A useful piece by a professor of history on the TEA Party and its antecedents. He begins by acknowledging that it's a movement that some may find troubling:
It is perfectly understandable that Republican regulars thwarted in the primaries, Democrats defeated in the midterm elections, and adherents of both parties who found themselves suddenly deprived of political influence should find these developments disconcerting. It is equally understandable that those who find unpalatable either the Tea Party’s approach or some of the more colorful and/or questionable candidates to emerge victorious as a consequence of its rise might consider this leaderless and inchoate force’s impact worrisome or even frightening.There are, though, earlier movements of this type, as he demonstrates, which inform our thinking. His argument does not demonstrate that the turmoil promised by the movement will end well. A repeat of Jefferson's or Jackson's electoral adjustment of the American project is fine; a repeat of the American or English Civil War, which he also cites as antecedents, would be less enjoyable for all concerned.
However, as he notes, the alternative is the end of the American project.
[I]t should be reassuring rather than frightening to the American elite that at the dawn of the third millennium, Americans know to become nervous and watchful when a presidential candidate who has presented himself to the public as a moderate devotee of bipartisanship intent on eliminating waste in federal programs suddenly endorses “spreading the wealth around” and on the eve of his election speaks of “fundamentally transforming America.” It should be of comfort to them that a small-business owner in Nebraska believes he has reason to express public qualms when a prospective White House chief of staff, in the midst of an economic downturn, announces that the new administration is not about to “let a serious crisis go to waste” and that it intends to exploit that crisis as “an opportunity to do things you couldn’t do before.” And it should be a source of pride to elites that the philosophical superstructure of the United States demonstrated extraordinary durability when a significant number of their fellow citizens refused to sit silent after an administration implied the inadequacy of the founding by promoting itself as the New Foundation, and after the head of government specifically questioned the special place of the United States in the world by denying “American exceptionalism.”...Emphasis added. This is a long quote, but the main reason to read the piece is the historical argument, which I have not attempted to excerpt. What is given here are only the framing arguments. We should discuss the whole.
In Europe, Jefferson explained, “under the pretence of government, they have divided their nations into two classes, wolves and sheep.” He feared that the same would in time happen in America. If the people in the United States should ever “become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I,” he wrote to one correspondent, “and Congress and Assemblies, judges and governors shall all become wolves.” From the outset, Jefferson feared that in this country the government would eventually find its way to what his friend James Madison would later call a “self directed course.” It was with this unwelcome prospect in mind that he asked, “What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve their spirit of resistance?” In the end, then, one does not have to agree with the Tea Party movement in every particular to welcome its appearance.
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