G-O-P Spells "Tea"

With the recent win by Christine O'Donnell, it seems that all the chatter in recent days has been about the Tea Party. Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck both do a fairly good job of keeping the concept in the public mind, and in the modern age of "media overload", that is exactly what you have to do when trying to create recognition for a new brand name.

But who makes up the Tea Party? Well...the base of the party are regular folks like you or I. But as you get further up the "chain", you find that it is basically a bunch of Republicans. The same folks that were in office over the previous 10 years. Of course, Sarah Palin is a hint. And her "maverick" image seems to be conditioned perfectly for the image of this new brand name.

And if you watch the news, the whole developing "Tea party" thing is starting to get more and more press. There are stories of "rifts":

The few remaining Republican centrists in the Senate were eagerly awaiting the arrival of Michael N. Castle of Delaware, a longtime and reliable moderate voice who could provide some counterbalance to the wave of conservatives poised to enter Congress and the steadily rightward shift of party leaders.

But Mr. Castle was defeated in his party primary on Tuesday by Christine O’Donnell, a Tea Party insurgent. And while the conservative wing rejoiced, the surprise outcome raised serious questions about the future place in the party of lawmakers like Senators Olympia J. Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine and other Republicans in the Senate and House who are not lock-step conservatives.

As a quick aside, the next paragraph in the linked story above highlights exactly what the first thing that needs to be 'fixed' in our system is:

Senator Jim DeMint, the South Carolina Republican who has seen his stature rise through his support of conservative candidates, made it clear in the aftermath of the Delaware upset that he would prefer losing a seat to Democrats than having Republican colleagues who stray from the conservative line and erode party unity and image by voting for policies supported by the Obama administration.

This is what having political parties does to you. It forces you to put your party ahead of your nation, in order to receive funding so that you can campaign. Or risk being labelled something silly like "RINO" (Castle's problem against O'Donnell is that he was seen as a "republican in name only").

But to return to my topic, the story for the stage seems to be set. The People are expected to believe that there is a new conservative movement afoot. But if you look at it a little closer, you see that there is nothing new about this movement. It is made up of the same players at the top, many who are hedging their bets by "dual wielding" the GOP/TEA titles.

How many of you remember Ross Perot's failed bid for the presidency? In national level races, getting on the ballot can require an act of God (another reason party politics should be banished). The "Tea Party" candidates are merely competing for the GOP seats. O'Donnell defeated Castle in the REPUBLICAN PRIMARY. The Tea Party is not a new party...it is just the old wolf in sheeps clothing.

We have seen this before, countless times, in business. Once you get a black eye, you change your name and go back to work. A recent example:

We here at the Pony blog are always on the lookout for ponies and we found one — literally — in the new commercials for Ally bank, the GM finance arm formerly known as GMAC.

A little girl is sitting at a small table in what looks like an observation room.

“Would you like a pony?” a man in a suit asks her.

“Yeah,” she replies.

He hands her a toy pony and she smiles big.

He turns to a second little girl, asks if she wants a pony, and she says yes.

He clicks his tongue and a real pony comes out.

The first little girl gives a look that could kill and says, “You didn’t say you could have a real one.”

“You didn’t ask,” he replies smugly.

This is one of three spots created by the Bartle Bogle Hegarty agency aimed at rebranding Ally and distancing it from the struggling automaker, General Motors. The other two are similar bait-and-switch themes using kids — one involving a boy and a truck, the other, a girl and a bike. The message: Other banks dupe you with the fine print — Ally bank wouldn’t do that.

It's a brilliant strategy when you're trying to rebrand a bank in the middle of a recession blamed on banks: Bring on the cute kids—and the pony!

Source

Ally Bank, formerly GMAC, has rebranded itself. And why not? They have received a black eye, consumer confidence is shaky, and the future of their organization depends on distancing themselves from the negative public perception by building on a new foundation.

Post Bush/Cheney (especially Cheney) the GOP found itself in the unsavory position of being so unpopular, following a housecleaning on Capital Hill 2 years earlier, that the prospects of regaining any meaningful political power was seemingly slim.

With O'Donnell's win, we are seeing that the GOP is even providing financial backing to Tea Party winners. There is literally no difference between one or the other. The Tea Party is the GOP's attempt at "Hope and Change", and it is no more truthful that Obama's version.

I would predict that we will see another housecleaning in DC. I would also suspect that the results will be the same as if the Tea Party had never even been heard of. It is just GOP, with a twist.

There...your bubble's have been burst. Now lets find us some REAL change. To do that we have to make sure that the change starts with the top.

reply to post by bigfatfurrytexan


Star & Flag. I only read the title so far.

I'm thinking they war their last name out.

-et

Gop is Thai for frog.

Aroi Mahk! or Sep Illy! depending on your location.

-m0r

I just got done reading the whole introduction. do I regret giving this a star and flag? No. No, I do not.

These people mess up things enough, simple fix is to just change your name while the paper trail tries to catch up, just like corporations.

Black Water having problems? Let's change the name to "Xe" and renew our government contract.
Same strategy here, in my honest opinion.

Tea Party, Republican, absolutely no difference. Meanwhile the spokesmen and women speak to the crowds at a 5th grade level. astonishing.

some of my thoughts,
et

reply to post by Esoteric Teacher


"War" their name out....nice.

My 12 year old asked me about the first Iraq war, and if Clinton was in charge of it. I told him, "No, Clinton had Bosnia". He said, "Wait....you mean we are always at war? How do we call ourselves peaceful people?"

Damn, i am raising a smart kid. Well, another smart kid...the oldest is pretty bright, too and attending Texas Tech.....but I digress......

War is not just a Republican gambit. It is what our government does. We all know who runs stuff: the CIA. The line between the CIA and our upper military has been completely blurred. Operationally, the CIA is deeply involved with defense. Or, perhaps defense is deeply involved with the CIA? Regardless, he who controls the guns controls the nation, and that would be the CIA (or whoever controls them).

As long as we allow the military industrial complex to dominate our nations foreign policy, we will have constant war. I have my own theory on that, as well, but it is not topical (maybe in another thread, when i feel motivated to put it together).

There is a difference between the GOP and TEA parties, although it is a subtle one.

The TEA party is essentially a meme or, word virus that has infected the Republican Party's popular support. This virus is a strain of revolutionary fever, specifically.

The cause of the TEA party's revolutionary fever is discontent with the government's response to the economic crisis and the perception that the public is being robbed to keep the oligarchs afloat.

Those most vulnerable to infection by the TEA party's meme virus are supporters of the Republican Party. This is because the bulk of the bailouts were handed out after Obama was elected, and the GOP leadership shifted blame away from Bush and onto the new President. As the virus spreads among the GOP's popular base, it mutates according to the specific criticisms that the infected have against the Obama government. It changes form from a general tax revolt to a populist conservative social movement.

These changes in the revolutionary fever's memetic structure causes a rift to appear between the GOP establishment and the party's popular base. It becomes increasingly apparent as the virus mutates that the GOP is no longer in touch with its supporters and the party's rhetoric is losing control of them. The old party leaders are unable or unwilling to compromise their principles. It is the once-marginal radicals of the party that find the TEA party and the Birthers (another strain of the same revolutionary fever) most palatable, and themselves become infected.

Those members of the GOP that are infected with revolutionary fever are natural leaders of the new movement. They become increasingly bold about announcing their radical ideals, beliefs and plans, and many feverish conservatives are drawn to them like moths to a flame. The radical wing of the GOP has experience in politicking that the movement needs in order to take power, but the radicals have always been excluded from the important decision-making mechanisms within the party. They boldly denounce members of the old GOP as RINOs, effectively singling themselves out as enemies of the party to which they belong.

With their entourages of speech writers and pundits, the leaders of the incipient new GOP easily program their disgruntled followers to suit their own personal agendas. They spread new word viruses that modify the rhetoric and the semantics of TEA partiers' demands. They radicalize the discourse of the TEA party (though they are far from uniform in their radicalisms). The example that I have been following most closely across ATS is the latent racism and White Nationalism of the TEA party's rhetoric. The party's leadership is harnessing and amplifying radically anti-modern sentiments held by their new herd.

I think that the GOP establishment, by passing the blame for the economic crisis to Obama, or at least encouraging this blame game, has accidentally caused its own undoing. The TEA party is a revolt within their own ranks, a revolution within the party, and as the O'Donnell case shows, it is attempting a coup on the GOP's leadership. The old guard of the party may be able to buy themselves time by appeasing the TEA party, but eventually the GOP will shed most or all of its centrists and the party will fall to hardline conservatives.

reply to post by bigfatfurrytexan


Excellent summation. It's something that I have been saying for quite a while now.

Although I have to disagree with you somewhat on this sentence...

Well...the base of the party are regular folks like you or I.

Not exactly, the Base of the TEA Party movement actually are die hard Glenn Beck fans and Sarah Palin supporters who for the life of them still think that Obama was born in Kenya.

There are normal people involved with the TEA Party, and unfortunately their reasonable voice of actual change gets drowned out by the loud and obnoxious rhetoric.

But then you go on to O'Donnell, and maybe you haven't heard but she just got her pagan ass handed to her on national TV. You may have missed it, so let me give this to you. (because it just fills me with such glee to bring down a phony like O'Donnell.)



So again you are right, these people are no different from the George W. Bush era Republicans, they have just changed their name and are trying to re-brand themselves as something different.

S&F For a great thread!

reply to post by SmedleyBurlap


Wow....outstanding post.

the Tea party does seem to be a classic case of memetics.

reply to post by bigfatfurrytexan


The important thing is that neo-con tea party candidates want perpetual war forever with everyone.

You can tell the "real" tea party candidates from the neo-cons by looking at their stance on the war.

The largest farces moving along the MSM, especially Faux Noose, is that the tea party started in retaliation of Obama and the Democrats.

It started when the democrats barely even stepped into power of congress in 06 when discontent for Bush was at a all time high. The tea party, by and large, is against statism in general. Bush elevated statism in this country to a new height and the democrats proved to be no different, they just like to use different rhetoric.

Originally posted by SpectreDC
The largest farces moving along the MSM, especially Faux Noose, is that the tea party started in retaliation of Obama and the Democrats.

It started when the democrats barely even stepped into power of congress in 06 when discontent for Bush was at a all time high. The tea party, by and large, is against statism in general. Bush elevated statism in this country to a new height and the democrats proved to be no different, they just like to use different rhetoric.

In the minds of the followers, you may be correct. And it may have even started out as such.

However, the GOP are not stupid (even though they are fools). They saw an opportunity to rebrand their tarnished image, as well as subvert a populist movement. The "Tea Party" revolution died when the GOP started to infiltrate.