In his triumphant return to the Washington Post, Dave Weigel debunks five myths about the tea party:
- The tea party isn’t a reaction to President Obama, it’s a reaction to the bank bailouts.
- The tea party is racist.
- Sarah Palin is the leader of the tea party.
- The tea party is bad for Republicans.
- The tea party will transform American politics.
I think Dave is 90% correct. These are all myths, with the partial exception of #4. In the short term, he’s right: “The tea party movement is giving Republicans a dream of an electorate, one in which surveys find more GOP-inclined voters enthusiastic about casting ballots than voters who lean Democratic. Democrats have done some damage to the tea party brand — its favorability has fallen in polls — but in general, the presence of a new political force that is not called Republican and is not tied to George W. Bush has given the GOP a glorious opportunity to remake its image, at a time when trust in the party is very low.”
True. But in the longer term I think the tea party movement is more dangerous to Republicans than he lets on. There’s a limit to how crazy a party can get and still win elections even occasionally, and the tea partiers are very rapidly taking the GOP to that point and beyond. It’s probably a net benefit in 2010 — though even that’s debatable — but beyond that I suspect it’s almost pure millstone.
I’ll have more on this in the next issue of the magazine. If I understand our production timetable properly, that shouldn’t be too far off. But don’t hold me to it. I might not have as good a handle on MoJo’s print schedule as I think.
