April 19, 2009
Tax Tea Party, Texass Style
On this, the 234th anniversary of the battles of Lexington and Concord, I think that it might be appropriate to see if we can make any sense out of the April 15th "Tax Tea Party" protests. I attended one of the two parties in Bryan-College Station, Texas, where a sizable crowd of between 300 and 500 folks gathered together, ostensibly in the hope of securing "economic $anity."
My social movements class and I thought that it would be interesting to attend our local Tea Party to see if we could discern whether the Texas Tea Partiers were a part of a "grass roots" effort or whether the event was what New York Times columnist Paul Krugman called "AstroTurf (fake grass roots) events, manufactured by the usual suspects." After having watched lots of Fox News reports drumming up support for the Tax Tea Parties we suspected that we would find more astro turf than grass roots at our local event. It's taken me a few days to write about what I saw at my local Tax Tea Party largely because I wanted to take the protesters' complaints seriously (I am, after all, a scholar of American citizenship) and I feared that I might write a less than sympathetic mock-u-blog-entry if I wrote too hastily (if you want to read that, then have a look at Wonkette's fine coverage).
1. Claims of Non-Partisanship
"Wife, dog owner, decorative artist and political blogger Nancy Coppock organized the BCS Tea Party that I attended. Yet, while the Tea Party was supposedly non-partisan, judging from the signs displayed and the speeches delivered, "non-partisan" seemed to mean something like "anti-liberal," "anti-Obama," "anti-Democratic Party," "anti-Congress," and definitely "anti-Pelosi" and "anti-Clinton."
1. Claims of Non-Partisanship
"Wife, dog owner, decorative artist and political blogger Nancy Coppock organized the BCS Tea Party that I attended. Yet, while the Tea Party was supposedly non-partisan, judging from the signs displayed and the speeches delivered, "non-partisan" seemed to mean something like "anti-liberal," "anti-Obama," "anti-Democratic Party," "anti-Congress," and definitely "anti-Pelosi" and "anti-Clinton."
For example: Tea Partiers heartily cheered for Fox News and just as heartily booed when mention was made of any Democrat; the invited speakers were all Republican or "conservative"; the BCS Tea Party drew heavily from the Heritage Foundation's Tea Party Talking Points on both their website and at the event; and, while BCS Tea Partiers professed to hope to "reach out to every citizen in an effort to offer speeches of empowerment and education," they also posted a warning--via Peoples Press Collective, via The Conservative Revolution--to "BE AWARE OF POTENTIAL DISRUPTORS," in other words, beware of anyone who did not already agree with their complaints and/or who might want to engage in dialogue. Thus, it appears that when the BCS Tea Partiers claimed non-partisanship, they really meant that non-partisan Libertarians and Republicans would gather together in joint protest against the current Congress and Administration.
Grass roots or astro turf? It's hard to say. Certainly the leadership of the event had ties to the Republican Party, but did all of the attendees consider themselves active members? I would guess that the crowd was a mixed bag of Libertarians and Republicans, most likely prompted to attend the event by the FoxNews coverage. In other words, the astro turf coverage either tapped into or cultivated regular folks' anger over taxes, the bailout, Obama's election, etc.
One caveat: BCS Tea Partiers sent protest cards to members of both political parties.
2. The Message
According to BCS Tea Party, Tea Partiers gathered to protest more than just high taxes or "no taxation without representation"; in fact, there was hardly a tea bag in sight (the only ones I saw were on this lady's hat). According to their flyers:
"We are protesting out of control government spending and taxation. We are protesting socialism. We are defending the Constitution and the ideals of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We are protesting our elected officials voting on legislation they have not read. We are defending free market capitalism as the philosophy that made The United States of America the leader of the world in a mere 200 plus years and as the philosophy able to restore America’s financial foundation. We are defending the right to a secret ballot. We are in opposition to Cap and Trade energy bills that would increase the cost of all forms of energy - natural gas, oil, gasoline, coal, oil shale, and all forms of creating electricity - exponentially!"
The BCS Tea Partiers had quite a list of concerns: spending, taxation, socialism, the Constitution, the Declaration, capitalism, the secret ballot (eh? why is this threatened now), and energy policy. One suspects that the list was far too vast and complicated to debate thoroughly in one protest rally. Could we really cover the complexities of capitalism versus socialism at one 2 1/2 hour rally?
No, it turns out, we could not. We spent a good portion of the rally paying homage to the American Flag and singing the Star Spangled Banner. Peggy Venable from Americans for Prosperity--Texas spoke in support of Governor Rick Perry's recent reassertion of state's rights, the 10th Amendment, and Texas' right to secede from the Union. Other speakers gave voice to concerns that Texas might enact a state-wide ban on smoking and affirmed that Texans indeed continued to support the National Rifle Association. In short, while the timing of the event was meant to highlight the problems of increased taxes and while the teabag theme was meant to hearken back to the "no taxation without representation" rallying cry of the American Revolution, the message of the BCS Tea Partiers was muddled and confused, but seemed to be generally negative toward the current Administration and Congress and generally positive towards Republican Party members and positions.
Grass roots or astro turf? Here again it is difficult to say. If the astro turf message was designed to support Rick Perry's 2010 Gubernatorial campaign and critique the Obama Administration's bailout plan, then that message came through loud and clear. However, there were other grass roots (?) messages presented on that day as well. The grass roots messages did not conflict with the astro turf messages (supporting the NRA and opposing smoking bans certainly conform with current Republican Party talking points), but they were not precisely on message as far as Fox News' Tax Tea Party talking points went.
PCC Bonus:
My favorite performance of the event had nothing at all to do with taxes or with tea. Take a look at Dr. Gene Howard (PhD, Visual Communications from Great Plains Baptist College, Sioux Falls, South Dakota), a John Wayne impersonator and author (who you can hire to attend your next big rally) as he geared up to lead the crowd in the Pledge of Allegiance:
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2 comments:
Hm, sounds like John Wayne has read a lot of Dr. Seuss. Interesting.
So, did anyone ever figure out what that V for Vendetta character had to do with anything?
I was lectured on the flat tax, but that was about as exciting as my experience got. Thanks for the blog wrap up.
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