Tea Party politics this week - is the GOP (finally) taking back their party?

What's interesting about this emerging shift is that this is where we first began investigating the Tea Party 5 years ago:  wanting to know where the GOP ends and the Tea Party begins.  For a long time, there was little difference, since the "devil" of the Tea Party (Barack Obama) was the target of GOP campaigning, too.

But now (theoretically) that we are moving to midterms and a new Presidential election cycle, the "devil" is no longer running, so the Tea Party is losing influence and the GOP seems to be taking back the party from them, perhaps realizing they have no identity once Obama is gone.

They will need something positive to be for because what they were against is no longer an issue.  (or they will need a new anti-thetical trope, but I doubt anything will ever match the fanatical opposition to Obama).

GOP mainstream politicians such as Jeb Bush began this shift years ago (see his 2013 keynote to CPAC).  In that speech, he never mentioned Barack Obama, but instead spoke of what the Republican party stands FOR, not what they stand against.  He noted "we have to stop being against everything."

In essence, the Tea Party needs a new anti-thesis and devil to survive rhetorically. So far the new antithesis seems to be "Benghazi" which is an anti-Hillary (+ Obama) trope.  But Hillary rhetorically turned that back on them in her book recently, accusing them of playing politics "on the backs of dead Americans", which I think significantly weakens for a future anti-thesis.

Not surprising, however, Tea Party leaders such as Sarah Palin and legislators like Ted Cruz are still fixated on Obama and "Obamacare" as a primary problem in the U.S. and still calling for repeal; others such as Rand Paul are slowly backing away from that position.  

Dave Weigel - Slate
The Tea Party vs. the Establishment, in Two Newspaper Front Pages

David Freelander - The Daily Beast
Conservative Senator Kicks Tea Party to the Curb

Stephanie Grace - The Advocate
The GOP keeping the Tea Party at bay.

Jonathan Martin - The New York Times
On Win Streak, Mainline G.O.P. Takes Tougher Stance Toward Tea Party

Jake Sherman - Politico
John Boehner’s friends plot tea party crackdown

Dan Balz - Washington Post
At Republican Leadership Conference, the struggle over the GOP’s future continues

Sean Sullivan - Washington Post
The tea party and GOP establishment are happily married in the Iowa Senate race

David Montgomery - The New York Times
Slowed Elsewhere, Tea Party Still Wields Considerable Sway in Texas Races

The Tea Party's frustrated state of mind . . .

This weekend, the front page of USA Today features a story on the Tea Party. The reporters, Page and Jagoda, open the article by noting:

"The Tea Party is less a classical political movement than a frustrated state of mind."

I've been saying since April 15th of 2009 that the Tea Party is what Eric Hoffer describes as a "Mass Movement" comprised of "True Believers." This was my original hypothesis and theory that my students set out to investigate with me in COMM 4650, and I specifically addressed the issue of frustration as a key element of their rhetorical movement when Eric and I were preparing to attend the first annual Tea Party convention in Nashville in February, 2010.

Hoffer specifically states in the introduction to his work, "The True Believer: Thoughts on the nature of Mass Movements" (1951) that:

“This book concerns itself chiefly with the active, revivalist phase of mass movements. This phase is dominated by the true believer the [person] of fanatical fairth who is ready to sacrifice his life for a holy cause - and an attempt is made to trace [their] genesis and outline [their nature]. Starting out from the fact that the frustrated predominate among the early adherents of all mass movements and that they usually join of their own accord, it is assumed: 1) that frustration of itself, without any proselytizing prompting from the outside, can generate most of the peculiar characteristics of the true believer; 2) that an effective technique of conversion consists basically in the inculcation and fixation of proclivities and responses indigenous to the frustrated mind.” (p. xii)

Eric's study of the rhetorical ideographs that structure and inspire the Tea Party movement was one piece of the puzzle for understanding HOW the frustrated are being persuaded to join this particular mass movement. One of the primary rhetorical strategies of Tea Party advocates is the use of a new political ideograph he identified as "security". By fueling an already frustrated public with repeated and ever greater fears for their economic and homeland security, popular Conservative pundits like Savage, Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck and Palin have been very successful in promoting and growing the Tea Party mass movement.

The Tea Party really has no consistent or coherent political agenda other than to fanatically oppose the current political status quo and many members "...acknowledge they aren't really sure what that allegiance means". However, I realized early on (ala Hoffer) that this particular movement mostly creates identification specifically and consistently through antithesis to President Barack Obama more than any other theme or goal, making him the scapegoat and target for their insecurities and frustrations. Whatever else the Tea Party may be, our first-hand experience with members at the first national Tea Party convention in Nashville confirmed for us the personal and vehement hatred and opposition to the current POTUS by members attending the convention.

While some have chalked this anti-thesis and opposition up to racism or fascism, those answers are too simple to explain the growing membership and rise of the Tea Party movement. Not all of the Tea Party members are racist per se, but racists are certainly an easy target audience for this particular mass movement. And certainly the members of the Tea Party do not consider themselves fascist, instead projecting this quality onto Barack Obama (another fear tactic).

Instead, the more comprehensive answer to the question of the Tea Party movement must investigate the antithetical rhetorical identifications and the FANATICAL nature of its rhetoric as well as the insecurities and frustrations of its "true believer" membership.

"Starting out from the fact that the frustrated predominate among the early adherents of all mass movements . . . "

Former POTUS Bill Clinton on radical anti-government rhetoric . . .

Bill Clinton looking back at the rhetorical climate of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing to compare and contrast with 2010 Tea Parties.

Interesting but seemingly rare example of someone on the left explicitly countering RW rhetoric with a direct argument rather than mockery or silence.

In an interview with the New York Times on Friday, Clinton warned of the affect that angry political rhetoric might have on antigovernment radicals like Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh; he pointed to Rep. Michele Bachmann calling the Obama administration and the Democratic Congress "the gangster government" at a tax day Tea Party rally on Thursday.

"They are not gangsters," Clinton told the newspaper. "They were elected. They are not doing anything they were not elected to do."

Clinton said that demonizing the government with incendiary language can have effects beyond just rallying a crowd.

I have trouble seeing the Tea Party as a social movement as long as there are so many anti-government radicals associated with it. Defining our democratically elected government as anti-American or making a false analogy with Britain''s King George is damaging our ability to find any common ground. To limit "American" to those on the right - or to identify the right in anti-thesis to the "un-American" left = is to spur a fanatical patriotism for many radical conservatives who may ultimately choose to take violent action against this supposedly "un-American" and uber-liberal government.

There is perhaps a fine rhetorical line between advocacy for better ideas and conditions to help groups and the kind of propaganda that merely seeks to demonize and destroy groups. I think as long as the Tea Party crafts and performs a political identity from what they are against rather than what they are for, and as long as their anti-thetical demon is this administration and government, then citizens will have to be extra alert to the possibility of hyperbolic rhetoric gone too far awry - and be prepared to speak more directly and firmly in return about common grounds and "American" values in the United States.

There can be no mere difference of opinion on this issue it seems to me. To turn Americans against one another by demarcating an "us" and a "them" and to refuse to share our common grounds as Americans is to open ourselves to civil warfare - be it verbally punishing or physically violent.

I think that rhetorical state of affairs in the United States today is unacceptable in light of our history and traditions - and the efforts of the Founding Fathers to provide us all with a SHARED democratic republic - and an enduring plan of harmony and unity - liberty and responsibility - reason and real debate. And any useful debate on the policies and future of the United States must begin at least with the common ground and understanding that we are ALL Americans. As such we have a right and a responsibility to pay attention to our government, but to portray the democratically elected government as un-American is outside the frame of useful or rational debate. It hurts us all.