Tag Archives: tea baggers

Treat China Like the Old Soviet Union: E. J. Dionne’s Awful Solution to America’s (Perceived) Decline

E. J. Dionne, in a recent piece at Truthdig, gives a tart and accurate summary of the past decade: [I]n the first decade of the new millennium, our country squandered its international advantages, degraded its power with a long and … Continue reading

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Palin-Huckabee 2012 and George Carlin

About 20 years ago, when George W. Bush’s father was president of the United States, George Carlin, in one of his stand-up routines, observed that there are three groups of dismaying people in this world, the first of which are those who are … Continue reading

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Shrill and Shriller: Barack Obama is Still the Scary Black Man (to key GOP constituents)

The New York Times today had an interesting piece on how Republican Party hacks continue to demonize Barack Obama as the alien “other” in the White House, and do so in ways that are designed to keep in high alarm mode the party’s … Continue reading

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Tea Party Herderian Terrorism? Mosque Building Site Fire in Tennessee Ruled an Arson

This at CBS News last night: Federal officials are investigating a fire that started overnight at the site of a new Islamic center in a Nashville suburb. Ben Goodwin of the Rutherford County Sheriff’s Department confirmed to CBS Affiliate WTVF … Continue reading

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Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin Have No Jeffersonian Clothes: Ron Paul Favors the Building of the Ground Zero Mosque and Castigates Its Opponents

The so-called ground zero mosque is generating a rift between Jeffersonian libertarian conservatives and those who identify with the Herderite Tea Partiers. The latest evidence of this split can be found in a statement released by the libertarian congressman, Ron Paul, who wrote … Continue reading

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Before the Statue of Liberty, Mayor Bloomberg Supports the Cordoba Mosque

Mayor Bloomberg gets it right. I think this part of his speech is key: The simple fact is this building is private property, and the owners have a right to use the building as a house of worship. The government … Continue reading

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The Tea Party Movement: America’s Herderites (or Herderians)

One of the books I’ve been reading this summer is Zeev Sternhell’s The Anti-Enlightenment Tradition  (Yale 2010), and this morning the opening paragraph of chapter 6 (pg. 274) really jumped out at me: The antirationalist form of modernity, as we have … Continue reading

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A Reality Check for Tea Partiers—and a Reason to Dance

At 538 yesterday was a tidy summing up of the trecherous demographic waters facing the Republican Party as it moves into the next decade or two: The Center for American Politics’ Ruy Teixeira, one of the top political demographers in … Continue reading

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Tea Partier Sharon Angle wants to abolish the Department of Education, end Social Security and Medicare, and get the United States out of the United Nations

And she’s just won the Republican primary in Nevada. Harry Reid’s camp has to be smiling about this:

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Health Care Reform Metaphor Watch: Conservative David Frum calls Sunday’s vote a Republican “Waterloo”

Conservative Republican David Frum tweeted this today: if HCR prevails, Republicans need an accountability moment. Jim DeMint/ Rush / Beck etc. ed us to Waterloo all right . Ours. Update: Health care reform prevailed. Meep, meep.

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Is the Tea Party Movement a Cult? The Case of Idaho Resident, Pam Stout

The New York Times recently did a profile of the Tea Party movement, and after reading the article I came away with the sense that what we’re seeing is more akin to a religious cult than a political movement. Here, … Continue reading

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Andrew Sullivan Calls It Quits

He’s still a Tory conservative, but he’s given up on American “movement conservatism”. Here’s some of the reasons that he gave today (from a longer list that you can see here): I cannot support a movement that would back a … Continue reading

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