In early 2009, a new movement was born, the Tea Party (TP). It billed itself as a grass roots movement to combat what it saw as a big government getting bigger, excessive government spending, accompanied by huge and growing federal deficits. It was quickly perceived as a right wing anti-Obama movement that focused its protests on major pieces of President Obama's legislative program: 1) stimulus spending to create and save jobs; 2) health care reform to provide health services to millions of the uninsured and to weaken the hold of insurance companies on the nation's health care system; and 3) greater regulation of the financial system that was at the core of the nation's severe economic recession. The TP made itself known and felt politically through shrill street demonstrations across the country. It also gained significant financial backing from wealthy sources who used the TP to advance their own right wing political agendas.
About a year later another new movement emerged -- the Coffee Party (CP). It billed itself as an alternative to the TP. It was meant to attract liberals and moderates through recruitment on the Facebook social network. Instead of the noisy and very visible extremism of the TP, its aim was to restore respectfulness and civility to the nation's political discourse. Rather than street protests, its organizing platform was to use the internet to sign up backers and to promote Starbucks kinds of gatherings to calmly discuss issues that would be more supportive of a liberal agenda.
So how has it all turned out?
It's obviously a rhetorical question since we all know that the TP, along with Sarah Palin, has become the voice of the so-called disgruntled voters. In the process, the Tea Party has driven the mainstream conservative wing of the Republican party farther to the right while, at the same time, eclipsing the establishment GOP as the leading voice of opposition to Obama and the Democratic-controlled Congress.
It has succeeded in growing through its frequent street protests which attracted many fellow travelers with their own agendas such as anti-abortion, anti-gay, and anti-immigration reform. The TP and Palin have also registered some stunning political successes with their own candidates or those they backed winning primary elections against establishment GOP choices. And as the TP has grown, it has increasingly wrapped itself in religious robes and the American flag, aided by cheerleaders such as Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck so that persons opposing the Tea Party are implicitly portrayed as anti-God and un-American. Within that context, don't forget the Uncle Sam and Statue of Liberty costumes often seen at TP rallies, along with posters portraying Obama with a Hitler mustache or resembling a monkey, presumably to portray his African-American heritage.
Given all this, the counter-organization Coffee Party certainly had its job cut out for it in seeking to restore respect and civility to discussion of policy issues and political campaigning. Unfortunately, the CP's internet/Starbucks strategy never gained the traction necessary to compete with the expanding TP. While reportedly having attracted about 300,000 supporters, the Coffee Party never got on the political radar as a viable participant in the national political dialogue; about 350 people showed up for its national convention last month in Louisville, Kentucky, according to an Associated Press writer. A quiet meeting in a coffee house cannot compete with a colorful, noisy street demonstration for getting media attention.
The Tea Party, Palin, and the American flag were prominently on display at the August 28 Washington TP rally staged by Glenn Beck who wrapped himself in messianic robes as the spear carrier for God. At times it sounded like an evangelist tent meeting. A liberal, pro-Democratic rally just two days ago also drew a large crowd at the Lincoln Memorial. While many organizations were represented, the leading sponsors were some traditional Democratic backers, labor unions and civil rights groups. Their very pragmatic aim was to re-energize the Democratic base and urge those voters to go to the polls on November 2. If civility is defined as the absence of violence and arrests, then both rallies were civil.
So, unhappily, as we go into the last four weeks of campaigning, the high decibel voice of the Tea Party has drowned out the Coffee Party voice of moderation and civility. Check the signs, and maybe the costumes, outside the polling places on November 2. The next question, a non-rhetorical one, is: once we have gotten past next month's elections, will political discourse become more moderate? Not likely. The shift to presidential politics on November 3 will bring another round of noisy polemics from the far right. And if the Tea Party has even moderate success at the polls next month, the noise is likely to get even louder.
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