The Misguided
Demonization of the 'Tea Party' Movement
"Assuming
it was true that the Tea Party movement, this great anti-Obama electoral
galvanizer, had been a far-right movement, we would have to ask ourselves what
went wrong over the past two years for such a movement to emerge out of
nowhere."
The Barack Obama who just
faced the polls has very little to do with the one who faced them on November
4, 2008, when he achieved an election victory of historic proportions. Up until
Monday, not a single public opinion survey has improved on the diminished image
of the president, from whom his party comrades have fled this campaign season as
if he were a biblical plague.
Confronting this evidence, as
is often seen in the Spanish media, the easiest recourse is to discredit
political movements that have managed to galvanize the campaign. Notably in
this case, the Tea Party, which is usually characterized as an ultra-right
movement. How easy it is to argue based on labels!
Assuming it was true that this
great anti-Obama electoral galvanizer had been a far-right movement, we would
have to ask ourselves what went wrong over the past two years for such a
movement to emerge out of nowhere. Why, three months after Obama presented his
first budget, did this movement in the form of "tea parties" emerge like
mushrooms all across the Union to denounce the increase in public spending by
8.4 percent and the federal government's willingness to subsidize large corporations?
And one that is, according to Anglo-Saxon terminology, a libertarian movement -
liberal to us - that does nothing to threaten the solid foundations of the
great American Republic.
It's true that the "Tea
Party" movement - which the Republican Party has managed to captivate even
though it cost many pro-government Republicans their jobs - has proven a useful
platform for numerous demagogues and radicals that have long been a part of
American politics. But in no way should this confound us about the real issue
at hand. And that is, two years after his historical victory, Obama's
interventions have disillusioned his people, as has his insistence on governing
against the clear wishes of Americans - as was the case with his imposition of health
care reform and his unwillingness to attend to messages opposing his
policies coming from the electorate.
