[lbo-talk] Murray Waas: Dems helping the Tea Party

[Wojtek S]

[WS:] But if that is the case - i.e. if Dems indeed aided a splinter
group to siphon off the Repug votes - this may backfire on them big
time.  First of all, it seems that they misperceived the nature of the
tea "party" - it is not a third party but a new brand name owned and
operated by the Repug party - so helping the teabaggers amounts to
helping the Repugs.

But more importantly, the Dems seemed to  miscalculate the level of
anti-state attitude and small business mentality in the US populism.
Far from being perceived as "fringe elements" by a majority of the US
population (as lefties are) - the teabaggers are likely to be viewed
as "common-sense" folks "bringing sanity back to Washington."  In
other words, when in doubt the knee jerk instinct of the US population
is to embrace gutter populism that fueled every fascist movement in
modern history.

Of course, this reaction is not unique to the US, but the absence of
any institutional alternative to the business domination of politics
makes it particularly widespread here.  As I already said on this
list, I've given up the hope of any change in this country.  I have a
relatively comfortable and civilized life in the DC area and as long
as it continues, I do not really give a flying fuck what happens to
the rest of this country.  They may vote to move back to the stone age
if that pleases their anti-state populist delusions.  However, in the
unlikely event of the outcomes of the electoral circus impinging on
the quality of my life here - I have a plan B: go back to Europe.

Wojtek

On Wed, Oct 27, 2010 at 9:45 PM, Michael Pollak <mpollak at panix.com> wrote:
>
> Although these kind of dirty tricks happen all the time, according to Waas,
> Dem help for the TP this cycle seems the biggest such effort in recent
> memory:
>
> http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE69Q4XS20101027
>
> Michael
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