[lbo-talk] Skocpol on the Tea Party elite/grassroots divide

[Carrol Cox]

Albritton speaks oh mid-lecel theory & hidtory as opposr to ther Theory (M's
critique of an abstract capitalism). Both probably 'feel' like Theory to the
anti-theorists of this list: FHP wrote an anti-theory defense of anlaysis
freed rom theory. The nearest approach to real theory in their article was
the attorney who had forumlated a theory, and not a wholly wrong theory (at
the level of history) of analysis as paralyzing action. Since analysis is
endless and never reaches principles of action his theory holds. And since
Skocpol is clearly an analyst rather than a historian or mid-level theorist
his data is interesting but not of anyparticular political relevance.
(Poltical thinking is grounded in history; there is a sharp disconnect
between Theory and political practice, & that disconned has to be bridged
with Albritton's histroy guided by understandign of Mid-level Theory (the
critique of Neolberalism). With neolibralism overt racism lost public
approval but the conditions of huge numbers of Blacks remained desperate,
thus  maintiaing the material base for racism while curbing somewhat its
modes of expression or implementation. When a black family moved into the
inter-sanctum of patriotism thus befouling it, the situation for popular
racisms became desperate. Hence the Tea Party. Translate Obama & his
communist associastes as "That N-word and his Niger-loving associastes." 

But you can not grasp the  actual political situation (which includes the
slight I mprovement and promised greater improvement of the strength of mass
action) unless you grasp it theoretically rather than through the study of
tea leaves and bird's guts (research in _passive_ public opinion). Public
opinion is passive as long as it is exressed in voting.

Carrol

-----Original Message-----
From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org]
On Behalf Of Carrol Cox
Sent: Wednesday, December 28, 2011 7:46 PM
To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Skocpol on the Tea Party elite/grassroots divide

Race race race 

Red is code wofd for black.

cbc 

-----Original Message-----
From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org]
On Behalf Of Michael Pollak
Sent: Wednesday, December 28, 2011 7:11 PM
To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
Subject: [lbo-talk] Skocpol on the Tea Party elite/grassroots divide

http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/26/whose-tea-party-is-it/

Campaign Stops - Strong Opinions on the 2012 Election

    December 26, 2011, 9:00 pm

Whose Tea Party Is It?

     By THEDA SKOCPOL and VANESSA WILLIAMSON

    Newt Gingrich's brief turn as presidential front-runner was only the

    latest paroxysm of a tumultuous Republican primary season. What's going

    on? Tensions within the Tea Party help explain the volatility of the

    Republican primary campaign, as candidates seek to appeal to competing

    elements of the Tea Party with varying success.

    For our new book, "The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican

    Conservatism," we interviewed Tea Party activists across the country

    over a sixteen-month period and found that the movement is not the

    monolith it is sometimes portrayed as. The conservative political

    upsurge has grassroots and elite components with divergent interests

    and goals. Mitt Romney, no favorite of the Tea Party grassroots, is

    currently pitching his candidacy to Tea Party elites, while Newt

    Gingrich and other contenders are vying for the rank-and-file Tea Party

    supporters.

    We learned about grassroots Tea Party groups by attending their

    meetings, interviewing active members and reading hundreds of their

    websites and message boards. In early 2011, these Tea Partiers had no

    consistent favorite for the Republican nominee, supporting everyone

    from Ron Paul to Mike Huckabee to Donald Trump, but they did have one

    goal in mind for 2012: beating Barack Obama. As one Tea Party member we

    met in Virginia put it, "we have to get Obama out. Obama and the

    Communists he's surrounded himself with."

    Craig Ruttle/Associated PressCallista Gingrich, left, wife of Newt

    Gingrich, right, both at a Tea Party rally on Staten Island on Dec. 3.

    In recent weeks, Gingrich has reached out to these grassroots Tea Party

    voters, older white middle-class conservatives who remember him from

    his glory days as an insurgent Democrat slayer. Gingrich's aggressive

    style and blistering critiques of the Democrats resonate with Tea Party

    voters. Gingrich has accused Democrats of socialist tendencies for

    decades; as early as 1984, he claimed that a Democratic member of the

    House of Representatives was distributing "communist propaganda."

    But Gingrich has also tapped into what we identified as Tea Partiers'

    most fundamental concern: their belief that hardworking American

    taxpayers are being forced to foot the bill for undeserving

    freeloaders, particularly immigrants, the poor and the young. Young

    people "just feel like they are entitled," one member of the

    Massachusetts Tea Party told us. A Virginia interviewee said that

    today's youth "have lost the value of work."

    These views were occasionally tinged with ethnic stereotypes about

    immigrants "stealing" from tax-funded programs, or minorities with a

    "plantation mentality." When Gingrich talks about "inner-city" children

    having "no habits of working," he is appealing to a widely held

    sentiment among the Tea Party faithful.

    What's more, Gingrich's comparatively humane stance on immigration

    reform -- offering immigrants a path to legal status with the approval

    of local community members -- is more palatable to Tea Party members

    than one might expect. First, it reduces federal authority over a key

    Tea Party issue, a policy that appeals to the "states' rights"

    conservatives who fill the seats at Tea Party meetings. Crucially,

    Gingrich is not offering, as Rick Perry did, taxpayer-funded benefits

    to unauthorized immigrants, a policy described by one Tea Party

    activist we spoke to as money wasted on "moochers."

    Immigration was always a central, and sometimes the central, concern

    expressed by Tea Party activists, usually as a symbol of a broader

    national decline. Asked why she was a member of the movement, a woman

    from Virginia asked rhetorically, "what is going on in this country?

    What is going on with immigration?" A Tea Party leader in Massachusetts

    expressed her desire to stand on the border "with a gun" while an

    activist in Arizona jokingly referred to an immigration plan in the

    form of a "12 million passenger bus" to send unauthorized immigrants

    out of the United States.

    In a survey of Tea Party members in Massachusetts we conducted,

    immigration was second only to deficits on the list of issues the party

    should address. Another man, after we interviewed him in the afternoon,

    took us aside at a meeting that evening to say specifically that he

    wished he had said more about immigration because that was really his

    top issue.

    Tea Party activists are not uniformly opposed to government social

    programs, however. Our interviewees were very anxious that Social

    Security and Medicare be maintained. "I've been working since I was 16

    years old, and I do feel like I should someday reap the benefit. I'm

    not looking for a handout. I'm looking for a pay out of what I paid

    into," one Tea Party member explained. Their support for these programs

    was not just self-interested; several Tea Partiers said they would take

    a benefit cut if the savings stayed in the Social Security fund. One

    woman, a regular attendee of her local Tea Party, offered solutions

    that seemed totally out of keeping with the stereotypes of Tea Party

    members as knee-jerk tax cutters. After suggesting that any benefit

    cuts be aimed at those in the "upper income brackets," she went so far

    as to say that she "would not mind a tax increase to try to get the

    country right again."

    Given the Tea Partiers' abiding support for two key pillars of the

    American social safety net, it is no surprise that Gingrich's plan for

    a Social Security overhaul is aimed only at young workers, not the

    retirees filling the rows at Tea Party meetings. But Mitt Romney has

    taken a different path, expressing his support for the Ryan budget plan

    that features huge tax cuts for the very wealthy paid for with

    relatively near-term Medicare cuts.

    Many observers have suggested that Romney's support for the unpopular

    Ryan budget was a misstep. But considered from another perspective,

    Romney is making a strategic move to aim for a different part of the

    Tea Party, the free-market elites and funders.

    Jim Cole/Associated PressMitt Romney at a Tea Party Express rally in

    Concord, N.H., on Sept. 4.

    Long-standing elite advocacy organizations that rallied around the Tea

    Party label in 2009 and 2010, like FreedomWorks and Americans for

    Prosperity, were crucial to the Tea Party phenomenon, providing funding

    for national rallies and conservative candidates, and focusing

    attention on well-practiced spokespeople to represent the Tea Party in

    the media and in Washington. But the national advocates have only

    tenuous ties to the grassroots Tea Party groups and are in no way

    accountable to the Tea Party at the local level. Their policy agenda is

    different as well. FreedomWorks and Americans for Prosperity have

    sought major reforms of Social Security and Medicare for years -- long

    before the Tea-Party label gained currency.

    Cutting these programs is unlikely to appeal to the grassroots Tea

    Party, but local Tea Party members are only marginally aware of the

    national advocacy occurring in their name. Asked about national groups,

    local activists tended to shake their heads in confusion. In a typical

    complaint, one leader of a local Arizona Tea Party group told us,

    "sometimes when you sign up for a site, it puts out tentacles," sharing

    information so that visitors receive a bewildering array of emails from

    other groups.

    Tea Partiers also receive their information primarily, or in some cases

    exclusively, from Fox News and talk radio, outlets that are unlikely to

    turn a critical eye on conservative advocacy organizations. This lack

    of connection between grassroots and elite Tea Party-ism may allow

    Romney to placate the wealthy opponents of Social Security and Medicare

    without irking the Tea Party base.

    For both Romney and Gingrich, appealing to the Tea Party is a bit of a

    stretch. Both men have been around too long not to have taken positions

    too moderate for the new, extreme-right, tea-infused Republican Party.

    In particular, there is little Romney can do to make Tea Party

    activists enthusiastic about him during the primary season. Though his

    claims to a businessman's expertise should appeal to the many small

    business owners in the Tea Party, no one we interviewed had good things

    to say about anything but his potential electability.

    But Republican primary voters, including those in the Tea Party, want

    to win the 2012 general election. As one Tea Partier told us, Romney is

    "not quite conservative enough - but we have to get Obama out." They

    will overlook past heresies, even "RomneyCare," in a candidate they

    believe can win the general election.

    As long as the big Tea Party funders back Romney's candidacy or stay on

    the sidelines, Romney has a good chance of riding out other candidates'

    surges in popularity and using his vast organizational and financial

    advantages to beat out his opponents for the Republican nomination. At

    that point, the grassroots Tea Party members will have little

    influence; instead, momentum will shift even further towards the elite

    policy advocates. And these well-funded groups, which benefited from

    the Tea Party's momentum in the first years of the Obama

    administration, will continue to seek their own policy goals, including

    those at odds with the positions of local Tea Partiers.

    Theda Skocpol, a professor of government and sociology at Harvard

    University, and Vanessa Williamson, a graduate student in government

    and social policy at Harvard, are the authors of the new book "The Tea

    Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism."

      * Copyright 2011 The New York Times Company
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