Tea Party, not a new movement

Timothy Dalrymple, at Patheos, has a remarkable sketch of the emergence of Tea Party ideas back in the Bush era. Let it be said that the Tea Party is not just a post-Obama reactionary movement; commentators who want to blame it on anti-Obama are mistaken. I begin with his opening and finish off with Dalrymple’s concluding points, but I’d recommend you read the whole thing:

The tea started brewing under Bush. It’s important that Democrats and Republicans alike understand this. Democrats know that they are about to suffer a rebuke of historic proportions, but it’s important they understand the reason and not imagine themselves the victims of racism or irrationality. And it’s important for Republicans to understand that their legacy of government growth and deficit spending is also suffering rebuke. The Republicans will recapture the House (if they do) not because Americans love the GOP but because the Democrats doubled down on the Republicans’ big-government tendencies.Raise your hand if you’ve heard this before: “If the Tea Party activists were really upset about spending, where were they when Bush was running up the deficits?” The alleged inconsistency — that conservatives were perfectly content with big government under Bush but are outraged now — is a key component of the liberal argument that the Tea Party is actually driven by more nefarious motives. Since the conservatives who comprise the Tea Party movement raised no objection when Bush was expanding government, the argument runs, they must actually be angered by something else. They reject not spending but Democratic spending, not a big-government President but a black big-government President…..

Here’s one of his major theories:

Liberal politicians and their fellow travelers in the media seemed to assume that Americans disapproved of Bush for the same reasons they did. Yet many rejected Bush because he was not their kind of conservative (or, they might say, no conservative at all).

And his concluding shots at both parties:

Democrats misread the moment of their ascendance. They thought Bush represented conservatism itself, rather than a particular strand of conservatism, and they interpreted the electorate’s repudiation of Bush as a repudiation of traditional conservatism. Whether the Democrats would have done anything differently, if they had better understood the world outside the echo chamber, is debatable. But they might at least have known that the American people as a whole were not ready for a rapid expansion of government amidst debts and deficits unseen since the Second World War. America as a whole has remained center-right, and it is entirely natural that those who rejected Bush for his government growth and deficit spending would become, when Obama exploded that growth and spending, the leaders of the Tea Party movement. Further, for many conservatives there was some amount of trust that Bush would not go too far, that his policies were pro-growth, that his deficits were more sustainable. Obama came along and tripled the rate at which the debt is growing, budgeted for trillion dollar deficits as far as the eye could see, and punishes the very same private sector that he so desperately needs to create jobs. This alone, without reference to racism or bigotry or irrational hatred, is sufficient explanation for the Tea Party movement.

For the GOP, the lesson should be sobering. If all goes well for the Republicans on November 2nd, in the midst of their celebration they should remember that their victory comes only because the Democrats took what the Republicans were doing and doubled and tripled down. And they should know that the Tea Partiers who are largely responsible for the enthusiasm gap will hold them accountable to their promises. Many Americans, and not only the Tea Party activists, feel that rapid government growth and the national debt constitute severe threats to the health of our economy and our nation. Republicans will be expected to take action, to fulfill their promises of financial responsibility, or to suffer a similar repudiation in 2012.

The tea started brewing under the Bush administration, and now it’s scalding hot against the Democrats. But it may burn Republicans too if they don’t change their ways.