Let's face facts, we don't hate the tea party, we envy them

[Nuclear Unicorn]

* It looks like the TPs will at least take the house and they will grow their margins in the senate.

What honest progressive wouldn't want that for their own side of the political spectrum? OK, maybe we had that in 2009, and promptly lost it, but it was nice when we had it. It would have been better if we managed to do something with it but I guess a girl can't have everything.

* Even if they don't take the senate the tidal momentum will scare the blue dogs deeper into red territory.

Can you tell me you don't wish you could drag the waverers from the other party further into our own camp? Wouldn't it be grand if the political shift brought Collins or Snowe on board HCR and maybe secured a strong public option?

* They are not only looking to unseat numerous democrats they are gutting the GOP establish, i.e. Castle, Murkowski, Crist

How long have we dreamed about driving out our weak-kneed unfaithful in the primaries? What wouldn't you give to replace a Blanche Lincoln with a Howard Dean or a Ben Nelson with another Bernie Sanders?

* Their political party checks with them to see if it is OK to say or do something

Ours tell us we're whining about wanting to see everything they campaigned on and then pre-emptively lays the blame on us because they might be turned out.

* they've captured the MSM narrative

We have the...what was their name again?...it was right on the tip of my tongue...it was kind of like the Tea party, I think it was some other sort of caffenated beverage but their name eludes me...think-think-think...

* they have a lock-stop network of talking heads

We have Contessa Brewer ripping Alan Grayson

* they've bounced one candidate for governor (Dan Maes) for lying about his police service record over 20 years ago and have pushed an independent (Tancredo of all people) into a contender's position

We make excuses for billionaires dodging yacht taxes and multi-million dollar weddings for privileged scions

</sigh>




Some how, some way they managed to do what we have only dreamed of doing and they're achieving it at break-neck speed.

I'm not really sure I can name a single policy objective I agree with them about but I do know I envy what they have achieved.

Imagine if we could do for the progressive agenda what they have done for their agenda.

What if we could move that kind of energy in green jobs, REAL health care reform, social justice, education and the rest.

I don't know who's fault it is or even if it is anybody's fault but because we seem so incapable of harnessing that same energy we may never know what America could truly become.

Would ther even be enough anger to drive a Tea Party if we could accomplish our hopes and dreams?

I don't think so.

It saddens me.

It really does.

[no_hypocrisy]

1. Organizing democrats these days is like herding cats.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

6. My former roommate's cat kept peeing on my couch

So I guess your analogy holds.

But why is teh TP so organized and not us?

What are we doing wrong?

Are we even doing anything wrong?

[no_hypocrisy]

11. We're not doing anything wrong.

They can agree by being dogmatic and not listen to alternatives or even reason. They have their slogans and their memos and they aren't deviating from them. That's why they're uniform. Doesn't make them right though.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

15. Oh, I absolutely agree

I don't accept their policies one iota.

But we heard about "message discipline" in 2008. Did our president forget that and the TPs learn from him?

"'Shut-up,' he explained" is all the message discipline we're hearing from our side these days.

[bobbolink]

49. Here's what we're doing wrong.... two things...

We are NOT getting our "message" out to people. Time after time, we see posts here that report that a majority of USians are for the same things we're for, yet we don't manage to get either that message across, or politicians willing to fight for those issues.

Years ago I was saying that liberals need to stop denigrating others and start speaking to them, more importantly, start LISTENING, and helping people to grasp what the true issues are. I suggested all kinds of ways of doing that, but was ignored.

One of those ways was, instead of spending thousands of bucks to send roses to people, to take those thousands and come up with some good billboards. So what are the teabaggers doing now?

Billboards.

We had the chance.

Second, I have repeatedly said that instead of bashing each other, we need to LISTEN to each other, and form some support groups to strengthen each other. But, bashing won out.

Now when I am in a place where I overhear RWers, what I see is them organizing and coming together in groups.

Its very easy to come here and spend an untold amount of energy bashing Sarah and Christine. And its probably more fun.

But it sure doesn't strenghten us.

Not one little bit.

And now is a bit late to be looking at it and asking what we've done wrong. :shrug:

[pgodbold]

23. Fingers in my ears. LA LA LA LA LA! Tired of downtrodden posts. Including any I've posted.

edit: Sorry this was meant for the OP.

[Ikonoklast]

2. I stopped reading after the first sentence.

The House will remain Democratic.

[JuniperLea]

4. .

:thumbsup:

[Javaman]

52. You mean there was more crap after the first sentance? nt

[JuniperLea]

3. There's no such thing as a "Tea Party"

There is no registered, actual political party by this name. They are GOP, pure and simple. And they are idiots.

But your concern is duly noted.

[Ikonoklast]

8. They are the racist wing of the Republican Party, doing the dirty work

for those that want 'plausible deniability', and yes, not one of them ever voted for anything but Republicans...unless it was for a right-wing fringer.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

12. Yeah, I get it, they aren't a formal political party, no argument there

But they've also bounced several incumbent GOPers out during primaries.

I presume the correct ID would be to call them a faction within the GOP but it appears to be a highly effective faction nonetheless and the balance of the Rs are cowering.

Would that our faction within Circle-D could be half as effective.

I guess I shouldn't be concerned I should just "buck-up" as the saying goes.

[JuniperLea]

35. Highly effective against their own...

And that's it. They're all idiots if they think this is fooling anyone.

[izquierdista]

5. You missed the most important thing to envy

The checkbook of the Koch brothers, pouring money into any loony idea they want to run up the flagpole.

[truedelphi]

7. How can the TP people fail? They are the media's darling

If Fifty Teabaggers meet next to Capital Hill, it is mentioned on five different channels, from FOX to CNN to ABC and NBC and C Span.

The Right Wing owns our media. (Except the internet, but they will be changing its parameters soon.)

And for the RW ownership of the M$M, you can thank the consolidation of the media brought about under the Bill Clinton Administration. A little item called the Telecommunications Acto of 1996.

[arcane1]

9. "It looks like the TPs will at least take the house"??

:shrug:

[EstimatedProphet]

47. Yeah! WTF?!?

Not at all possible.

[scheming daemons]

10. I don't hate OR envy them.... I pity them

[Jackpine Radical]

13. Right.

I envy them their lobotomies.

I envy their ability to be desperately angry at things that are no threat to them. Mosques, abortion doctors, a black President who is trying to improve the quality of their lives.

I envy the fact that they get to hang out with such interesting and enlightening friends.

Oh, yeah.

[Davis_X_Machina]

14. They'll take neither house....

...and not because they're not the same thing as the GOP -- the GOP will take neither house.

What the TP do share with too many progressives and liberals is an automatic, reflexive mistrust of politicians, and of government. A dream of a politics-without-politicians.

For way too many of us, the day he took the oath, Obama became the enemy, because he took the oath. He became, on the spot, corrupt, until proven otherwise. A tool of the interests, until proven otherwise. An embryo dictator, until proven otherwise.

The only way we differ from them, too often, is in whom we claim Obama sold out to, and what we know he intends to do with all that unaccountable power.

Otherwise, no difference.

[JaneQPublic]

16. Actually, the TP stole much of their schtick from the Deaniacs.

Even their idea of "Let's Take Our Country Back" came from the Dean campaign.

And where the Dean campaign encouraged "Meetups," the Teabaggers do virtually the same but by different names for their local grassroots organizing efforts.

The Deaniacs were all about political power being from the bottom up rather than the top down, and the teabaggers are the same.

It looks to me the future Teabaggers were taking copius notes back in 2004. Unfortunately, they're using these tactics for a political philosopy 180 degrees opposite of Dean's.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

18. Thank-you!

Not only did you put your finger on what i couldn't...

...you aren't be an impolite schmuck about it!

[JaneQPublic]

22. thanks...

:toast:

[laureloak]

17. And here we have yet another post to dampen Dem spirits.

Thanks a lot.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

20. Quitting is demoralizing, Learning lessons makes us stronger.

I want us to be stronger.

Maybe we need to get back to being Deaniacs as a previous poster intimated.

[MineralMan]

40. Again, what "we" are you talking about. I think you need to come

up with a definition.

[DevonRex]

19. *yawn* Just another post meant to demoralize Democrats and suppress turnout.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

24. What?

seriously

I've been on hiatus lately but before I left I put a poll to DU asking if Obama's war policy was innocent mistake or unindicted co-conspirator in an imperialist plot and all points in-between.

Over 60% here on DU voted Obama being just as evil as Bushco.

THAT was demoralizing.

It's also a bunch of hooey.

I'm not here to demoralize DU. 60% of DU demoralizes me.

I'm just back to hang-out with the 40-percenters.

[DevonRex]

34. Okay. Well, I have some good news for you then. In my state,

the teabagger Senate candidate began with a lead. But now the incumbent Dem has moved ahead because the DSCC ads against the teabagger and FOR the Dem are working very well.

They have painted the Republican, teabagger backed, candidate as an extremist - using his own words from his various interviews and teabagger rallies.

What I didn't like about your post was that you assume we'll lose. That kind of attitude makes people feel like it's useless to go to the polls and vote. I don't accept that we'll lose. I don't accept that Dems aren't motivated. That's a MSM meme that is being pushed to suppress Dem turnout. We cannot buy into it.

Just look at the rally in Wisconsin yesterday. 26,000 people showed up to hear Obama speak. That is proof that Dems are motivated. Feingold did attend the rally, which is good since he really, really needs the college crowd to vote. From the looks of the crowd in Wisconsin, they will.

[MineralMan]

39. And, here in Minnesota, Dayton's jump in the polls is attributed

to Democrats finally starting to think about the election and getting fired up at the prospect of a teabagger as Governor.

This constant message that we're going to lose houses of Congress because we're not pure enough is a crock. DU is not a cross-section of Democratic voters at all. The sentiments of DUers start on the left and extent to the far fringes of the left. There are no conservatives or middle-of-the-roaders worth mentioning on DU.

DU's active members, the ones who post here on a regular basis, are all activists. Some are activists in getting Democrats to the polls to vote for Democrats. Others are activists in another way, but aren't necessarily helping the cause just now. They have high ideals, but are not getting the fact that there is only one reasonable alternative just now.

When you're in the desert and your canteen is empty, that scummy pool with tiny critters swimming in it will save your life. Insisting on water that is ultra pure will only end in dehydration and death.

DU is left of center by definition, with the exception of the odd troll or two here and there. The spectrum here covers only the left and the far left.

[DevonRex]

46. MM, you knocked that one out of the park, especially about the meme

here that we'll lose because we're not pure enough. Democrats are smart enough to know that we cannot allow teabaggers to win; therefore, we will vote.

Another thing is that IMO satisfaction has been seen as apathy. For the most part, Dems are satisfied in the direction in which the country is going, so we aren't out in huge numbers protesting this and that. Democrats are also fairly well educated about how government works, unlike the teabaggers. We don't rally around people who try to scare us and make us think we can (and should) change the constitution in the blink of an eye, for example.

[MineralMan]

53. Thanks. That's very kind of you to say.

[Newest Reality]

21. My understanding of

Teabagging is that is largely a manipulative exploitation funded by surreptitious sources on-high.

I would also offer that the movement's participants are more captured by the M$M narrative than the other way around.

Why would I envy being a participant in and result of yet another manufactured manipulation that relies largely on willful ignorance and demagoguery gone wild? I am reminded of the whipping up of the theocratic element for Shrub's initial base. Their deluded support is much clearer to us in hindsight, then it was initially.

They are more of a result than a cause, IMHO. Rather than envy them, we might want to see this for what it is and how it represents the expert and well-funded machinations that successfully effort, 24/7 to make simulations into reality by inserting skilfully designed and placed agitprop into the public discourse in ways that are clearly divisive, distracting and result in political self-sabotage for the pawns and marks who play them out in an "as if it is reality" way.

Rather than having envy or flinging derogatory rhetoric a the Teabaggers, we might accomplish more by gaining insight from the phenomena while remembering how we have been fooled into believing and acting on manipulative propaganda, ourselves.

If anyone wants to infer that as any kind of support for the Tea Party, then I leave you to your projections.

[Ohio Joe]

25. No... I do, in fact hate them.

They are the most vile, racist, douchebag part of the repuglican party.

[Spazito]

26. Wow, your OP is the best verbal equivalent of a photo I once saw...

it was of a heaping pile of steaming horse manure so big those standing by it with shovels looked like miniature toy figurines.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

27. You mean, teabaggers?

[butterfly77]

28. Who are you talking about...

is it the TEABAGGERS?

[Pathwalker]

29. Who is this 'we' of whom you speak?

I find them unintentionally hilarious, and I don't think my laughter represents envy.

[MineralMan]

30. We? Have you a mouse in your pocket? Please don't include

people in your beliefs without identifying them.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

32. OP beliefs: "green jobs, REAL health care reform, social justice, education"

Not yours?

[MineralMan]

33. OP statement: We envy the teabaggers.

If you believe that, then leave me out of your "we." Thanks a bunch. See ya! Oh, yes...unrecced.

[JuniperLea]

36. Right... envy? Pft... more like pity...

Bless their little hearts.

[MineralMan]

37. For me, replacing "envy" with "detest" would be accurate.

I don't notice a lot of support for this poster's concept. I'm guessing that her "we" is a very small group, left unidentified.

[CJCRANE]

31. Unconvincing.

[seabeyond]

38. i dont envy them, nor admire them, or respect them. they use hate and fear and stupid

when i actually see any of these very very stupid people get into office, then i will be concerned. but i dont think stupid is going to play for this nation. and the truly stupid like odonnel and the one in nevada will lose, i am convinced.

i feel it is a small percentage in the republican party. not enough to carry the nation, not even close.

i dont envy. i dont admire. i dont respect

and i dont think they will be successful

only time will tell

but i dont believe stupid will prevail, again

[Name removed]

41. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[MineralMan]

43. I'm afraid your statement isn't going to survive.

I'm sure there's a way to say the essential truth in it without making a personal attack.

[alcibiades_mystery]

44. Sometimes you gotta take one for the team

:-)

[A-Schwarzenegger]

42. That's the most beautiful story I ever heard.

:boring: :cry: :puke:

[MrSlayer]

45. I envy the hundreds of millions of dollars their backers pour into election coffers.

If only there were some super rich progressives willing to do that.

[LynneSin]

48. Sorry, my IQ isn't even low enough to begin thinking the Tea Party has any value

I mean how could I envy a group of racist, sexist, homophobic assholes?

[JuniperLea]

54. !!!

:rofl:

Awesome!

:fistbump:

[kctim]

50. Envy them? Why?

The 'Tea Party' people are nothing but a group of people with more extreme views than the rest of the Republican party and they are just now organized enough to begin knocking on the door.
Liberals have been actively involved in the Democratic party for decades now and have established themselves into positions of power.

There is nothing liberals should envy about tea party people.

[lpbk2713]

51. I've never really admired willful ignorance.

So we can rule out "envy" OK?

[11 Bravo]

55. Hitler took most of Europe, and at break-neck speed (Google blitzkrieg). Should I envy him?