The obituary of the TEA Party has been a regular feature in the MSM since about 5 minutes after the movement started. A good deal of the motivation behind this is the ardent desire on the part of the Ruling Class – and thus 90% of the MSM – that the TEA Party be dead. The TEA Party is very much not wanted for the simple reason that if Congress ever has a working majority of TEA Party politicians – or, my goodness!, a TEA Party orientated President – then the game is up.
It cannot be over emphasized just how much of America’s rich and powerful are rich and powerful simply because they are juiced-in to Washington, DC. The life of Harry Reid is an excellent illustration of it. Harry Reid really did come up from nothing. His life story would be an inspiring rags-to-riches story except for one thing: he got rich by the power of government. He really was the son of a hard rock miner and a woman who took in laundry to make ends meet. He really did walk miles to school (I’ve driven over the rout; it simply must have been a long, hard hike when Reid did it way back when). From that background of grinding poverty, Reid is now fabulously wealthy – but he’s never actually done anything. All he’s been is a government office-holder on one level or another since he graduated from law school (I’ve talked to some who do advise that for a short period Reid was in private law practice…but I don’t see much evidence of it, and it certainly wasn’t enough to build up Reid’s current level of wealth). Using his connections and his political power, Reid has managed to engage in various financial schemes to get rich – some of which were clearly legal, others a lot more questionable, but in every case greased along by the fact of Reid’s membership in the Ruling Class; none of these deals, bottom line, are open to people who are not juiced-in with government. And Reid is legion. There are millions of people like him at the federal, State and local level, in and out of government, but all sharing one thing in common: the ability to tap into government to get rich.
There are several rules regarding membership in this Ruling Class:
1. Never attack the Ruling Class, as an entity (its ok to turn on individual members who get caught in a jam, but no attacks on individuals must be allowed to spread to an understanding that the problem is systemic).
2. Never defend the traditional forces of the Republic. You can make noises about supporting the troops and such – especially for the Rubes on the 4th of July, etc – but never defend that which actually made America great. The reason for this is simple: defending what made America great means attacking what is now making American small – the Ruling Class. Stern, republican virtues and emulation of people like Washington and Madison are kryptonite. This goes doubly so for the Judeo-Christian underpinnings of American morality – go ahead and be Catholic, Evangelical or Orthodox Jew all you want, but for crying out loud, when it is time to choose between defending that morality or destroying it, make some insipid statement about being opposed on moral grounds but not justified in defending it on legal grounds. It is a requirement, you see, that the Ruling Class destroy traditional forces and the old morality – in their view, it is the only way they can guarantee their power indefinitely. Demoralized people will submit to be ruled.
3. Never, ever, ever, EVER agree to reduce the size of government. Doesn’t matter if you ran as a small-government conservative. That was just for the hill-apes back home. Once in the Ruling Class, your job is to keep government large and growing larger. How else are the new-comers to the Ruling Class to gain their wealth? The Ruling Class must judiciously bribe and corrupt small sections of the people in order to ensure that things remain as they are, and this can only be done by an ever larger government. At best, you are permitted to pretend to slow the rate of increase in the size of government.
You do all that, and you’ll get along fine and the rest of the Ruling Class will defend you, even if they are allegedly in opposition to you. They’ll be your buddies. They’ll ensure that you, too, are given your opportunities to increase your wealth via government-greased deals. They’ll write laws so that you and they can pretty much be openly bribed (and they’ll call it “campaign finance reform”, into the bargain!). True, some of you might have to be thrown to the wolves from time to time, but most of you never will – and even if you do have to lose your particular office, there will be book deals, television shows, etc to keep you on the gravy train. Just be true to the Ruling Class and all of this will be yours.
And then along comes the TEA Party.
Its not that TEA Party types are particular against any person – individual members of the Ruling Class do become lightening rods of TEA Party criticism, of course, but it really isn’t a personal thing. TEA Party types are those people who hold to the old morality and the stern, republican virtues of our Founders. And thus they see that, in a sense, it doesn’t matter if someone like Reid never broke a law – he simply should not be rich. The fact that he is rich proves the system corrupt. And from there comes the requirement that the system be radically changed. This is bull in a china shop kinda stuff…and it crosses party lines, which really irritates the Ruling Class because they hope to keep it a party vs party thing and thus have us divided….but if the people get united in a general desire to change the system, then everyone in the system is cooked. And, so, the Ruling Class unites to destroy the TEA Party – and continually writes the TEA Party’s obituary, only to have it come surging up again like it did in the Virginia-07 House race on Tuesday.
And it will keep surging up – it won’t go away until the system is changed or the United States is destroyed as a nation by an unchanged system. As long as there is any body of people in the United States who can bother to read what the Founders wrote, who heard stories about grandpa and great-grandpa or who just understands that only people who work hard at a productive trade should be rich, there will be a TEA Party. And as the Ruling Class shoves America closer and closer to dissolution as a nation, the TEA Party will just get more vehement: time is running out, after all.
Cantor’s defeat caught all of us by surprise – but it really, in a sense, shouldn’t have. Cantor is a nice guy and he’s not some wild-eyed liberal. He’s a rather conventional GOPer of the Ruling Class. His opponent wasn’t and ran a campaign which spoke to the public desire for leadership which would challenge the Ruling Class, rather than make deals to increase the debt limit or an amnesty program without any realistic border security provisions. Most of the time, unknown and unfunded TEA Party candidates will fail – simply for not being able to get their message out there. On the other hand, some times they will win – and so the GOPers who are part of the Ruling Class better take note: you have a decision to make.
You can either dig your heels in to defend the current system, or abandon it and thus, perhaps, become instrumental in the reform and revival of your nation. True, if you turn against the Ruling Class, as an entity, you might lose – you might be tossed out on your ear. The TEA Party impulse in the United States might not be victorious and America might be doomed. On the other hand, if you join with the forces of reform, then they just might win…and while you’ll have no way to make any money off the deal and the Ruling Class will treat you with disdain, you might be able to save the United States and go into the history books with the fame of an honorable name. You’ll also be able to look yourself in the mirror. But come what may, what isn’t going to happen as long as the Republic endures is the death of the TEA Party. It isn’t an aberration – it is America trying to save herself.
Update: Mickey Kaus notes Brat’s last-minute pitch for votes:
The entire amnesty and low-wage agenda collapses if Cantor loses — all the billions of special interests dollars, all the favors, all the insider dealing — all of it is stopped in its tracks tomorrow if the patriotic working families of Virginia send Eric Cantor back home tomorrow.
Tomorrow, the middle class has its chance to fight back.
Tomorrow, the people of Virginia can show up to the polls and defeat the entire crony corporate lobby.
Tomorrow, we can restore our borders, rebuild our communities, and revitalize our middle class.
