Ten Lessons of Tea Party Day
April 20, 2009
Tea party day on April 15 got more media attention than I expected. But interest faded fast.
The event was a last-minute effort, with nobody in charge. It really was a grass-roots event. It had little effect. This should reminds us that what appear to be spontaneous grass-roots, mass-movement events rarely are.
What should we learn from this?
Lesson 1: Not many people care about political protesting. The turnout was low. The media saw this. The problem with public political events is that most people don't care about politics. This is especially true immediately after a Presidential election. The defeated Party retreats from the battlefield.
Lesson 2: Taxes are not a highly motivating issue. People get used to Federal taxes. They figure nothing can be done. They are correct: nothing can be done. Reagan rolled back some taxes (high marginal income tax rates). In his second term, he raised taxes (TEFRA, Social Security). The system keeps rolling along. Until Americans are scared to death by the economy, they will not listen to tax protesters. We are not there yet.
Lesson 3: Most people are contented with the existing political system, compared to any likely alternative. The cost of political change is extremely high. Only in crises do the costs of not changing exceed the costs of changing. We are not there yet.
Lesson 4: The protesters were amateurs. This is to be expected. Those with political skills are already working inside the system. The system co-opts those who start out as fringe dissenters. In 1976, Ron Paul was the only complete dissenter in Congress. I know. I was on his staff. In 2009, he still is the only complete dissenter in Congress. He has not been co-opted. He is a fine Representative of comprehensive dissent, but he has no power.
Lesson 5: All politics is local. People get elected locally. Here is where you can gain influence, if any. Here is where you can help to pick your representatives. Here is where you get your skills in politics. Here is where dissent will pay off when the crisis hits. This is called interposition.
Lesson 6: Local politics bores most people. This is why you can have influence locally. Few people pay any attention. I call this the dogcatcher strategy. This gives a 20-year veteran an advantage. Start here. Stick around for 40 years.
Lesson 7: Build a mailing list. The #1 goal of the tea party should have been to build an email list. I know the man who paid for the tea bags that the government would not allow to be dropped in the river. He is skilled at building mailing lists. His problem was that the people he worked with were not. There was no attention to details. There was no follow-through. Political change comes from attention to details and follow-through.
Lesson 8: Conservatives are not good at political theater. Conservatives don't think of politics as theater. They are not good at it. Jerry Rubin and his peers were. But their theater was futile. Their followers were co-opted by the system. Until they dig in at the local level and stay there, decade after decade, nothing will change. Let's see if the tea party pruduces this kind of dedication and leadership.
Lesson 9: Operating behind the scenes is more efficient. It takes decades to build the ideological and organizational foundations of a protest movement. Think of the abolitionists. They got rolling in 1755: the Quakers. They began to affect public opinion in the USA around 1830. The British abolitionist movement had operated since 1780, and slavery in 1830 was only three years from being abolished in the British Empire. Still, it took until 1959 for the abolitionists to light the fuse that blew up the nation in 1860. I refer to John Brown's attack on Harpers Ferry, the most important act of political theater in American history. The Secret Six funded him. No one remembers them. They won. He lost.
Lesson 10: You can't beat something with nothing. The tea bag people had no program, no network, and no nationally known spokesman. It was political theater without traction. Until protesters have a tax program to fight for, one that offers real-world solutions, tax protesting will get nowhere. The prophet Samuel learned this over 3,000 years ago.
And Samuel told all the words of the LORD unto the people that asked of him a king. And he said, This will be the manner of the king that shall reign over you: He will take your sons, and appoint them for himself, for his chariots, and to be his horsemen; and some shall run before his chariots. And he will appoint him captains over thousands, and captains over fifties; and will set them to ear his ground, and to reap his harvest, and to make his instruments of war, and instruments of his chariots. And he will take your daughters to be confectionaries, and to be cooks, and to be bakers. And he will take your fields, and your vineyards, and your oliveyards, even the best of them, and give them to his servants. And he will take the tenth of your seed, and of your vineyards, and give to his officers, and to his servants. And he will take your menservants, and your maidservants, and your goodliest young men, and your asses, and put them to his work. He will take the tenth of your sheep: and ye shall be his servants. And ye shall cry out in that day because of your king which ye shall have chosen you; and the LORD will not hear you in that day. Nevertheless the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel; and they said, Nay; but we will have a king over us; That we also may be like all the nations; and that our king may judge us, and go out before us, and fight our battles (I Samuel 8:10-20).