Written by David B. Brooks   

When our identity is in danger, we feel certain that we have a mandate for war. The old image must be recovered at any cost. - M.M.

The media has largely presumed that the Tea Party is a political movement. Of course that makes it easy fodder for writers to conjecture on what it is about even though there is great reason to debate what the Tea Party politics are. On the other hand pollsters, gatherers of data and opinion, particularly the ideas of some Tea Party supporters paint a picture of objectives that aren’t necessarily political except in the sense of broad concepts like liberals that most Tea Party people find at fault, whether its a politician or anyone who comes to their attention. The observations of the Tea Party members indicate they are inclined to be more often male, white, middle class and from more rural than urban parts of the country.

This seems to be borne out in the news video of Tea Party gatherings. And other than particularly noting more extreme messages and pictures, the general look of the costuming of the Tea Party enthusiasts is they are symbolic of American patriotic stereotypes out of the country’s history. Is this typical of politics or are all these attributes describing something else. It seems the anger and the fears expressed are maybe more social/cultural than political. Could it be considering there is little continuity in the the politics associated with the Tea Party, that self-proclaimed leaders who are looking for some kind of favorable attachment are giving the Tea Party more of a political color than the members really support?

I think a closer look reveals that the anger and fear that seems to be expressed is personal, that the average supporters are individuals who believe they have or will loose something of themselves today and in the future. That they are people who see America through a rear-view mirror. If they watch TV they prefer Bonanza, Little House On The Prairie, Gunsmoke, western and frontier stories, as well as music that is rooted in America’s past like Oklahoma, even The Grand Ole Opry. The present and future turns of being American threaten the very symbols and images that signify the identity of these Tea Party Americans.

So how do Tea Party people see themselves? Of course as they see each other to an extent with individual variations, as mostly white, middle class, middle aged and from often quieter, less changed and smaller American communities in the middle belt of America. Isn’t that the part that has grown if not diminished in population.? And if little changed, much like in appearance and style to what it was generations ago. In other words the homes of the Tea Party fit into the rear-view mirror image of America characterized and romanticized on TV a generation or so ago. It is not illogical that Tea Party members see some in America’s current population, a population that is significantly larger and more diverse than it was when the Tea Party members were young; so it is quite reasonable these Tea Party people do not see many Americans today resemble themselves or people they can identify with. In fact liberal and socialist are the more common derisive terms used by the Tea Party.

Over the period of generations of the typical tea party members’ lives, plus the earlier generations they relate to so empathically, America has experienced a huge number of social/cultural innovations of change from the telegraph in the late 19th century, railroads in the same period, automobiles and paved highways, the telephone, the radio, commercial air travel, television, cell phones, computers and most significantly the internet. All of these modern mechanical innovations have reshaped and realigned how some Americans relate to each other, and the world around them. The age of visual typeset domination has given way to a plethora of conflicting biases of perception of space, time and social/cultural reality. Most of middle aged America has been passed by in this massive and complex revolution, and so have the schools and most of the institutions we rely on, the last Republican presidential candidate could not even do e-mail, something most beginning grade-schoolers have down pat.

So looking at all of America, especially younger adults and even children you can fairly say noting their participation in all kinds of social networking, texting and more, they are inclined to be much more communal and in some dimensions tribal, so of course the tea party people see America as becoming socialistic, not understanding the reality of communitarianism is not at all consistent with socialism where the state owns the means of production, the core of the economy.

The fact that Tea Party members identify with people like themselves is not a definition that they are racist, they are like others who accept people who look and act like themselves and are not open and agreeable to anyone who looks and acts differently. The Tea Party is conservative, so they claim. They identify with written words on white paper as if it is sacred, but to some extent most Americans are like that, seeing America and themselves through a rear-view mirror. And to a large extent they have good reason as the fortunes of the majority middle class and working people were better off in the past. Then the richer you were the greater the percentage of taxes owed for your good fortune, the less you made the less you were taxed, but today it is the other way around, the 2nd richest American Warren Buffet pays a lower rate of taxes on his income than his secretary, a normal working class person.

The big lie, right out of the propaganda text of Joseph Goebbels, “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” has been the doctrine of the official Republican party of America, and it amounts to the idea that if the rich are taxed less more of their wealth will trickle down to the middle class working people. Since Reagan proposed that idea in 1980 as President the taxes for the rich have been regularly decreased and as a result the rich are richer and the middle class is poorer. But American conservative middle class people still believe the lie even though they are now going broke, bankrupt, and even homeless.

The first right of every person in civilized society is the right to be protected against the consequences of one’s own stupidity. - Edmund Burke, (1729–97), British politician and man of letters. He wrote on the issues of political emancipation and moderation, notably with respect to Roman Catholics and in support of the American colonists.