Why the Tea Party Failed

The new jobs numbers were released today reflecting lackluster growth. It struck me that the reported job losses were all in the public sector…from education. I find it ironic that the people who caused our collective misery, Wall Street, were and are not in the slightest adversely impacted but their losses and failures were and are borne by teachers, janitors, firefighters, nurses and factory workers.

  

        Since our national economic recovery has stalled, the news shows again trot out the economists and their blackboards predicting the “shape” of our economic future. All these guys got our growth curves wrong in 2009, so I’m not rushing to my tv screen any more when one drifts by.

          I am struck, however, not by the shape of our economic recovery when compared to all previous recessions this century. I am startled by the curves of employment after each recession when compared with our current curve. After every recession, employment has rebounded within four years. Our current unemployment curve dips towards a historic low and then stays nailed to the floor, a prolonged bargain basement of suffering. We are in uncharted waters, keep your hands inside the ship at all times. Ours is the same shape as seen during the Great Depression. The difference is that our current unemployment affects around 6% of the population, while the Great Depression affected over 20%, from all walks of life. I point out that after the economy began to recover in 1934 spurred on by the stimulus of Government spending, by 1937 it mired again due to policies of cutting spending and raising taxes (i.e. balancing the budget, which is counterproductive to economic stimulus). Does this pattern sound familiar?

          How are all these ramblings tied together? After the Collapse, there were two headwaters of public outrage: Wall Street and the Federal Government. A populist movement formed in an attempt to protest and reform the Federal Government. They protested a Government whose lack of oversight produced financial collapse and massive unemployment, yet refused to right these wrongs or even listen to the hurting average Joe and Jane. The Tea Party prescription…cut spending and balance budgets. The Tea Party never laid a glove on Wall Street.

          The Tea Party began as a convergence of spontaneous social protests. It was then shaped and spun into a political force in boardrooms and politico confabs. Defanged and redirected, the Tea Party would empower and enrich economic and political powers that be. The Tea Party has lost any revolutionary or even reformist momentum and has become a shrill joke, an extremist narrow shallow cartoon. The Tea Party has failed.

          The protestors of the Manhattan Spring (I’m copyrighting this phrase) and their ilk springing up across the country may prove to be an actual vehicle of social transformation since this movement taps into the rage against both Washington and Wall Street. Their underlying message is that Washington is Wall Street. This movement does need to have a few clear and compelling goals, however, for such transformation to occur. They should not become a political movement, since these are hijacked by professionals. They should become a social movement.

          Leveraging part of our nation’s collective existential rage can produce a tool for plutocrats. Harnessing all the major sources of collective frustration and focusing them on a single goal can be revolutionary….as in abolitionism….as in Civil War. It can change our national identity. We can redefine ourselves.

          While media outlets, spin doctors and Madison Avenue continue their attempts to define us while enriching themselves, we as Americans have the power to proclaim who we are as a People. We have the power to change the rules of the game. But…will we have the courage and resolve to do so?