Assumptions of the Tea Party Movement

A World of Their Own

David Warfield Brown

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781137521163
• eBook ISBN: 9781137521170
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Political Philosophy
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book presents a reassessment of the fundamental principles of the Tea Party movement. The Tea Party movement is largely associated with those who want a severely limited federal government spending far fewer taxpayer dollars. What gets less attention are the underlying Tea Party sentiments that, the book argues, are not so much false as they are terribly dated in light of the current national landscape. Such sentiments include prioritizing self-reliance, viewing politics as a "dirty business, " considering "free enterprise" unassailable, and believing the earth to be man's possession. Brown skillfully and thoughtfully breaks from partisan considerations to get at the root of the movement, arguing that too many Tea Partiers are living in a world of their own, which, given so many pressing problems in the world, amounts to what Brown calls "sentimental mischief."

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016

David Warfield BrownAssumptions of the Tea Party Movement10.1057/978-1-137-52117-0_1

Begin Abstract

1. Assumptions—Their Use and Abuse

David Warfield Brown¹

(1)

■, New York, New York, USA

End Abstract

Assumptions among Those in the Tea Party Movement

Most people associate the Tea Party movement with those who want a severely limited federal government spending far fewer taxpayer dollars. What gets far less attention are Tea Party assumptions aligned with certain verities of America's history. Think of self-reliance as above all; politics as “dirty business”; “free enterprise” as unassailable; the earth as man’s possession; and the “native-born” as coming first. With such assumptions, Tea Partiers seem to be in a world of their own choosing and sometimes abusing American history to recreate an era that no longer exists or, in some cases, never did exist. Jill Lepore argues that Tea Party assumptions are “about the relationship between the past and the present that [are] both broadly anti-intellectual and, quite specifically, anti-historical.” ¹

Assumptions of the Tea Party movement examined here are mostly rooted in American history, which has never been a fixed and undisputed story. The assumptions of the Tea Party movement are unyielding, however, because they emanate from their version of a fixed and undisputed story, which makes their assumptions more powerful, although not necessarily more reliable. It reminds me of what Isaiah Berlin thought of as “hedgehogs”—“intellectually aggressive hedgehogs [know] one big thing…” ² As applied to the Tea Party movement, the one big thing is what Jill Lepore calls “historical fundamentalism,” that is, America’s founding as “ageless and sacred,” which for Lepore “is to history what astrology is to astronomy, what alchemy is to chemistry, what creation is to evolution.” ³ According to Theda Skocpol and Vanessa Williamson, “for Tea Partiers, as for most people engaged in politics, history is a tool for battle, not a subject for university seminar meetings…They are doing what every political endeavor does: using history as a source of inspiration and social identity.” ⁴ The Tea Party assumptions discussed here have been prevalent for generations of Americans although subject to considerable doubt and revision for more than a century. Still, the assumptions of the Tea Party movement endure because they are assumptions, that some Americans would still like to believe are history-bearing truths. It is worth asking—do such assumptions still make sense in the world that Tea Partiers actually live in?

Consider the assumption of self-reliance as above all. No doubt self-reliance was once almost a necessity given the new beginnings for those who emigrated to America’s shores and those moving westward without a community to rely on. There were few precedents and little social infrastructure on which to rely. Self-reliance was born of necessity in a “new land” given the relative absence of any governmental presence, much less assistance. Such a “making do” era in America’s early years, however, eventually changed as urban spaces grew along with government itself, and for many Americans the frontier era became more a remembrance than an example. Nonetheless, the Tea Party assumption of self-reliance as above all partly accounts for its rejection of government, helping those who ostensibly do not do enough to help themselves despite the distancing from the long-ago necessities of a “making do” era. It is not that the assumption of self-reliance above all cannot still be practiced, but Tea Partiers and everyone else now live in an interdependent age, and the social dimensions of problem-solving have emerged to make self-reliance insufficient. Just think of when situated Americans “adopt” a highway, or form a block watch, or carpool to work, or pickup perishable food to be delivered to those in poverty who may otherwise go hungry. Interdependence has become the rule, not the exception, with homeowner associations, day care centers, credit unions, picket lines, libraries, blood banks, land trusts—the list is endless. The social dimensions of problem-solving in an interdependent age are unavoidable.

“Politics” gets a bad name, in part, due to the Tea Party assumption of self-reliance that skews preferences for trying to solve problems without having to depend on others for help. Self-reliance has always been an appealing assumption for those who judge the political world harshly for producing unprincipled compromises as a way to get things done. If you have made self-reliance your guide and goal, the thought of politics, a messy give-and-take with others, seems contrary to what you hold dear. And so, the “rugged individualist,” prizing his own autonomy, stands above the fray of politics somehow seeing it as a kind of dirty business. The Tea Party assumption of politics as “dirty business” also reflects the long-standing hostility of many Americans to government functionaries, especially those of the federal government. Such hostility explains, in part, the distorted view that politics and government are the same. And so, politics is a “dirty business” if government itself is forever suspect. Tea Partiers, however, ignore the fact that most Americans, like it or not, are engaged in some kind of “politics” whether in their workplace, neighborhood, or wherever problems must be sorted out and worked on with others. The social dimensions of problem-solving are above all a shared enterprise. Such engagement is consistent with many episodes in American history when citizens far removed from the operations of government used “politics” to change the status quo in communities, organizations, and even families as a means to reconcile differences. It was Aristotle who said that the man who seeks to dwell outside the political relationship “is either a beast or a god.” If someone were alone on a desert island, there would be no politics. Put just one other survivor on the island and politics would become necessary. Put a boatload of survivors on the island and politics would not only be necessary, it would also flourish. Unfortunately, those who despise politics are not far removed from giving up on democracy itself, which can only flourish when politics remains an important means for social problem-solving. The irony is that those whose “principles” reject the politics of give-and-take are also rejecting the possibility of having their objectives gain some acceptance among those who share the means or the authority to change the status quo. Politics is not just a necessary practice of those in government or those who would have government do or not do what serves their interests—politics is unavoidable in a multitude of different settings, and those who would belittle it or fail to practice it are likely to end up with authoritarian answers that diminish their own potential of engaging others for their particular ends. ⁵ Politics is only a “dirty business” when those who use it try to exclude or diminish the potential of others to share in self-government—a form of cooperation that has extended from America’s founding from settlements to villages to cities to statehouses and to the nation’s capitol. There is a good amount of culture confusion among those who despise politics yet still yearn for democratic self-rule. They are likely to produce self-inflicted wounds that bring on more government, not less. The dogged pursuit of truth in what is still a democratic culture might be thought of as a fool’s errand.

The celebration of free enterprise knows no limit in a country that developed without an overbearing State, but it has been more than a century since government intermediaries began to provide new forms of oversight and laws encouraging more private sector competition, not less. The Tea Party assumption of free enterprise as unassailable defies the necessity for regulation and reform when such enterprise becomes a license for exploiting others. Free enterprise has always had its excesses when those who espoused it have also sought to monopolize its benefits. Consider the events leading up to the financial swoon of 2008 and the continuing contest being played out on how “free” free enterprise should be. Tea Partiers would disentangle and eliminate regulations while others are insistent in pursuing and defending reforms given the consequences of the Great Recession when banks kept on making loans to people who couldn’t repay them, as long as the banks didn’t keep the loans on their books. “It was a game that professionals played assuming that if someone had to lose, it wouldn’t be them.” ⁶ The unending debate of whether the government can be both ally and adversary of free enterprise can never be resolved once and for all. Each has fundamentally different roles to play.

The Tea Party priority of unregulated economic growth with free enterprise as unassailable also leaves little room for the kinds of restraints that others would impose as stewards resisting the exploitation of America’s natural resources. America’s history explains, in part, the Tea Party assumption that the earth as man’s possession was given to him by a benevolent God and is license enough to do whatever he wants with his possession—exploiting natural resources and, in some cases, extinguishing certain forms of wildlife. Such a history now leads on to the Tea Party assumption that Americans still have some God-given right to do whatever they want with their land, their air, and their water by resisting the evidence of global warming. The global warming debate, although secular in the political arena, is affected by religious assumptions of man’s central place from the supposed beginning of time with the proponents of “creationism” waging endless warfare against the proponents of evolution.

Unlike other Tea Party assumptions rooted in American history, the assumption of the “native-born” as coming first is a serious misreading of that history. “Native Americans” came first before the land was resettled from coast to coast by immigrants whose progeny became the “native-born.” Nonetheless, some Tea Party nativists have little or no interest in the stories of Native Americans, African Americans, Latinos, Catholics, or Jews—all those who are not white Anglo-Saxon Protestants—leaving so many out of America’s historical narrative. Consider the history of the Southwest in which “Anglos” were not the first, but the last, to arrive on that ancient and complicated scene. Then there is the development of New York City as a rich and ever-changing story of immigrants from practically every corner of the world, making a new life for themselves. The contributions of such a heterogeneous mix in the Southwest and New York City are just two examples that challenge the Tea Party version of American history that ignores so many of a different color, faith, or country of origin. It is ironic that aging Tea Partiers would use a selective history to seek more political leverage in a country with a fast-growing immigrant and non-white population. Taking America back, however, for many Tea Partiers means not only going back in time to reconfigure what earlier periods of American history offered, but also somehow taking back their country from non-White Anglo-Saxon Protestants (WASPs) and immigrant newcomers who have robbed WASPs of their “cultural dominance.” ⁷

Before exploring more fully the five Tea Party movement assumptions I have identified, I should say that assumptions—their use and abuse—arise and persist in many other venues.

Assumptions among Those with a Liberal Mindset

Many liberals assume that government is the true and commanding source for solving social and economic ills. Such an assumption has something in common with those priests of ancient Greece whose “priest-power” arose from assuming the ignorance of the people. Most everyone knows that there are no easy answers for America’s social problems, whether it is obesity, school dropouts, poverty, drug abuse, and on and on. Still, too many with a liberal mindset seek government solutions, ignoring that “solutions” for such social problems are not possible unless enough Americans do more than just being passionate consumers—like a lovely willow tree with shallow roots. Most Tea Partiers, like other conservatives, have little or no use for the liberal assumption that the American people need government priests of any kind. Libertarians among the Tea Party cohort ask why the powers of the State should be used to protect them from themselves, assuming that an individual’s well-being should be no one’s business, but his or her own. Too many libertarians ignore the fact that what’s “my business” is other people’s too. For example, when billions of annual tax revenues are spent on treating obesity-related conditions like diabetes, cancer, and heart disease, those are everyone’s dollars. What is not in dispute is that the health costs of those who are obese is many times more than those of normal weight. As body weights increase, so does everyone’s costs. But to think that only government can somehow get something done about obesity also misses the point. Instead, it will take enough parents, better school lunches, new exercise habits, and a host of other citizen initiatives to make a real difference. Think back to when cigarette smoking was rampant even when mounting evidence told Americans it was a killer habit. Then from the bottom-up, social attention took aim at those who smoked in workspaces and public spaces, and government followed by doing its part in curbing, taking, and otherwise discouraging the habit. Those who smoked had no “God-given right” to do what they pleased when they put others’ health at risk besides their own. Cutting by half the number of smokers was not just the work of government inside the Beltway, it was enough Americans saying, “Enough!” Soon it was only one in five who smoked. Given their differing assumptions, you would think that liberals and conservatives are talking about two different countries. Unfortunately, the two sides seem to ignore the evidence of American history that significant change has been the work of both citizens and government.

Still, many modern-day liberals assume that those in charge can solve America’s social problems despite the increasing decentralization of human affairs given new technologies and the global reach of market-driven changes. It should be more apparent than ever that no one is, in fact, in charge, that problem-solving is proving to be more social than cognitive, more collaborative and distributed than power-centered. Instead of assuming there are right answers, it makes more sense to be thinking about what are the right questions in an interdependent world—questions to be shaped and shared by those who need each other. What is the problem? What do others think the problem is? What are their preferences for how the problem should be resolved? These are all “political” questions without one right answer.

Most everyone now lives and works in interdependent worlds far too complex and dynamic to be mastered by anyone, including whoever is ostensibly in charge—a CEO, a board chair, a mayor, a governor, the President, including their advisors, expert panels, and blue ribbon commissions. Nonetheless, a great deal of territory has been ceded to such figureheads and particularly to professional “elites” assuming they know more and know better, even though public ends such as “where are we going,” “is this desirable,” and “what should be done” are not within anyone’s professional competence. There are just too many variables for any analyst, planner, or decision maker to anticipate or fully account for given the complicated and rapidly changing context in which social problems are embedded. ⁸ Those professional “elites,” liberals or not, who assume they have enough control over events to...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Frontmatter
• 1. Assumptions—Their Use and Abuse
• 2. Self-Reliance Above All?
• 3. Politics as “Dirty Business”?
• 4. Free Enterprise as Unassailable?
• 5. The Earth as Man’s Possession?
• 6. The “Native-Born” as Coming First?
• 7. Reconsidering Assumptions?
• Backmatter