this maybe four times a year.
I really, really hate you guys.
If I quit drinking I could eat like this but that’s just crazy talk.
– Don’t hate us bh. Bet most of us do about the same as you. I know I do.
this is some stray dog bottle of rum from the republic of dominica my sister got at duty-free … I have to remember to save the bottle
– Besides, isn’t special if you did it all the time.
We may be in process of creating a bushido eating spirit. Embrace your death.
– Interesting idea sdferr.
– Here’s how I look at it. Two things.
– Try as best you cab to stick with the “all things in moderation”.
– But enjoy as many things as you can while you’re in this corporeal world.
– The one thing I don’t want to end up doing is shuffling around in the afterlife, whatever it is, all pissed off and remorseful that I missed out on things when I could enjoy them.
1 cup butter, 5 eggs, 8oz creamcheese. Add some English muffins and bacon and I’ve got a breakfast.
Freakishly large men with odd hair loss and zits on their back are coming to choke all of you.
Trust me, this is how it ends.
– Coming soon to an ICU ward near you.
“Trust me, this is how it ends.”
– Well, if that’s the case, then we all might as well pull up a huge slice of strawberry – whip cream topped vanilla cheese cake and our fav appertif and have at it as we keel over in a complete food induced stupor.
Don’t listen to him, bh. Wouldn’t it be more fun to run as fast as you can a few times until you puke?
– Kind of ironic we got on food tonight since we had our unofficial new home warming dinner this evening, just one of my step daughters, my youngest son, and myself.
– Went all out for a change. I won’t rattle off the evening’s menu. bh sounds like he’s edging close to seppuku as it is.
If it’s puking you want, may I suggest mushrooms at 15 paces? You eat yours, I eat mine, then we try to puke on each other’s shoes, after which we just get down to hallucinating for a couple of hours?
Same here. Moving is teh suck.
As for food – beef jerky: mmmm, mmmm, mmmm….
I appreciate that, BBH.
Ahhh, ‘shrooms. The year was ’95 and we were watching Leprechaun when they started to kick in…
… that’s why you never…
… so I apologized even though I’m pretty sure I wasn’t there when it happened.
I just want to show everyone this bad vacation photo.
http://verydemotivational.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/demotivational-posters-bad-vacation.jpg
That photo is how the Dems will be feeling on Tuesday.
If I quit drinking I could eat like this but that’s just crazy talk.
PERISH the thought.
I eat salads for dinner so I can have some wine afterwards. Don’t judge me.
To stay OT – good post Di. I saw that piece earlier but could only make it halfway through before the words turned into “bla bla bla” before my eyes.
Perhaps if a few of these liberals actually KNEW a REAL LIVE conservative (or Tea partiers) their analysis wouldn’t be so silly.
“a bushido eating spirit”
That sounds like an excellent blog title.