The Economist
"Which is to say, the tea-party movement is just another expression of the American right's signature brand of identity politics. Its overriding concern is elevating the power and social status of those who hold dear a certain conception of American authenticity—white, evangelical, exceptionalist nationalism—and it does this, bizarrely, using the rhetoric of constitutionalism, limited government, and free markets."
The tea-party movement
Waiting for Captain America
Jan 6th 2012, 14:21 by W.W.
DAVID WEIGEL, Slate's roving political reporter, looks at the Iowa caucus entrance polls and draws three lessons from Tuesday night's results. I agree with each of Mr Weigel's lessons, but I'd like to reflect on the first:
Lesson One: The Tea Party isn't a small government-first movement. It was Sarah Posner who coined the term "Teavangelicals," a little neologism for a simple idea. The Tea Party, she argued, was not some new force of libertarians. It was a new framework for the same conservatives who dominated the GOP a month before the Tea Party began. Iowa may not have been the best place to test this, as its Republicans have always been more economically populist than not, and in the last decades they've been reliable social conservatives. But its Tea Partiers did not demand much economic libertarianism from their GOP. Sixty-four percent of caucus-goers called themselves "Tea Party supporters," and 30 percent of them backed Rick Santorum—a social conservative who proudly defended his earmarks. Rick Perry, who campaigned desperately on the issues Tea Partiers say they care about—no earmarks! Term limits! Part time Congress!—got 14 percent of this vote. Michele Bachmann got 9 percent of it.
If those sympathetic to the tea-party movement were really enthusiasts of small and limited government, one might think they'd see a lot to like in Ron Paul, the least compromising small-government advocate of the bunch. But caucusers who avowed the strongest affinity to the movement preferred even Newt Gingrich, an FDR-loving enthusiast of government-financed moon colonies, and heavily favoured Rick Santorum, a big-government "compassionate conservative" who is to George W. Bush basically what Pope Benedict XVI is to Pope John Paul II.
Now, I think this is a bit of a fluke. I don't think Iowa's conservative voters really knew much about Rick Santorum's record or convictions. If they had, I doubt he would have done so well. What they did know for certain was that Mr Santorum is against abortion and same-sex marriage and was endorsed by Bob Vander Plaats, Iowa's social-conservative kingmaker. I doubt more than half of them knew Mr Santorum is Catholic. If Mr Santorum's surge had come earlier, Iowans surely would have seen more of this sort of thing, from a 2005 Jonathan Rauch article in Reason:
In his book ["It Takes a Family"] he comments, seemingly with a shrug, “Some will reject what I have to say as a kind of ‘Big Government’ conservatism.”
They sure will. A list of the government interventions that Santorum endorses includes national service, promotion of prison ministries, “individual development accounts,” publicly financed trust funds for children, community-investment incentives, strengthened obscenity enforcement, covenant marriage, assorted tax breaks, economic literacy programs in “every school in America” (his italics), and more. Lots more.
David Boaz of the Cato Instute unearthed a 2006 NPR interview in which Mr Santorum explicitly rejects the "libertarianish right" and "the whole idea of personal autonomy", as well as the notion that "government should keep our taxes down and keep our regulations low", while wholeheartedly embracing the paternalistic imposition of traditional morals. It is entirely possible that Mr Santorum is the least libertarianish candidate in the Republican field. Indeed, I'm not sure there's a single issue on which Mr Santorum comes closer than Mr Romney to the alleged tea-party movement ideals of small government, fiscal responsibility, and individual liberty. And, obviously, Mr Santorum does much worse in these respects than Ron Paul.
Pundits keep talking about the "non-Romney" candidates, but what they really mean is the "non-Romney, non-Paul" candidates. Mr Paul, who clinched a close third-place finish Tuesday night, filled Iowa's airwaves for months with ads aimed squarely at social conservatives, but he didn't win anything close to Mr Santorum's support from evangelicals or tea-party movement symps, despite the fact that Mr Santorum barely advertised at all. Why? Because Ron Paul is anti-war.
Mr Weigel, citing Sarah Posner, is spot on; the tea-party movement is "a new framework for the same conservatives who dominated the GOP a month before the Tea Party began". Which is to say, the tea-party movement is just another expression of the American right's signature brand of identity politics. Its overriding concern is elevating the power and social status of those who hold dear a certain conception of American authenticity—white, evangelical, exceptionalist nationalism—and it does this, bizarrely, using the rhetoric of constitutionalism, limited government, and free markets. Actual laissez-faire constitutionalists, such as Mr Paul, don't stand a chance as long as they insist on leavening their exceptionalist rhetoric with the insistence that it is appropriate to evaluate American foreign policy by the same standards we use to judge others. Mr Romney's desperate, almost lunatic jingoism keeps him in the running, but the suspicion that he is a squish on zygote murder and gay nuptials, in addition to his membership in a weird, made-up religion, keeps American-authenticity conservatives casting about for a better champion. Mr Santorum may or may not have the talent necessary to obscure his brand of big-government, right-wing paternalism with tea-party rhetoric. But it's certain he can't obscure his Catholicism, which isn't nearly as bad as Mormonism, but sure isn't great. I reckon a combination of Mr Santorum's popery and unusually explicit hostility to freedom will do him in. That's why Rick Perry's staying in the race, I think. American-authenticity conservatives don't mind that much if their man can't utter a non-mangled sentence, as long as he's right with God, and it's the right sentence.
Please go to the original article to view an excellent graph which backs up the content of this article:
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2012/01/tea-party-movement
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