The U.S. Tea Party

[Astarte]

The Tea Party. What do you think their political nature is? I do not think they are actually "fascist" because their ideology is so eclectic ... but does revolve mostly around the central theme of "individuality" - much unlike traditional fascist movements.

Elements in common with fascism:

they are sponsored by the most reactionary elements of the capitalist class.

Their political ideology is revisionist to the core in that they call all totalitarian regimes "left wing" i.e. how they insist on the Nazis being a "leftwing" phenomena simply since they used the term "national socialism" to dupe the uninformed.

They are a kind of quasi-fascism which can only find fertile soil in the US due to the insistence on "rugged individualism".

[Nolan]

A fascist movement they are not. They are, however:

Nationalist. I don't have to explain this.

Violent. The Tea Party is tied to the old militia movement that first sprang up during the Clinton years. It shares the mentality of violence against "liberals" and others who in their eyes threaten the cultural and political integrity of "their" great nation. I think the recent head-stomping incident speaks for itself. They all would have liked to be in that guy's shoes.

Racist. They can talk all day how they're not racist. But these are the same conservatives who only a few years ago were screaming about English losing dominance in America and ranting for a wall on the border - Where Glenn Beck goes, the American ultraright follows. Now that the political rhetoric has changed to free market utopianism, cultural purity and bible thumping have been pushed out of the center of the limelight, although they're never too far.

[Property Is Robbery]

They're mindless right wing morons and while they cannot be called fascist accurately, I'm sure most of them would gladly embrace a racist, nationalist, christian fascist state.

[NoOneIsIllegal]

A giant mesh of nationalism, individualism, big business, and stupidity.

Fascist? No. Unless they want to start censoring literature and killing off us lefties.

[RadioRaheem84]

Right wing movement with proto-fascist tendencies.

[Rusty Shackleford]

proto-fascist.

predominantly middle income earners and the petit-bourgeoisie. the privileged in this society.

nationalistic.

viciously anti-communist.

anti-immigrant

pro capitalist

pro imperialist

zionist(predominantly)

social conservative

[~Spectre]

They are funded and organized by the republicans. In primary races where the tea party managed to defy the republican high command, the party cut off funding and aid for the general election, and thus the candidates were slaughtered.

The Tea Party , therefore, cannot exist independent of the Republican party. They function as a sort of alternate label ground team. They were useful for shouting down health care reform, and useful for selling republican candidates to people who had some issues with the republican brand name. Only the Democrats and Republicans have viable funding apparatuses, so they are still the only two relevant players for the bourgeoisie.

Politically, they represent a political agenda of the super rich far right. They won't get what they want when it contradicts what the ruling class wants though. For instance the debt ceiling will be raised despite what the tea party might claim to "think" about it.

They're definitely anti-worker. As for whether they are fascist, it's simply more important to recognize how they function than whether to label them out right. I did find this interesting though- taken from one of Trotsky's anti-Nazi pamphlets:


The petty bourgeois is hostile to the idea of development, for development goes immutably against him; progress has brought him nothing except irredeemable debts. National Socialism rejects not only Marxism but Darwinism. The Nazis curse materialism because the victories of technology over nature have signified the triumph of large capital over small. The leaders of the movement are liquidating “intellectualism” because they themselves possess second- and third-rate intellects, and above all because their historic role does not permit them to pursue a single thought to its conclusion. The petty bourgeois needs a higher authority, which stands above matter and above history, and which is safeguarded from competition, inflation, crisis, and the auction block. To evolution, materialist thought, and rationalism – of the twentieth, nineteenth, and eighteenth centuries – is counterposed in his mind national idealism as the source of heroic inspiration.
Personality and class – liberalism and Marxism – are evil. The nation – is good. But at the threshold of private property this philosophy is turned inside out. Salvation lies only in personal private property. The idea of national property is the spawn of Bolshevism. Deifying the nation, the petty bourgeois does not want to give it anything.
The program with which National Socialism came to power reminds one very much – alas – of a Jewish department store in an obscure province. What won’t you find here – cheap in price and in quality still lower! Recollections of the “happy” days of free competition, and hazy evocations of the stability of class society; hopes for the regeneration of the colonial empire, and dreams of a shut-in economy; phrases about a return from Roman law back to the Germanic, and pleas for an American moratorium; an envious hostility to inequality in the person of a proprietor in an automobile, and animal fear of equality in the person of a worker in a cap and without a collar; the frenzy of nationalism, and the fear of world creditors ... all the refuse of international political thought has gone to fill up the spiritual treasury of the new Germanic Messianism.
Fascism has opened up the depths of society for politics. Today, not only in peasant homes but also in city skyscrapers, there lives alongside of the twentieth century the tenth or the thirteenth. A hundred million people use electricity and still believe in the magic power of signs and exorcisms. The Pope of Rome broadcasts over the radio about the miraculous transformation of water into wine. Movie stars go to mediums. Aviators who pilot miraculous mechanisms created by man’s genius wear amulets on their sweaters. What inexhaustible reserves they possess of darkness, ignorance, and savagery! Despair has raised them to their feet fascism has given them a banner. Everything that should have been eliminated from the national organism in the form of cultural excrement in the course of the normal development of society has now come gushing out from the throat; capitalist society is puking up the undigested barbarism. Such is the physiology of National Socialism.


That sounds awfully familiar.

[Rusty Shackleford]

They are funded and organized by the republicans. In primary races where the tea party managed to defy the republican high command, the party cut off funding and aid for the general election, and thus the candidates were slaughtered.

The Tea Party , therefore, cannot exist independent of the Republican party. They function as a sort of alternate label ground team. They were useful for shouting down health care reform, and useful for selling republican candidates to people who had some issues with the republican brand name. Only the Democrats and Republicans have viable funding apparatuses, so they are still the only two relevant players for the bourgeoisie.

Politically, they represent a political agenda of the super rich far right. They won't get what they want when it contradicts what the ruling class wants though. For instance the debt ceiling will be raised despite what the tea party might claim to "think" about it.

They're definitely anti-worker. As for whether they are fascist, it's simply more important to recognize how they function than whether to label them out right. I did find this interesting though- taken from one of Trotsky's anti-Nazi pamphlets:




That sounds awfully familiar.


i knew trotsky had some good stuff on anti-fascism.

is fighting fascism in germany any good? im about to pick it up.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Statistically they are a section of the Republican base as others have said. They are to the right of most Republican voters and get most of their political ideas from the institutions set up by the New Right in the 70s/80s: right-wing radio (and FOX news which is just the television extension of the media figures developed through radio), right-wing think tanks and astro-turf groups like Americans for Prosperity (funded by the 19th richest billionaire in the US). They are the only people who still think that George Bush did a good job and most like Palin when even most of the Republican base do not support her. They are basically a lot of people who bought into the myths promoted by the ruling class to sell their attacks on the working class that ramped up in the 1970s. Hence being of a certain age and demographic - white (many petty-bourgeois) people who came of age with the Regan Revolution or the Christian Right and the era of the tax revolt and war on crime etc.

However, polls show that increasing numbers of "independents" are beginning to identify with the tea-parties although IMO they are identifying primarily with the anger, not the specific policies. This is the danger of political vacuums - there is a lot of anger in society and the Dems and mainstream Republicans have nothing to offer people, so people are willing to grab any solution that speaks to their problems even if it's a really shitty solution.

[Nolan]

Trotsky's writings on fascism are very good.

[Leo]

http://en.internationalism.org/inter/154/tea-party

[Rusty Shackleford]

Statistically they are a section of the Republican base as others have said. They are to the right of most Republican voters and get most of their political ideas from the institutions set up by the New Right in the 70s/80s: right-wing radio (and FOX news which is just the television extension of the media figures developed through radio), right-wing think tanks and astro-turf groups like Americans for Prosperity (funded by the 19th richest billionaire in the US). They are the only people who still think that George Bush did a good job and most like Palin when even most of the Republican base do not support her. They are basically a lot of people who bought into the myths promoted by the ruling class to sell their attacks on the working class that ramped up in the 1970s. Hence being of a certain age and demographic - white (many petty-bourgeois) people who came of age with the Regan Revolution or the Christian Right and the era of the tax revolt and war on crime etc.

However, polls show that increasing numbers of "independents" are beginning to identify with the tea-parties although IMO they are identifying primarily with the anger, not the specific policies. This is the danger of political vacuums - there is a lot of anger in society and the Dems and mainstream Republicans have nothing to offer people, so people are willing to grab any solution that speaks to their problems even if it's a really shitty solution.

There seems to be a shift with the growing influence of Beck though. there was a very good article in the New York Times lining up beckism with John Birch Society theory. it falls together very well. it seems that the paranoia from the 50s is coming back, literally.

[RadioRaheem84]

I do not even know why there is paranoia. There is no USSR, no communist threat what so ever.

The only thing I can think of is that the ruling classes wanted to counter the growing left wing sentiment that could've arose during the downturn.

And not only are they attacking communism these days but they're trying to root out liberalism too! It's not even safe to be a liberal anymore.

[Peace on Earth]

I don't want to label an entire group. Obviously, it is founded on the irrational belief that capitalism and faith are the driving forces that can save America. However, if you look deeper the "movement" is much more complicated.

From the top, it is funded by the wealthy who could profit from many conservative policies. Namely, David and Charles Koch, the bilionaires, are primary sponsors of many Tea Party-related groups and foundations. Moving down, the politicians who embrace the Tea Party are nothing more than self-serving nutjobs who couldn't survive on a Republican ticket. They are usually more racist and "fringe" than their Republican counterparts. However, the Tea Party will never actually (at least not now) evolve into a true third party. The platform is too similar to Republicans. They are used to stir anger to Democratic policies and goals. After the deed is done, they can go back into hiding until the next rally or protest.

The members of the movement are there for usually the same reasons. Most are white, well-off, and older. They are fearful of losing their position in society, and that fear has manifested itself into a phobia of anything, as Glenn Beck would say, "socialist garbage." The younger members are just as scared and nervous of losing their wealth and see "big government" as the main enemy. However, very rarely do they focus on conservative big government programs and initiatives.

It is a very conservative, capitalist, and nationalist movement rooted in the idea of a god-blessed nation that has a right to do whatever it wants. Its members have much to lose and, as most would, fear that loss.

As of now, they are not facist. Most of the members are just to the right of Republicansm, and if a Republican was elected President, they would most likely tone down the rhetoric if everything was going their way.

[Rusty Shackleford]

I do not even know why there is paranoia. There is no USSR, no communist threat what so ever.

The only thing I can think of is that the ruling classes wanted to counter the growing left wing sentiment that could've arose during the downturn.

And not only are they attacking communism these days but they're trying to root out liberalism too! It's not even safe to be a liberal anymore.
The birchers arent really afraid of invasion. they are afraid of internal subversion.

they hated eisenhower because they thought he was a communist during his entire adult life.

[RadioRaheem84]

Eisenhower a commie? They're bananas.

Internal subversion is even more nuttier. There is no internal threat either.

They've run out of commies to hunt so now they're tying liberals to commies and scapegoating them.

[Rusty Shackleford]

to them, liberalism is akin to communism and socialism.

[Kiev Communard]

to them, liberalism is akin to communism and socialism.

Yes, and it is all the more ironic when one takes into account that they basically follow the ideas of laissez-faire in economic sphere, that is, economic liberalism.

[Jimmie Higgins]

The only thing I can think of is that the ruling classes wanted to counter the growing left wing sentiment that could've arose during the downturn.I think that's right - I think the combination of people's high hopes in Obama happening at the same time that the crisis hit the fan made them want to ramp up these kinds of forces to act as a sort of dampener.

Of course now, the ruling class wants to push austerity onto people so I think the far-right will continue to play a role in scapegoating the poor and people at the bottom of society so that the rich punish us all.

[syndicat]

Surveys suggest most Tea Party participants are affluent white middle class males. Their talk exudes the more extreme social Darwinist edge of the Republican party. The Repub party has to create "movements" out of whole cloth since they represent the interests of the plutocracy in a more undiluted form than the Dems, so this "movement" was fomented by Repub party activists.

The state has parts that serve directly capitalist interests and parts that were created in response to popular pressure, and which parts of the working class gain from. The talk about being against "big government" only refers to this latter part of the state. They're fine with a big state in sofar as we're talking about the parts that more overtly serve capital...imperialist foreign policy, free trade pacts, law and order, heavy handed police activity, mass incarceration, military contracts and other forms of endless pork to business.

[Rakhmetov]

In periods of revolution or pre-revolution the petit bourgeois and the lumpen go INSANE. The Tea Party is the manifestation and incarnation of this insanity among the petit bourgeois. We have still to see how the lumpen will coalesce under what banner. :(

[cb9's_unity]

Chances are that the tea party is over. It was an odd blend of normally competing conservatives groups that were only bound together for this election. As a result they have already been essentially cannibalized by the mainstream republican establishment.

I can't see them staying together while battling over who the republican primary candidate should be. The fundamentalists, "libertarians", and moderates in the party are going to go to war with each other, again, over who should be the republican candidate. There is no way the tea party can survive in that context.

The abstractness of the Tea Party's rhetoric was the sole reason for its existence before this election, and it will be the sole reason why the tea party can not be an effective political force after it.

[Rusty Shackleford]

In periods of revolution or pre-revolution the petit bourgeois and the lumpen go INSANE. The Tea Party is the manifestation and incarnation of this insanity among the petit bourgeois. We have still to see how the lumpen will coalesce under what banner. :(
or in this case. in times of capitalist crisis.

were not in a pre revolutionary stage even.

[TwoSevensClash]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/08/trash-tea-party-fountain-hills-arizona-_n_780345.html
h
These retards think trash collecting is communism.

[Astarte]

Thats actually very astute. The biggest problem is when they make those claims the liberals just laugh it off, but never give any concise reasons why public services are not communism but rather state run services that allow the bourgeois state to keep functioning, if they did they would be social democrats though - reforming socialists like in Europe ... but they are a party of the bourgeoisie (the democrats) - the liberals do not even want to mention they might understand so much about marxism in the first place lest they be branded communist.

[B0LSHEVIK]

I think they'll all be gone as soon as Obama is out of office. They didnt organize over politial reasons. Americans NEVER do that. But they sure dont like the 'Kenyan' in the white house.

[CAleftist]

The Tea Party is the result of what happens when the leftist movement in a country is crushed, and when a major crisis in Capitalism occurs, there is a vacuum for anger and resentment to fill.

Fascist? Possibly. They certainly have the nationalism, racism, xenophobia, and authoritarianism down. The one thing they have going for them is they seem to hate corporations, but this isn't entirely accurate either as they support Republican candidates that are beholden to corporations.

[CAleftist]

Surveys suggest most Tea Party participants are affluent white middle class males. Their talk exudes the more extreme social Darwinist edge of the Republican party. The Repub party has to create "movements" out of whole cloth since they represent the interests of the plutocracy in a more undiluted form than the Dems, so this "movement" was fomented by Repub party activists.

The state has parts that serve directly capitalist interests and parts that were created in response to popular pressure, and which parts of the working class gain from. The talk about being against "big government" only refers to this latter part of the state. They're fine with a big state in sofar as we're talking about the parts that more overtly serve capital...imperialist foreign policy, free trade pacts, law and order, heavy handed police activity, mass incarceration, military contracts and other forms of endless pork to business.

This is a good point. All of those "big government" functions you mention, btw, are pretty much elements of a fascist state.

[CAleftist]

Also...

A lot of Tea Party types are not just white "middle class" males, but they are often active or retired managers of employees, and some are even executives.

A lot of their funding comes from Washington think tanks and from corporate executives and families like the Koch family.

This is no working class movement.

[L.A.P.]

The ideas of the Tea Party include:
Nationalism+libertarianism+conservatism=something pretty close to fascism.

[cb9's_unity]

The ideas of the Tea Party include:
Nationalism+libertarianism+conservatism=something pretty close to fascism.

How does right-libertarianism have anything in common with fascism? They both have very varied views over the governments relation to the free market. Laissez-faire and corporatism are totally incompatible.

I'm tired of people trying to force weak comparisons for totally useless reasons. The Tea Party can only be accurately explained by exploring the specifics of what is going on in American politics. Honestly, i'm not even sure if a traditional Marxist analysis is of much use trying to understand how the tea party will effect most of the country. It doesn't really have major support by any one class, and it never really detached itself from American mainstream politics. Its origins and character can be explained largely through a knowledge of the disputes between different groups within the Republican Party.

At this point it looks like the Tea Party won't be much more than a short blip on the electoral radar screen. It has been consumed by the Republican Party and since its beginning has understood that its only power is in its ability to move republican candidates a little to the right. It can be accurately understood and critiqued without any reference to fascism.

[Astarte]

How does right-libertarianism have anything in common with fascism? They both have very varied views over the governments relation to the free market. Laissez-faire and corporatism are totally incompatible.

I'm tired of people trying to force weak comparisons for totally useless reasons. The Tea Party can only be accurately explained by exploring the specifics of what is going on in American politics. Honestly, i'm not even sure if a traditional Marxist analysis is of much use trying to understand how the tea party will effect most of the country. It doesn't really have major support by any one class, and it never really detached itself from American mainstream politics. Its origins and character can be explained largely through a knowledge of the disputes between different groups within the Republican Party.

At this point it looks like the Tea Party won't be much more than a short blip on the electoral radar screen. It has been consumed by the Republican Party and since its beginning has understood that its only power is in its ability to move republican candidates a little to the right. It can be accurately understood and critiqued without any reference to fascism.

Thats why they are a proto-fascist movement though, right now they are a decentralized populist right libertarian current. But they are backed by big capital, and have a poor understanding of the state, so they could just turn out to be a corporate-statist movement heavily draping in libertarian and nationalist rhetoric.

[cb9's_unity]

Thats why they are a proto-fascist movement though, right now they are a decentralized populist right libertarian current. But they are backed by big capital, and have a poor understanding of the state, so they could just turn out to be a corporate-statist movement heavily draping in libertarian and nationalist rhetoric.

The alliance with big capital is one that can't last. Right now big capital is clamoring for tax breaks and deregulation, but once those low taxes and deregulation ruin the economy again big capital will back at the democrats door begging for another bailout.

And big capitals' interest is more aligned with the Republican establishment anyways. It will be more 'centrist' republicans who will work with democrats to decide which pro-business legislation gets pushed through in this congress.

[learningaboutheleft123]

hang on a minute, they say they are patriotic americans, but it was the british who are known for the tea party, the British were essentially immigrants when they travelled to America.

[MellowViper]

proto-fascist.

predominantly middle income earners and the petit-bourgeoisie. the privileged in this society.

nationalistic.

viciously anti-communist.

anti-immigrant

pro capitalist

pro imperialist

zionist(predominantly)

social conservative

I don't see them as being predominately zionist, but because of the influence from Christian conservatives, they probably have a very strong bias against Palestinians.

[Manic Impressive]

Now I'm hearing people on this side of the pond talking about a "British Tea party" This week Nigel Farage (leader of the UK independence party) said something like he wanted to be the UK equivalent of the US T party.