A Tea Party ‘Right’ America: What It Would Look Like

July 2, 2010

There’s an old saying, used mostly by old codgers like me: “Be careful what you wish for; you might get it” — applied here to those who insist the tea party has the right idea, and America would be better served by their governance. However, after more than a year of witnessing the vast disparity in what the tea party claims to be and what they’re actually attempting, you may want to do what tens of thousands of others have already done; re-evaluate your perception of who and what the tea party really represents.

The tea party has done little to disguise their true agenda, which is to drive out center-right and right-center Republicans and replace them with ultra-conservatives, which they hope will result in regaining control of Congress. The next step will be to elect a neo-conservative President and Vice-President; ones that would make Bush II look like an armature, and more like Cheney. This will establish a government to implement policies that less than 10 percent of Americans really want. And they’ve found the vehicle to do just that, although that vehicle isn’t really a valid concern of theirs: The national debt, of which more than 59 percent ($7.67 trillion) is attributable to their two favorite Presidents, Reagan and Bush II.

E.J. Dionne Jr. said in How Obama Changed the Right “one of [Obama’s] legacies may be a revolution on the American right”. He’s absolutely right! However, it’s ironic that Obama is the lesser of left wing Presidents since Franklin D. Roosevelt, yet he’s the one that is transforming the right. Why? Because Obama is black, and the GOP is seizing upon that opportunity to further advance their goal of a neo-conservative America — a goal they have made great strides in over the past 30 years, and are very near to crossing the finish line. In Obama, who is really more left-center than far left, they see their successes threatened, because they realize more and more Americans are learning that Obama is not the radical leftist the far right is portraying. And they will go to any lengths to preserve all their hard work, which is why you have seen aggression that has never been witnessed before.

Dionne:

“The reaction to Obama has also radicalized parts of the conservative movement, giving life to conspiracy theories long buried and strains of thinking similar to those espoused by the John Birch Society and other right-wing groups in the 1950s and ‘60s.”

Amy Gardner and Krissah Thompson said in Tea Party Groups Battling Perceptions of Racism “I think there is an element of fear that ‘our white country’ is now being run by a black man”. There’s no “thinking” to it and there is no perception. I have personally witnessed dozens of tea partiers, up close, who have made it very clear that a black man in the Oval Office is more than they can take. And they admit there is nothing they wouldn’t do to get him out.

Then there’s Linda Beale. She tells us about one of the would-be “kings” who has dedicated his entire life to shaping America into a world of neo-cons, and he is one of the original tea party organizers. In Newt Gingrich’s Vision of a Religious, Brutally Capitalistic, and Corporatist America, she describes exactly what Gingrich wants the country to look like, and how he’s doing his part by using the old tried and true Republican method — a smear campaign. Beale’s title to her post tells the whole story.

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The tea party is now using attack tactics, previously reserved for Democrats, against Republicans who they consider not conservative enough. Republican Nikki Haley, who is running for governor of South Carolina, is one such Republican, even though her record speaks straight Republican. You may recall that infidelity accusations were made against Haley, who is married. Those accusations came from the right, not the left. She doesn’t fit the tea party’s description of a “good” Republican, although she was endorsed by Sarah Palin. Most likely it’s because her parents emigrated from India to South Carolina, where she was born. Amy Gardner describes the attacks against Haley as a “whisper campaign”. Those accusations, made by “unknowns” at the time, have been unfounded; typical of past Republican campaigns.

The tea party doesn’t even want Republicans in their party such as John McCain, who voted with George W. Bush 95 percent of the time. The profile they’ve set today couldn’t even be met by President Ronald Reagan. And there are tens of thousands more inside and outside the tea party who wouldn’t meet the qualifying standards set by the organizers.

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Michael Brendan Dougherty in Tea Party Crashers:

“Despite the real idealism of some of its activists both inside and outside the Beltway, the Tea Party is nothing more than a Republican-managed tantrum. Send the conservative activists into the streets to vent their anger. Let Obama feel the brunt of it.”

And that is exactly their intent; blame it on Obama. Jonah Goldberg says today’s outrage is “a delayed Bush backlash”. That’s true only to the extent that a Democrat occupies the Oval Office, and the fact he’s black only exacerbates their aggression. There would be no “backlash”, or tea party for that matter, if a Republican was President.

Because they simply refused to criticize anyone inside their own party, tea partiers and other Republicans allowed President Bush to borrow and spend $5 trillion, with their blessings, and never uttered a word, even though his actions went completely against core Republican principals. And they’re not going to do it today. It’s better to blame Bush’s fiscal transgressions on Obama.

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So what exactly would your life be like under the specific rules of the tea party? You know, rules without the “spin”; without the hype; without the ‘slight of mouth”; rules declared behind closed doors? What would a tea party “right” governance look like once the sheep’s clothing was removed? What would our country look like?

Let’s begin with the most damaging of all environmental disasters America has ever suffered — the BP oil spill. Joe Barton gave you a hint. Then came more hints from the Republican leaders in Congress. Using blackmail, they forced Barton to apologize for his apology to BP even though privately (and for all practical purposes, publicly) they feel the same way. The proof of that was in the wording of their press release about Barton’s comments, where they called the oil spill a “natural” disaster. Obviously, the authors of the statement — John Boehner, Eric Cantor and Mike Pence — agreed with Barton but know that such an official position would be very hurtful come election time. (For posterity, I have converted the press release into a PDF and placed it on CPSN’s site so it will still be available when John Boehner removes it from his official web site, which I predict will be soon.)

Once the “right” right is in complete power, corporations will no longer be held accountable for such disasters. Instead, the American taxpayer will foot the entire economic and cleanup bill, and the offending party will continue with business as usual. As Eugene Robinson said, there is a GOP chorus of Joe Bartons on the BP oil spill, and they are not limited to the four mentioned.

In addition to the above, the following is also what you could expect from a tea party right government. Although an entire chapter could be written about each, they are simply listed.

• Only pure-blood Caucasians would be allowed to hold critical government positions such as President, Vice-President, major cabinet post and powerful Congressional positions.
• Religious affiliations would be limited. Certainly no one outside of what a tea party government would consider “main stream” would be allowed. Most likely, only Protestant,  and maybe some Catholics, would be accepted. Even some from within the Protestant faith would be exempt from higher office.
• The entire tax structure would change to include who would pay taxes and who wouldn’t:
  • No corporations would pay taxes.
  • Corporate executives for companies above a certain size would be taxed on a minimal amount of their compensation, leaving the vast majority tax free.
  • New investment tax laws would be passed, minimizing, or possibly eliminating, taxes to be paid on profits above what the casual investor would be expected to earn, and for those managing investment accounts.
  • For the wealthy, a minimal number would be established for which anything above would be tax exempt.
  • Inheritance above a certain amount would be completely tax free, leaving only those who inherent less than a million dollars or so to pay taxes on 100 percent of their inheritance.
  • New tax “loopholes” for the elite would be an on-going process until their tax burden was zero.
  • Corporate subsidies would not only be kept in place, but most likely be substantially increased.
  • Social Security benefits would be taxed.
  • Taxes on the middle and working class would increase by as much as 130-200 percent.
• Dozens of human rights, such as privacy, would be disposed of:
  • Free speech would be limited to what the “right” right wants to hear.
  • There would be a massive re-write of our history to reflect a more ultra-conservative view of America (see Texas).
  • The news media would feel the sting of a “right” tea party – only news that reflected positive views of the right would be allowed.
  • Even bloggers would ultimately be limited to what they could write and/or make public.
• Medicare and Medicaid would be set on a fast-track for complete elimination.
• Social Security would immediately be privatized, handing over trillions of dollars to the same Wall Street bankers who gutted the vaults in the years leading up to 2008.
• Social Security taxes now paid by corporations on behalf of employees would be immediately halted.
• Within 20 years all government programs that aid the middle class and poor would be gone, beginning within the first years of tea party dominance.
• Veteran Affairs would all but be eliminated by limiting which veterans could have access to the VA.
• Women’s rights would suffer greatly, with a woman’s rights to her own body being the first to go; few, if any, would be allowed to serve in high office.
• All unions would be immediately disbanded.
• Any and all rights of a worker would be revoked.
• Minimum wage would be immediately eliminated.
• Wage controls would become a top priority, with hourly pay set on a course to be replaced with a salary and leaving it up to the employer to decide how many hours they want to work an employee without extra compensation.
• Anyone in the ranks of mid to low-level employees who is more than 20 percent overweight would be punished either by loosing their job or removed from medical coverage by their employer.
• Employer medical benefits would be set to expire within the first 10 years, during which time very low limits would be set on how much an employers medical benefits would cover.
• Health care cost would be allowed to soar to a point that only the wealthy could afford it.
• Although employee retirement is already on a course to extinction, it would be greatly accelerated, probably ending within 3 to 5 years.  
• Dozens of federal agencies would be eliminated such as the Securities and Exchange Commission, Environmental Protection Agency, OSHA, and many others that are in place to protect and serve the public and employees.
• Only Supreme Court justices such as John G. Roberts would be allowed on the bench.
• Any current laws that are not corporate-friendly would be revoked.
• “Terrorist Organization” definition would be greatly expanded to include dozens of peaceful organizations.
• The “Right to Bear Arms” would have limits, primarily for those the extremist right dubbed “a threat” to their government.

Many more could be listed. However, the point is made — those same people who are on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and several other government programs that were established and vigorously defended by Democrats for decades are among the loudest to be heard from within the tea party. Yet, they will be the ones to suffer in the tea party’s ideal world. However, this is to be expected. Every single dictatorship throughout history got its roots by first getting the populace on its side. Otherwise, it never could have succeeded. 

There has liberally been thousands of articles appear over the past year that rightly point out the tea party is no more than a radical right wing protest movement. But those words of description are puny. Politically speaking, the tea party is by far the ultimate in “a wolf in sheep’s clothing”. And if you’re one of those commoners who think the tea party has the answers to all our government problems, you’d better think again. Once the wolf’s disguise is removed, they will come at you with the same vengeance. Then you will be yearning for those years when traditional Republican and Democratic ideologies were civilly presented and debated in the halls of Congress, resulting in an acceptable government that served the majority of the people in the most humane ways.