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November 1, 2010
Frank Rich in The Grand Old Plot Against the Tea Party in the New York Times argues that the Tea Party movement, despite its 'take back America' campaign supported by Fox News, is going to hit the wall of political power in The Republican party after the mid-term elections.
Mike Thompson
Rich says:
the Republican elites found the Tea Party invaluable on the way to this Election Day. And not merely, as Huckabee has it, because they wanted its foot soldiers. What made the Tea Party most useful was that its loud populist message gave the G.O.P. just the cover it needed both to camouflage its corporate patrons and to rebrand itself as a party miraculously antithetical to the despised G.O.P. that gave us George W. Bush and record deficits only yesterday.Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News and Wall Street Journal have been arduous in promoting and inflating Tea Party events and celebrities to this propagandistic end. The more the Tea Party looks as if it’s calling the shots in the G.O.P., the easier it is to distract attention from those who are actually calling them — namely, those who’ve cashed in and cashed out as ordinary Americans lost their jobs, homes and 401(k)’s [retirement savings plans].
The ordinary Americans in this movement lack the numbers and financial clout to muscle their way into the back rooms of Republican power no matter how well their candidates perform.The backrooms of those of corporate America where Wall Street money flows freely to cut taxes and regulation of their favored industries.
Environmental regulation will be rolled back through aggressive investigations from the incoming Republican majority. So there will be gridlock on climate change for the next two years, given the Republicans mantra of 'No compromise' and saying no to everything. Gridlock is wonderful when the Republicans are doing it. Whatever gets Republicans elected is just fantastic no matter how much harm it does to the country or the economy.
Behind this politics sits the global financial crisis, which has been followed by a protracted period of very high unemployment. In a contracting economy people are scared of losing their jobs, not being able to pay their mortgage or being foreclosed and falling sick from a major illness. And as, Paul Krugman points out, we have the failed economic policies of the Obama administration.
What is sad is the capitulation concerning any real financial reform by the Democrats, who proved themselves only loyal to Wall Street and the big banks. You would think that it would be good politics for the Obama administration, which has a hard time establishing credibility with ordinary people, to bring the foreclosures to a halt---a foreclosure moratorium, by temporarily halting the flood of foreclosed houses onto the market--given all the fraud involved.
The Obama administration appears to be protecting the big banks again.
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The resurgent Republicans want to make Obama a one term president. They will do anything they can to undermine Obama. That means being confrontational.