American Elephants

Democrats have been frightened, and puzzled, by the Tea Parties.  They simply don’t get it.  And when something their opposition does scares them, they attack.

The Tea Party movement grew quickly from its start with CNBC correspondent Rick Santelli’s rant on February 19, 2009 when he charged that “the government was supporting bad behavior.” Videos of Santelli’s rant went viral.  What’s called the Tea Party has been a movement of isolated groups assembling to protest the spending by the Obama administration.   Over a year and a half later, these small groups have become a national grassroots movement of people committed to common objectives.  Approximately half have never before been involved in politics.

Frightened Democrats quickly found the rallies violent — the original tea party was in support of the Revolution ( they had to look that up).  Was this the beginnings of an attempt to overthrow the government?  It was not a movement but “a disparate band of vaguely connected gatherings that do surprisingly little to engage in the political process.”Some liberal writers claimed that the Tea Party was really an American “fascist” movement. Others decided that “the Tea Party is racist.” It’s an accretion of various movements of past decades — a “front group for the Republican party, a “media creation“, “AstroTurf,” invented by “the usual suspects“, the “Christian Right,” the “older anti-Communist Right,” a “conventional Republican group funded by Big Business,” and “those most likely to benefit from right-wing middle class insurgencies are not the embattled middle classes, but the business interests and the wealthy associated with the Republican Party.”

Glen Beck’s big Rally on the Mall in Washington DC was really scary.  Hundreds of thousands of people came from all over the country to peacefully protest.  The Liberal establishment was reared on protest, violent protest against the Vietnam war being drafted to serve in the Vietnam war, and they knew what protests were supposed to be like. These right wingnuts paid their own way, and even worse, cleaned up neatly after themselves.  A few weeks later, Democrats tried to show them up, and even though they bussed in all sorts of SEIU members paid to attend, couldn’t get a significant crowd.  That’s something to worry about.

The next line of attack —  Liberals all seem to say the same thing at the same time — was the Billionaire Koch brothers.  Democrats have so long called the Republicans the “Party of the Rich” and the party of Big Business that they have come to believe that it is true.  They try to tar the Republican party with being the party of Wall Street.  (In the last election, Wall Street supported Barack Obama, and the administration is filled with people from Goldman Sachs).  Although both parties are lucky enough to have some wealthy supporters, Obama’s claims of support from thousands of little people just wasn’t true, he was supported by the labor unions, big money from Wall Street and environmental organizations, and foreign money as well.

After John Kerry’s failure to capture the White House in 2004, George Soros, Progressive Insurance chairman Peter B. Lewis and S&L tycoons Herb and Marion Sandler were angry and depressed.  After giving millions of dollars to liberal candidates and 527 groups they had nothing to show for it.  They decided they needed a long term strategy to bring the Party back from the political wilderness.

In April 2005. George Soros gathered together a group of seventy millionaires and billionaires to form a fledgling political financial clearinghouse.  They called it the Democracy Alliance, and to join there was one requirement.  You had to be rich. Members paid a $25,000 fee to join and $30,000 in yearly dues.  They must also pledge to give at least $200,000 annually to groups that Democracy Alliance endorses.  You have Billionaire George Soros, Billionaire Peter B. Lewis, Billionaires Herb and Marion Sandler, Rob McKay (Taco Bell Fortune), SEIU (Members Dues), Bernard Schwartz (Loral Space & Communications), Rob Glazer (RealNetworks), Tim Gill (Quark), Ann Bowers (widow of Intel founder), and so on through at least seventy members.  Lists of the millionaires in Congress are readily available, and dominated by liberals.  Blaming Republicans as the party of the rich begins to look a little, well, rich!  Being without foundation has never deterred a Democrat accusation.

Google “the Koch Brothers” and you will find articles by the dozens about “Billionaire Koch Brothers” as the evil force behind the Tea Parties (they’re not), Billionaire Koch Brothers are polluters (they don’t buy the global warming myth), The Billionaire Koch Brothers are partly in the business of refining petroleum (dirty oil not clean wind) Fred C. Koch co-founded the company in 1940 and developed an innovative crude oil refining process.  His sons, the Billionaire Koch Brothers are libertarians, and confirmed philanthropists.  David Koch has recently given one hundred million dollars to Lincoln Center, 2.5 million dollars to the New York City Ballet, over forty million to Sloan Kettering,  fifteen million to New York-Presbyterian Hospital, a hundred and twenty-five million to M.I.T. for cancer research, twenty million to Johns Hopkins University, and twenty-five million to the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.  They are concerned with free market causes, and support some of those organizations as well.

You might want to notice that liberal attacks are usually based on — the rich, racists, fascists, fat-cats, Wall Street, Big Business, Big Oil, the poor, the children, the homeless and of course — billionaires.  Those on the right want to talk about policy.  They want to talk about what works and what doesn’t and why.  They want to talk about history and evidence from other countries.  Liberals do not want to talk about evidence — it doesn’t interest them.  As Nancy Pelosi so aptly described their position:  “We have to pass the Health Care bill, so we can find out what’s in it.”

That smug remark sums up the liberal position.  Statistics, studies, evidence simply do not matter.  What matters is winning, and the power that winning creates.  If they actually cared about all those groups they pretend to favor, they would be interested in just how their policy would work.  They don’t care that the law they passed that they celebrate as an achievement after 60 years is failing everywhere else.  What they care about is that they won.