Igor Say: Tea Parties, Bad!

OffHisMeds read with interest "GOP making progress in bid to reinvent party" in the Saturday Chronicle.  Therein, NY Times columnist David Brooks touts the efforts of Liberal Repubs to "reclaim" the party by advancing the notion that the Republican Party is on the ropes, allegedly because they are in thrall to groups like the Tea Party.  If you remember David Brooks, you know why his claims are suspect.  Brooks is, of course, the frothing-at-the-mouth Liberal who proclaims himself a conservative - or at least allows other to make that claim on his behalf - so he can have a credibility otherwise unsustained by his journalism.  What he is, is a doctrinaire Lib riding the same Trick Pony that David Gergen did before him.  See, the Times just loooooves folks who have any kind of conservative resume that they can subvert to The Cause, all while not having the decency to at least describe them as "former" conservatives.

 

Meanwhile, Brooks' latest claim that the Repubs lost not just the presidency but the faith of the American people doesn't pass the smell test, seeing as how Republicans still dominate the House of Representatives by 50 seats, control 26 state legislatures and 29 governorships.

 

Those numbers don't stop Brooks from extrapolating from Obama's narrow victory a repudiation of everything conservatives stand for. According to Brooks the "ideological extremes of the party have begun to self-ghettoize", by which he means the Tea Parties who "have a tendency to migrate from mainstream politics.......to ever more marginal oases of purity". The racialist terms he uses to describe conservatives were hardly accidental, but they were essential to prop up his thesis that America has kicked the Republican Party to the curb.
 

I have a much less nuanced explanation, albeit one that would have deprived Brooks of yet another opportunity to equate the Tea Parties with racism, bigotry and extremism: 1) In Mitt Romney, the Republican Establishment insisted on a candidate indistinguishable from President Obama, not the least because ObamaCare was a virtual twin of Romney's health care plan as governor of Massachusettes; 2) Romney was a relentless triangulator, changing his political positions to suit the audience he was speaking to, a quality that is innately unattractive to folks expecting their candidates to show some personal conviction; 3) Not only did Romney not embrace the Tea Parties, he barely acknowledged their existence.  The result was that Republicans didn't like him, and he lost.  

 

Romney was certainly somebody's candidate.  He trounced Obama amongst Independents, a constiuency that Brooks previously claimed would not embrace Romney unless he presented "moderate" views.  Brooks would thus be stupefied if challenged to explain the contradiction to his premise that Romney lost because he embraced radical conservative causes, not that there was much likelihood of that happening.  His environment at the Times is pretty well insulated from reality, including any reasonable analysis regarding the Tea Party phenomenon.
 

Brooks is not alone in advancing the Bad Tea Parties narrative in the media. In the past two weeks, we've heard the same thing from Jack Krugman, EJ Dionne and various other liberal pundits. I believe the truth is something else entirely: The Tea Parties are a grass-roots reaction to the berserk government spending that threatens our national survival. These folks are decent, patriotic and tolerant. They are also willing to sacrifice short-term political gain for the sake of principle.
 

As to the advice of Brooks et al, the philosopher Virgil famously said "beware Greeks bearing gifts". If the Republican Party wants to "reinvent" itself, instead of listening to Democrat partisans, it should try expanding its base by fielding principled candidates who stand for something, instead of somebody even squishier than Mitt Romney.