The Tea Party Really Isn't Anything Very New | Mother Jones

The Tea Party Really Isn't Anything Very New | Mother Jones:

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Dana Milbank: When the tea party jumped the shark - The Washington Post

Dana Milbank: When the tea party jumped the shark - The Washington Post:

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Sensitive Tea Partiers Need to Stop Taking Criticism So Personally - Conor Friedersdorf - The Atlantic

Sensitive Tea Partiers Need to Stop Taking Criticism So Personally - Conor Friedersdorf - The Atlantic:

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Characteristic of Fanatics

“The fanatic cannot be weaned away from his cause by an appeal to reason or his moral sense. He fears compromise and cannot be persuaded to qualify the certitude and righteousness of his holy cause.” (p. 85). 

~Eric Hoffer 

Sedition: Petition calls for arrest of shutdown-causing republicans

Wow.  Here's a quick definition of sedition from Google dictionary (I'll look up a better one later, promise).

Sedition:  Conduct or speech inciting people to rebel against the authority of a state or monarch

The petition specifically calls for the Tea Party to be arrested and charged with sedition.

Tea Party Republicans could be charged with sedition under US law for holding America hostage.

Sedition: Petition calls for arrest of shutdown-causing republicans:

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TEA PARTIERS REACT WITH FURY TO WORLD THEY CAN'T CONTROL - Yahoo News

TEA PARTIERS REACT WITH FURY TO WORLD THEY CAN'T CONTROL - Yahoo News:
Commentary by Cynthia Tucker  (2007 Pulitzer Prize for commentary - visiting professor at the University of Georgia.)

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Tea party vs. old guard in GOP Senate rift - Yahoo News

Tea party vs. old guard in GOP Senate rift - Yahoo News:

A little background on the rifts in the GOP - from the Associated Press in May, 2013:

"A long-simmering feud between establishment Republicans and tea partyers broke into full view, with Sen. John McCain accusing younger colleagues of overplaying their hands and tempting Democrats to change Senate rules that protect the minority party.

Tactics for dealing with the government's budget and debt became the latest quarrel in a series of skirmishes between McCain —sometimes joined by other traditionalist Republicans —and tea party champions such as Ted Cruz of Texas, Rand Paul of Kentucky, Mike Lee of Utah and Marco Rubio of Florida."

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PolitiFact Virginia | McDonnell says U.S. Senate hasn't passed a budget in 4-1/2 years

PolitiFact Virginia | McDonnell says U.S. Senate hasn't passed a budget in 4-1/2 years:

Politifact Ruling:  False
In fact they did - this year!  But guess who refused to let it go to committee (where the real negotiations happen in Congress)....yep.  The Tea Party.  From the article:

". . . The Senate, on March 23 this year, passed a $3.7 trillion budget on a 50-49 vote that maintained entitlements -- such as Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare -- and discretionary domestic programs. It differed from a $3.5 trillion House budget, passed three days earlier, that significantly cut entitlement programs and deficits over the coming decade. 

Efforts to send the competing budgets to a conference committee have been unsuccessful, however. A group of Tea Party senators has blocked motions -- which need unanimous consent -- to advance the Senate’s spending plan. They have insisted on assurances that the budget negotiations would not lead to higher taxes and voiced concern that a conference committee could create momentum for procedures that thwart filibusters against increasing the nation's debt limit."

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Michele Bachmann: Obama ‘used to being George III’ – CNN Political Ticker - CNN.com Blogs

Michele Bachmann: Obama ‘used to being George III’ – CNN Political Ticker - CNN.com Blogs:

Bachmann = leader of the Tea Party Caucus.  Interesting return to violence flavored Revolution rhetoric of the early movement.  (Note to self:  See also Palin in Nashville, NCA Interview, and paper draft.)


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How the GOP Slowly Went Insane - Jon Lovett - The Atlantic

How the GOP Slowly Went Insane - Jon Lovett - The Atlantic:

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Public Opinion Toward Tea Party Hits Low Point : It's All Politics : NPR

Public Opinion Toward Tea Party Hits Low Point : It's All Politics : NPR:

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Poll: Rift forming between tea party, rest of GOP

Poll: Rift forming between tea party, rest of GOP:

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Tea party activists call bipartisan deal a capitulation, say they are unbowed - The Washington Post

Tea party activists call bipartisan deal a capitulation, say they are unbowed - The Washington Post:

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Tea party groups denounce Senate plan

Tea party groups denounce Senate plan:

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Harold Meyerson: A tea party purge among the GOP - The Washington Post

This is one of those articles (less prevalent now) that attempts to see some hidden rationality in what the Tea Party does and believes.  He still thinks they hate Obamacare because they mistakenly believe it's "socialist".

He does, however, provide a provacative and less common characterization of the Tea Party as distinctly white and southern and rebellious toward the federal government  (I assume he means Southern in attitude not geography because TP not concentrated in the South.)


Harold Meyerson: A tea party purge among the GOP - The Washington Post:

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Q&A: What’s the state of the debt-limit fight today? (UPDATED)

From the Washington Post today:

Q&A: What’s the state of the debt-limit fight today? (UPDATED):

 Question:  "Why did this take so long?

 Answer:  there are two answers to this question.

1. Democracy.
2. A group of conservative "tea party" Republicans in the House insisted on significant changes to Obama's health care law in order to keep the government functioning."

I love the first answer!  Well done.  

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Billboard Shows Obama As Hitler, Demands President's Impeachment

Oh, good grief!

Billboard Shows Obama As Hitler, Demands President's Impeachment:

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Debbie Wasserman Schultz: Shutdown Fight Is 'Personal' Against Obama (VIDEO)

Debbie Wasserman Schultz: Shutdown Fight Is 'Personal' Against Obama (VIDEO):

"Among the many reasons behind the government shutdown, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schutlz (D-Fla.) asserted that the Tea Party's motives were, in part, "personal" against President Barack Obama. 

"I think plenty of the Tea Partiers are hell-bent on doing everything they can to block President Obama from being successful, and they're willing to even harm the economy in order to do that. So, some of it is personal," she told HuffPost Live's Marc Lamont Hill."

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A New Jersey Farmer Blog: Where Democracy Lives: Surf's Up! The Right Wing's Gnarly Ride to a Wipeout

A New Jersey Farmer Blog: Where Democracy Lives: Surf's Up! The Right Wing's Gnarly Ride to a Wipeout:

 "The problem is not with both parties. It's with an increasingly reactionary Republican Party that will oppose anything Obama says, even if it means opposing its own interests."

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Debbie Wasserman Schultz: Shutdown Fight Is 'Personal' Against Obama (VIDEO)

Debbie Wasserman Schultz: Shutdown Fight Is 'Personal' Against Obama (VIDEO):

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Tea party wants to take America back -- to the 18th century - latimes.com

Tea party wants to take America back -- to the 18th century - latimes.com:

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To be clear . . .

I don't necessarily agree with everything I'm posting here nor is it necessarily going to become part of the final paper on fanatical rhetoric.  Right now (a lot of the time) I'm just dumping articles related to Tea Party fanacticism that I haven't had time to completely read or fact check or think/comment about yet.

It was a long time coming, but the media and pundits and blogosphere have begun to acknowledge and discuss the fanactism at play here.   As the Tea Party pushes the country to the brink of default in a manaical holy quest to defeat their devil Obama(care), it's kinda hard to ignore, right?

(And hey, it only took them 3+ years to get where we started).

So there's a lot to sift through and think about this week.  I'll write more later. . .


From Rhetoric Goat - February, 2010

This demonization rhetoric characteristic of True Believer movements intensified throughout the spring, reaching it's first peak and public organization with the Tea Party protests on April 15th [2009], once again prompting a "perspective by incongruity" from Jon Stewart on "Tea Party Tyranny". 

To make the President of the United States and the US Government into an Un-American rhetorical devil like this is the hallmark of True Believers and Mass Movements, ala Eric Hoffer. And it was this rhetoric - this increasingly vehement, vitriolic, vengeful and intensely political action - toward our constitutionally elected leaders in the spring of 2009 - that made me throw out the vogue but bland course syllabus and start seriously discussing rhetorical current events with my students again. We voted to scrap the group projects and read Eric Hoffer and take a closer, academic look at this rising mass movement against the POTUS and US Government as our real time rhetorical criticism for the remainder of the semester. 

The South’s “Lost Cause” Addiction » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names

The South’s “Lost Cause” Addiction » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names:

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Obamacare - The Rest of the Story - NYTimes.com

Obamacare - The Rest of the Story - NYTimes.com:

The conclusion of Bill Keller's analysis questions whether the opposition to Obamacare is simply (fanatical) opposition to Obama:

 "The Democrats were passionately in favor of enrolling the uninsured, but many would have preferred a government-run program, or at least a public option. What Obamacare has wrought is the kind of market-driven reformation that Republicans pretend to believe in. Which makes you wonder how much of their opposition rests on the merits, and how much is just a loathing for anything associated with Barack Obama."  (Emphasis mine)

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Tell Boehner: Dump the Tea Party | LeftAction

Yeah, that's what I said.


Tell Boehner: Dump the Tea Party | LeftAction:

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The Republican Shutdown and Default Is Designed to Destroy the Legacy of Obama

The Republican Shutdown and Default Is Designed to Destroy the Legacy of Obama:

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Forward Progressives — Republican Senator Calls Out Ted Cruz and Tea Party for Not Being In Tune with the “Real World”

Forward Progressives — Republican Senator Calls Out Ted Cruz and Tea Party for Not Being In Tune with the “Real World”:

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Forward Progressives — Sarah Palin Shows Her Stupidity Once Again: Obama Risking “Impeachment” Over Debt Ceiling

Forward Progressives — Sarah Palin Shows Her Stupidity Once Again: Obama Risking “Impeachment” Over Debt Ceiling:

I'm not sure I would write Palin off as merely stupid.  She is a True Believer and for her Tea Party audience her rhetoric does not have to be logical, it only has to be certain.  (See Hoffer).  This is a great (i.e. classic) example of fanatical rhetoric.  

Here's part of what I wrote about Sarah Palin's rhetoric in February 2010 (after we saw her speak at The Tea Party convention in Nashville):

Much ado about Sarah's rhetoric . . . and why it matters.

 “. . . With that said, however, I will acknowledge that based on the evidence from our ongoing research, I do think Palin and the Tea Parties are rhetorically dangerous because of the fanaticism they breed toward the US Government, and in particular, the irrational hatred and fear they exploit and nurture toward out current President, Barack Obama. She clearly stated in Nashville that her motives are to start a revolution . . . The problem with Sarah Palin is that she herself is a True Believer . . . I honestly think she has no clue what she is doing, and I honestly think she believes she is doing a really great thing for America. (You betcha!) . . . someone with very little solid education about human history recklessly running strategy and calling rhetorical plays without full consideration or even awareness of the potential consequences. And wish as we might, she is not going away - indeed, her voice is getting bigger, thanks to Fox News.”

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Read This One Document If You Want To Understand Why Republicans Followed Ted Cruz Off A Cliff | ThinkProgress

Read This One Document If You Want To Understand Why Republicans Followed Ted Cruz Off A Cliff | ThinkProgress:

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Boehner to Tea Party: Shut Yourself Down - Bloomberg

Boehner to Tea Party: Shut Yourself Down - Bloomberg:

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Tea Partiers Swear They Are Not Racist, But Their Actions Beg To Differ - Occupy Democrats

Occupydemocracy via Twitter:

Tea Partiers Swear They Are Not Racist, But Their Actions Beg To Differ - Occupy Democrats:

Salvatore Aversa writes in this analysis of the Value Voters Summit:

"It is not often I will say somebody is being racist, simply because they disagree with President Obama.  Despite that, there are times when arguments become latent with racism.  It is becoming more and more apparent that the Republican Modus Operandi is complaining because there is a black guy in the White House.  We see it when teabaggers carry signs of President Obama with a bone in his nose.  We see it when Republicans put criticisms on President Obama, that never seemed to be an issue before, like the raising of the debt ceiling, or even simply keeping the government operating.

 This has never been more apparent than with Joe Wurzelbacher, who recently published on his website an article by an unattributed author.  In it, the article states that wanting a “white Republican President” does not “make you racist, it just makes you American.”

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Let's Just Allow the Tea Party to Take Over America | VICE United States

LOL

Let's Just Allow the Tea Party to Take Over America | VICE United States:

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GOP establishment assails tea party on shutdown - Tea Party

Another perspective: Here is the (a) Tea Party's response to the Tea Party and the GOP.  From the website:  www.teaparty.org

GOP establishment assails tea party on shutdown - Tea Party:

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Kochs and Other Conservatives Split Over Strategy on Health Law - NYTimes.com

More splintering . . .

Kochs and Other Conservatives Split Over Strategy on Health Law - NYTimes.com:

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911 call: Goats 'might bully me'

Goats.  Enough said.

Hilarious CNN video is here:
911 call: Goats 'might bully me':

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Political Twitter Wars

Twitter has played a significant role in the government shutdown dramas.  Both politicians and citizens are making their opinions and positions known via Twitter.  This has gone on as long as I've been on Twitter (since 2009) - not the politician part, the citizen part.  Politicians were slow to get on board, but once they did, they became part of the cacaphony of twitter politics.  The primary hashtags to follow for each side are: #tcot (top conservatives on twitter) and #p2 (progressives).

Today on Twitter: a message to the Tea Party from the POTUS:

Perhaps not surprisingly, #tcot is trending since this posted.




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Tea Party’s Ross Says Debt Worth Yielding on Obamacare - Bloomberg

Tea Party’s Ross Says Debt Worth Yielding on Obamacare - Bloomberg:

U.S. Representative Dennis Ross, a Florida Republican, said he would support a broad spending deal that didn’t include changes to the health-care law, becoming the first Tea Party-backed House lawmaker to publicly back off the fight that has shut down the government for five days.

 Ross, ranked among the House’s most conservative members by both the Club for Growth and the American Conservative Union, said he shifted his position because the shutdown hasn’t resulted in changes to the Affordable Care Act, which started Oct. 1, the same day government funding ran out. The shutdown also could hurt the party, he said.

Enlarge imageU.S. Representative Dennis Ross, a Florida Republican. Photographer: Tom Williams/Roll Call via Getty Images
“We’ve lost the CR battle,” Ross, referring to the continuing resolution to authorize government spending, said in an interview. “We need to move on and take whatever we can find in the debt limit.” 

Other lawmakers backed by the limited-government Tea Partymovement, including Republican Representative Jim Jordan ofOhio, are refusing to budge. Republican House Speaker John Boehner said yesterday the way to end the government shutdown would be for Democrats to negotiate and accept changes that would produce “fairness” under President Barack Obama’s signature health-care law, also known as Obamacare.
Representative Raul Labrador, an Idaho Republican and leading voice in the fight against Obamacare, said a change to the law “has to be on the table.”

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More of this, please!

As I said earlier this week, what needs to happen rhetorically is for the GOP to start casting the Tea Party as the bad guys and the GOP and traditional Conservatives as the good guys.  As President Obama said October 1st, the Tea Party is "one faction of one party in one house".   The political right needs to run with that . . . and that appears to be finally beginning.   

Here is Scott Galupo from The American Conservative today:

Why are Republicans inflicting real, immediate, and tangible harm on the economy in order to accomplish the impossible (delay or defund Obamacare) address an abstract future threat (debt) or merely to save face? Why isn’t the majority of the House majority isolating its rightmost faction and ending this pointlessly asinine pissing match?

Contra the conventional wisdom, I maintain that no one in leadership will lose his job. The very nature of Tea Party opposition, whether it issues from the likes ofBazooka Ted and His Gang in the Senate or the unappeasable Jacobins in the House, is to throw weight without consequence. They evince no interest in actually wielding power from the inside, which would require restraint, conciliation, and moderation. They are hysterics on the brink of utter demoralization. The danger they pose to democratic norms, institutional comity, and political functionality is precisely why they can’t be bargained with; they must be marginalized.

 It’s time, Republicans: it’s time to throw the One Ring into Mount Doom. (emphasis mine)

Word.  More of this, please!!

"Insane, Catastrophic, Chaos"

From the Washington Post:

President Obama addressed the nation Tuesday regarding the government shutdown, telling Congress to take a vote on a continuing resolution to end the government shutdown.  Video and transcript are available here.

Specific comments about the Tea Party from President Obama's press conference today:

Now the last time that the tea party Republicans flirted with the idea of default, two years ago, markets plunged, business and consumer confidence plunged, America's credit rating was downgraded for the first time, and a decision to actually go through with it, to actually permit default, according to many CEOs and economists, would be -- and I'm quoting here -- "insane, catastrophic, chaos" -- these are some of the more polite words.… 

And I've continued to believe that Citizens United contributed to some of the problems we're having in Washington right now. You know, you have some ideological extremist who has a big bankroll, and they can entirely skew our politics.
And there are a whole bunch of members of Congress right now who privately will tell you, I know our positions are unreasonable, but we're scared that if we don't go along with the tea party agenda, or the -- some particularly extremist agenda, that we'll be challenged from the right. And the threats are very explicit. And so they toe the line. And that's part of why we've seen a breakdown of just normal routine business done here in Washington on behalf of the American people.And all of you know it. I mean, I'm not telling you anything you don't know because it's very explicit. You report on it. A big chunk of the Republican Party right now is -- are in gerrymandered districts where there's no competition and those folks are much more worried about a tea party challenger than they are about a general election where they've got to complete against a Democrat or go after independent votes. And in that environment, it's a lot harder for them to compromise. All right?

Transcript of President's remarks is available via the Washington Post.

“The Tea Party is better understood as a reactionary conservative force.”

“The Tea Party is better understood as a reactionary conservative force.”

University of Washington political scientist Christopher Parker, a co-author of Change They Can’t Believe In: The Tea Party and Reactionary Politics in America:

"In our survey research, a list experiment also revealed how Tea Party conservatives think differently than other conservatives.  We randomly divided survey respondents into two groups and asked them how many of a list of statements — but not which statements — they agreed with.  The only thing that differed across the two groups was whether the list of statements included the proposition that “Obama is destroying the country.” The results showed a striking divergence: 71 percent of Tea-Party conservatives agreed with this statement but six percent of non-Tea Party conservatives did."  (Emphasis mine)

"We also explored the roots of identification with the Tea Party.  We found that, even after controlling a host of factors — including ideology and attitudes toward African-Americans — Tea Party identifiers were more common among those believing that Obama actively promotes socialism.  This again suggests motives more akin to reactionary conservatism."

Once again, we see the identification against a devil (Obama) as the primary basis of Tea Party membership and movement.  Parker calls them "reactionary".  We call them fanatical.  I'm going to tentatively suggest that being fanatical and being reactionary are not exactly the same.  In a fanactical group there is a specific rhetorical devil.  This is not necessarily the case in a reactionary movement.  Fanatical movements are motivated by fear - not necessarily so a reactionary m0vement.  This is a tentative conclusion - I'm still thinking about it...

Independent (Rhetoric Goat) Scholars

We wanted to take a moment to notify you that Eric and Commlong are no longer affilitated with MTSU.  Eric graduated (yay!) and Commlong's contract apparently became too expensive for them (boo!), so we are now independent scholars.

Which is probably just as well for a Rhetoric Goat blog.

"Goats are extremely curious and intelligent. . . They are also known for escaping their pens..."  (acc/Wikipedia)

USA Today - "The Tea Party shutdown"

From the October 2nd USA Today editorial clarifying that the government shutdown is not the result of both parties in Congress behaving badly; rather the shutdown is entirely attributable to the Tea Party "fringe".  The editorial board notes:

This shutdown, the first in 17 years, isn't the result of two parties acting equally irresponsibly. It is the product of an increasingly radicalized Republican Party, controlled by a disaffected base that demands legislative hostage-taking in an effort to get what it has not been able to attain by the usual means: winning elections. 

Call it the Tea Party shutdown. The group will wear the badge proudly.

Pressed by this uncompromising fringe, Republicans leaders in the House are making demands that are both preposterous and largely unrelated to budgetary matters in return for keeping government running. Most absurdly, they want President Obama to undermine the health care law that he ran on in 2008 and 2012, and now considers his signature domestic accomplishment.

No president of either party could accept that kind of badgering. No president should. (Emphasis mine).

More fanatical (as opposed to useful or practical) Tea Party opposition to the symbolic Obama devil - in this case "Obamacare".  And USA Today also points out that this is coming from the "disaffected base" of the party - which is a primary component of a fanatical movement (the disaffected audience) according to Eric Hoffer.

A reporter for MSNBC (find name) similarly noted last week that those in opposition are "True Believers" who really do believe Obamacare is dangerous - it is not merely a political strategy to oppose the Democrats.  

Which is even scarier - because as Hoffer so clearly outlines, fanatical movements cannot be persuaded by reason and logic because they are not concerned about the rational basis of a policy position. There can be no compromise for them because they are on a "holy quest" that is more important than any practical policy concern.  True Believers will sacrifice anything for their Holy Cause and for the Tea Party this is opposing "the devil" Obama and all of his works (e.g. Obamacare).

 So in this case, what gets sacrificed to the "holy cause" that Hoffer explains is the American budget and the entire functioning of the government.  Nevermind how much this hurts workers and citizens who are furloughed or denied access to federal landmarks because of the shutdown.  The Tea Party doesn't care:  we are just collateral damage in their holy quest to oppose their devil (i.e. Obama).

My 2 cents:

If Speaker Boehner is waiting for this disaffected base to come around and support a straight vote on the budget, it will never happen.  He'll have to take a stand and split the party into two distinguishable components:  The GOP (who cares about America and Americans) and The Tea Party (who care about nothing but their fanatical quest to oppose President Obama).  Perhaps faced with the choice of being part of the un-American Tea Party or part of an American GOP, there could be a shift for some into the "American" brotherhood.

Symbolically, rhetorically, that is the only solution to the fanatical Tea Party problem in the GOP and Congress.

Don't hold your breath.  Everytime Boehner has had a chance to jettison the Tea Party and elevate the GOP he has balked.  I can't help but wonder - what are they holding over his head that he is so paralyzed by their influence?  Is remaining Speaker of the House so important that he will collude and empower the fringe in order to assure his position - thus refusing to become part of the solution (the American GOP) and joining the problem (the anti-American Tea party).  Is he really that weak?

How does he not get that Americans love a hero more than they love House Speakers?  Directing his party to do a straight up and down vote on the budget and the debt ceiling for the good of America makes him a hero.  Not doing so just makes him a Tea Party tool.

The Shutdown Party: Our view - (USA Today Editorial)

USA Today editorial position - October 1st, 2013

The Shutdown Party: Our view:

As the government shutdown loomed, many Americans did what comes naturally in matters regarding Washington: They ignored it.Now that the shutdown has happened, many people are inclined toward a second default position: Blame everyone.

Both positions fit the dismally low view that Americans have of government in general, and Congress in particular.

In this case, however, the "they're all bums" reaction is off-base. This shutdown, the first in 17 years, isn't the result of two parties acting equally irresponsibly. It is the product of an increasingly radicalized Republican Party, controlled by a disaffected base that demands legislative hostage-taking in an effort to get what it has not been able to attain by the usual means: winning elections.

Call it the Tea Party shutdown. The group will wear the badge proudly. 

Pressed by this uncompromising fringe, Republicans leaders in the House are making demands that are both preposterous and largely unrelated to budgetary matters in return for keeping government running. Most absurdly, they want President Obama to undermine the health care law that he ran on in 2008 and 2012, and now considers his signature domestic accomplishment. 

No president of either party could accept that kind of badgering. No president should.

 (emphasis mine)

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Jon Stewart Destroys Fox News Over Syria Coverage: 'Who Cares HOW We Avoided A War...' (VIDEO)

Jon Stewart - the man who brought us "Baracknophobia"  - blasts Fox this week for their fanatical opposition to President Obama ("the devil").  They do this not with well reasoned argument on policy but rather with fear that serves to increase and feed their "brotherhood".

I get that Fox opposes the Syria peace plan because its modus operandi is to foment dissent in the form of a relentless, irrational contrarianism to Barack Obama and all things Democratic to advance its ultimate objective of creating a deliberately misinformed body politic whose fear, anger, mistrust and discontent is the manna upon which it sustains its parasitic, succubus like existence, BUT... sorry, I blacked out for a second I was saying something?  (emphasis mine)

This is epic.  Watch:

Jon Stewart Destroys Fox News Over Syria Coverage: 'Who Cares HOW We Avoided A War...' (VIDEO):

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Glenn Beck Bringing Anti-Immigrant Conspiracy Theories To Tea Party Rally | Blog | Media Matters for America

Of course he is.

Glenn Beck Bringing Anti-Immigrant Conspiracy Theories To Tea Party Rally | Blog | Media Matters for America:

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Occupy Democrats on 2010 Tea Party promises and new abortion laws

Posted by Occupy Democrats on their Facebook Page:

(1) Timeline Photos:

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The Tea Party & The Inevitable Return Of The Stupid Party | The Daily Banter

The Tea Party & The Inevitable Return Of The Stupid Party | The Daily Banter:

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Fox Cuts Away From Obama's Berlin Speech To Cover Tea Party Protests | Blog | Media Matters for America

Fox Cuts Away From Obama's Berlin Speech To Cover Tea Party Protests | Blog | Media Matters for America:

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Dana Milbank: Michele Bachmann, GOP squeaky wheel, ready to retire - The Washington Post

Dana Milbank: Michele Bachmann, GOP squeaky wheel, ready to retire - The Washington Post:

 "But for all her entertainment value, Bachmann has done more than any other elected official to inject false information into the national debate, contributing to a culture in which many conservatives detach themselves from reality. A study by the nonpartisan Center for Media and Public Affairs this week based on data from PolitiFact.com found that Republicans’ claims in recent months are three times more likely to be false than those of Democrats. The Post’s fact checker, Glenn Kessler, discovered that Bachmann told a higher percentage of whoppers than any other lawmaker."

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Dana Milbank: Michele Bachmann, GOP squeaky wheel, ready to retire - The Washington Post

Dana Milbank: Michele Bachmann, GOP squeaky wheel, ready to retire - The Washington Post:

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NM tea party group was target of IRS scrutiny « Watchdog.org

NM tea party group was target of IRS scrutiny « Watchdog.org:

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Welcome to the Rhetoric Goat!

Welcome!

Eric Covington and I started this blog in the Spring of 2010 as we prepared to see Sarah Palin speak at the first Tea Party National Convention in Nashville, Tn.  Thanks to the generosity of then MTSU Associate Dean of Liberal Arts, Mark Byrnes, we had been able to purchase two tickets to the dinner and her keynote speech at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel.  We started this blog as a place to talk about our ideas and refer others who might be interested in what we were studying, too.

This all grew out of a class project that developed in my COMM 4650 (Rhetorical theory, history, and criticism) class in the Spring of 2009.  On April 15th, the first ever "Tea Party" rallies were held around the country, and I was fascinated - pretty soon everyone was.  What on earth were they protesting?  Why?  What was their goal?

What immediately caught our attention were the anti-Obama signs that dominated these events.  Was the Tea Party FOR something or were they just AGAINST newly elected President Obama?

I assigned the class to read Eric Hoffer's work on "the True Believer" and his theory of Mass Movements.  We had some great discussions looking at the Tea Party as well as the "Hope" campaign of Obama.  Did they fit the criteria Hoffer described?  How so?  Why or why not?  And who cares, anyway?

We had also already discussed in class the Republican party's challenge to re-brand themselves following their defeat in the 2008 Presidential election.  How would they use rhetoric to constitute a new identity?  What would they include, what would they change, who would be the voices of leadership?

So naturally, these discussions led us to consider if the Tea Party was going to be  the new face of the Republican party.  Little did we know in the Spring of 2009 how our curiosity about these topics would become political reality in the U.S. throughout the summer at the HealthCare Town Hall meetings and then throughout the next year as the Congress debated Health Care Reform.  And then, in the Fall of 2010, the Tea Party made its formal debut in American politics by capturing a number of Congressional seats.

So the initial insight that prompted me to involve my students in the study of this (then completely) new movement turned out to be amazingly prophetic.  And long before the 2010 mid-term election, we had some insights and predictions gained through rhetorical criticism papers completed for the rhetoric class.  Eric's paper - an analysis of Tea Party ideographs - won the top undergraduate paper award at TCA in 2009.  He continued his research with me during an Independent Study in the Fall of 2009 and the formal paper he finished and submitted was accepted for presentation at the annual Theodore Clevenger Undergraduate Honors conference at the annual SSCA regional convention.

My own work was focused on the application of Hoffer's ideas to the Tea Party movement.  First this required me to turn Hoffer's thoughts about audiences and rhetorical strategies into a theory of fanatical rhetoric.  Then I had to determine how or if it fit the Tea Party movement (and later the OccupyWallStreet movement).  This research and rhetorical theory development is what I am working on now and my papers working through this development have been competitively selected for three major regional conferences (SSCA and CSCA).

I was also interviewed for the NCA online journal, Communication Currents, in the Spring of 2011 about my theories and my perspective on the Tea Party and their "violence-flavored rhetoric" (which was my term for it).  You can watch that interview here:

So throughout the years since we started it in 2010, this blog has become a "dumping ground" of sorts for things we/I found in research and internet journies that related to the study and the development of the fanatical rhetorical theory.  We also share it with others who are interested in studying the Tea Party movement as a "library" of sources.  It is certainly not complete nor does it even have any organization at this time; but the blog gets a significant amount of traffic every month, so somebody must find it useful.

If you search the archives you will find the actual blog posts I wrote along the way describing and explaining what we were seeing rhetorically in the Tea Party.  Most of those posts were in early 2010, but there have been a number of them since then, commenting on signficant developments as the Tea Party gained power.

What tickles us is how right we were.  Our insights may seem like "common sense" now, but they surely weren't in 2009-2010 when this study began.  It's a useful reminder for us about following that "hunch" when it strikes.  I thought this was going to be a huge rhetorical development in American politics, and it was.  It still is.

It's not over.  So stay tuned . . .

Feel free to leave us comments!

p.s. if you want to know the story behind the name, you can find it at the very beginning of the blog - February, 2010.

Will Jim DeMint Be More Powerful at Heritage Than in the Senate? - US News and World Report

Will Jim DeMint Be More Powerful at Heritage Than in the Senate? - US News and World Report:

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Michele Bachmann's Vicious Smear Campaign - Susan Milligan (usnews.com)

Michele Bachmann's Vicious Smear Campaign - Susan Milligan (usnews.com):

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It's Fear Over Our Country's Future That's Driving the Tea Party Movement | Fox News

It's Fear Over Our Country's Future That's Driving the Tea Party Movement | Fox News:

Note:  fear is what drives fanatics, too.  Is it a rational fear?


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A Pair of Senators Clash Over GOP Direction - NationalJournal.com

A Pair of Senators Clash Over GOP Direction - NationalJournal.com:

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Representative Michele Bachmann remarks at Conservative Political Action Conference - C-SPAN Video Library

Representative Michele Bachmann remarks at Conservative Political Action Conference - C-SPAN Video Library:

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What does the death of the GOP mean for you? – Glenn Beck

What does the death of the GOP mean for you? – Glenn Beck:

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Video: Rand Paul delivers tea party response to SOTU - POLITICO.com

Video: Rand Paul delivers tea party response to SOTU - POLITICO.com:

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Karl Rove vs. tea party in big money fight for GOP's future - Kenneth P. Vogel and Alexander Burns and Tarini Parti - POLITICO.com

Karl Rove vs. tea party in big money fight for GOP's future - Kenneth P. Vogel and Alexander Burns and Tarini Parti - POLITICO.com:

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‘Suicide Conservatives’ - NYTimes.com

‘Suicide Conservatives’ - NYTimes.com:

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Tea Party Response: Rand Paul Speech Excerpts Released Ahead Of State Of The Union Address

Tea Party Response: Rand Paul Speech Excerpts Released Ahead Of State Of The Union Address:

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Blog | Media Matters for America

Blog | Media Matters for America:

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Circular Firing Squad: Conservative Media Pans Rove's New Anti-Tea Party "Conservative Victory Project" | Blog | Media Matters for America

Circular Firing Squad: Conservative Media Pans Rove's New Anti-Tea Party "Conservative Victory Project" | Blog | Media Matters for America:

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Tea Party protests - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Tea Party protests - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

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Tea party activists rally at the Capitol | Video Library | The Tennessean

Tea party activists rally at the Capitol | Video Library | The Tennessean:

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John Boehner: Obama On A Mission To 'Annihilate The Republican Party'

In a related video, a discussion on Morning Joe asks who is meaner, Obama or Boehner?  In Obama's own defense, he points out that he's invited and been turned down repeatedly.  He explain that the perhaps the reason for this is GOP "need to demonize me" . . .

Yes,  . . . demonize Obama.  The identity of the GO(tea)P is precisely that.

And it's not enough to win an election.

We know what you're against - what are you FOR?




John Boehner: Obama On A Mission To 'Annihilate The Republican Party':

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Ted Yoho: Uphold Second Amendment 'Birthright'

(Tea Partier) Ted Yoho: Uphold Second Amendment 'Birthright':

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The Tea Party's National Ambitions Are Finished - Politics - The Atlantic Wire

The Tea Party's National Ambitions Are Finished - Politics - The Atlantic Wire:

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Tea Party rhetoric twists the language of emancipation « GOATMILK: An intellectual playground edited by Wajahat Ali

Tea Party rhetoric twists the language of emancipation « GOATMILK: An intellectual playground edited by Wajahat Ali:

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How NRA’s true believers converted a marksmanship group into a mighty gun lobby - The Washington Post

How NRA’s true believers converted a marksmanship group into a mighty gun lobby - The Washington Post:

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