But Carol, the social movement aspect of the Tea Parties has facilitated the ability of the elite Tea Party funders and their allies to move the Republican Party even further to the Right.
And even accounting for the dips due to midterm election and bad economy, many polsters are saying the out-of-office Republicans did better than usual--that is their gains are larger than would be expected taking into consideration the midterm election and bad economy.
I agree there are several things happening here at the same time: election, political shifts, elite funders and their allies, the Tea Party as a social movement with a mass base--but they are not totally unrelated. Has dialectics been retired?
-Chip
> -----Original Message-----
> From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org
> [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org] On Behalf Of Carrol Cox
> Sent: Friday, November 05, 2010 5:07 PM
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Tea Party: less than meets the eye
>
> Note - my posts have all been aboaut the Tea Party as a mass
> phenomenon - not about the election (which bores me and in
> which I have no interest).
> That is why I emphasized intensity. Voting, as well as
> responses to poll-takers, is quite a passive affair and tells
> us very little about people. But going to Tea Party rallies
> is an active affair, activism by a sector of the population
> which is ordinarily (in my terms) passive, and that is of
> some interest.
>
> Probably Dennis says all that needs to be said about the
> election - a perfectly normal mid-term loss. Passion doesn't
> show up on a ballot. I would guess that all the people who
> make up the Tea Party would have voted Republican even had
> the Tea Party not existed and there had been a white man in
> the White House. The election and the Tea Party are separate
> phenomena and ought to be separated in analysis.
>
> Carrol
>
>
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>