Why has The Tea Party Disappeared?

2014 Mid-Terms Part III

Why has The Tea Party Disappeared?

The outcome of the mid-terms next month remain clear where the House of Representatives is concerned. Republicans will stay in power but will they gain the six seats needed to regain control of the Senate? Too close to call.

My attention is elsewhere. There seems to be an indelible rule that what America does is followed by the Brits ten years later. I saw my first Styrofoam mug in 1970. Suddenly, in 1980, they were in all the shops here. Likewise, jeans and T shirts, the stable fashion-wear for American teenagers in the 1950s and 60s, didn’t hit these shores in large numbers until the early 1970s.

How have I arrived at this piece of nostalgia? The United Kingdom Independence Party, UKIP, has been around for many years. Of late, its charismatic leader, Nigel Farrage, has received a plethora of media attention. He’s ‘Unreconstructed Man Personified,’ for example he enjoys being photographed smoking a cigarette and holding a pint of beer. How politically incorrect can you be? He’s a man of the people and talks straight, or so his supporters would have it. What these supporters won’t accept and what the media won’t say is that for Farrage, politics is an open playing field. He can say whatever he wants because he’ll never be challenged in government. There is more chance of England winning the soccer World Cup in 2018 than UKIP having any serious level of political power.

Farrage, the political Mad Hatter, has seen his fortunes rise as UKIP recently claimed its first Member of Parliament. In contrast, the Tea Party in America has dropped out of sight. No one on this side of the pond had heard of the Tea Party until the mid-term election of 2010. Suddenly a group of slightly elderly men and women, mostly white and Republican, with money to spend on politics, got themselves noticed and became the darlings of the American media.

Tea Partiers were helped by wealthy Americans of the gun-toting, rugged individualism variety. Politicians of the ilk of Michelle Bachman and Sarah Palin weighed in. What was their agenda? It was hard to analyse but it could be summed up in a word, “No.” No to federal government spending on the poor, no to universal healthcare, no to anything which might impact their wallets and no to anything that might impinge on freedom. These people saw a broken nation and felt they were getting shafted by economic and social change. They wanted the old America back where whites were on top, where welfare would be cut to the bone and where the federal government’s activities would be limited to defence.

Sadly, the Tea Partiers didn’t help themselves. I watched an elderly lady being interviewed. The reporter asked about healthcare. “What do you think of Obamacare?” “Shameful,” came the reply. “People should look after and pay for themselves and not look to government for help.” The reporter pressed on. “What do you think of Medicare? Should that go too?” The lady looked shocked. “Of course not, that’s an entitlement.”

My analysis is that there will always be a percentage of the electorate who are angry and demonstrate their fury in a protest vote. Eventually, any political party which bases its policies on appealing to protest alone will fail, unless it operates within a Proportional Representation system where it might pick up a few seats.

The Tea Party is no longer attractive because it has no policies to fix America’s problems. “No” to everything isn’t a policy. It’s merely political poison. The American public has seen through the veil of anger, at least insofar as Tea Party candidates are concerned, thus they will not signify in the election next month.

As the Tea Party is on its way out, we Brits are watching UKIP rise. To put it accurately, the media is reporting on UKIP every day. It’s a great story. Yesterday, a poll in The Observer suggested that one third of the electorate would vote UKIP if they believed there was a chance of the UKIP candidate winning. What the polls never ask is, “what do you think of UKIP policies?” UKIP want withdrawal from the European Union and a closure of our shores to immigrants. As to the former, it’s a popular policy. The mandarins of Europe have made the body unpopular, despite the clear benefits of membership. UKIP also forgets that this country has been built with the help of immigrants.

The media airtime and space given to UKIP is totally disproportional to its importance. It may pick up a seat or two before our General Election in 2015 but will it gain a significant number of seats? I strongly doubt it. Will UKIP draw a sufficient number of votes from Conservative or Labour to spoil their chances? If the election was tomorrow, it would but there are seven months to go.

In those seven months, UKIP will be tested on policies beyond withdrawal from the EC and immigration. What do Mr Farrage and his colleagues have to say about the economy? What is his party’s taxation policy? How would he fund the National Health Service? UKIP has had a good run but tough political times are ahead and the public aren’t fools. UKIP, look at the Tea Party and weep. Your 15 minutes of fame are almost up. 

It has to be said that the Tea Party and UKIP have moved the Republican Party and the Conservative Party to the right. I regard this as bad news for both because time and again, the Party that holds the centre wins.