What would you rather have in America’s schools; high test scores or students who are empathetic and have strong critical thinking skills? What good is it for an individual, or for American society, if students test well but also think that Donald Trump won the 2020 presidential election? What good is it if they have no interest in providing a strong safety net so that no Americans need to live in poverty?

Today, a full three-quarters of Trump voters falsely believe the election was “rigged and stolen, according to a new Yahoo News/YouGov poll – more than ever before. Just 9 percent, meanwhile, think Biden “won fair and square” – down from 13 percent a year ago. This is clearly stinkin’ thinkin.’ High school graduates have spent more than ten thousand hours in class, and they still cannot recognize the obvious. They are so jaded that they fall for the most unlikely of conspiracy theories.

It’s been a dozen years since we first heard of the Tea Party. They were the predecessor to MAGA. One of their strategies was to expand right-wing influence over what is taught in schools by fielding more candidates to run for school boards. Pandering to voters through fear, Tea Partiers and their allies won a number of elections and began the process of censoring more of what was being taught in schools. In the wake of the January 6, 2021 insurrection, the right has greatly increased its efforts to win school board seats and further suppress free and open thinking in our schools. New books are being added to the “banned list” such as To Kill a Mockingbird and The Hate U Give.

New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg recently wrote:

There is a quote from Ralph Reed that I often return to when trying to understand how the right builds political power. “I would rather have a thousand school board members than one president and no school board members,” the former leader of the Christian Coalition said in 1996. School board elections are a great training ground for national activism. They can pull parents, particularly mothers, into politics around intensely emotional issues, building a thriving grass roots and keeping it mobilized.

Recently the right has created a straw horse in demanding that “Critical Race Theory” not be taught in our schools. First, there are hardly any schools teaching it. That does not stop people on the right from winning school board and other legislative seats because they convince many voters that white people are being denigrated. Second, what precipitated the modern opposition to teaching CRT was the 1619 Project published by the New York Times and the Pulitzer Center. The project is not about theory; it is about history. Specifically, it addresses the origins of slavery in the United States and the impact that slavery has had for over 400 years on the lives of African-Americans, and other Americans. Our history has always been heavily weighted towards teaching about white people. If we are going to become better equipped to live in the multi-cultural society that we have, it is essential for all students to learn the history of African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, Asian- Americans, Native Americans and other minorities are included. Let us not forget that by 2045, we will be a minority-majority nation.

So, what can non-MAGA people do to support more open learning in our schools? The first thing is to recognize that our schools are in crisis, and have been for some time. The evidence is clear; more than seventy million adults voted for Donald Trump in 2020. Plainly their education was short on important values like critical thinking and empathy.

Part of the problem with our schools is that they suffer from a major problem in our body politic. I’m talking about “fake news,” which almost entirely comes from the right. Our schools unwittingly teach fake news. They do a poor job of helping students recognize fake news when they hear or see it.

Similar to our political system and our society in general, our schools are very competitive with one another. The conflicts are basically fought on two levels, substance and image. This is a central reason why so many students, and adults, have skewed views of the world.

Examples of substance being taught in schools would include teaching children how to read, providing students with opportunities to take science labs, encouraging students in social studies class to play a role in a model UN or a mock legislature, or providing students with real opportunities to be involved in school decision-making.

Unfortunately, much of school is about image and bragging rights. A big part of that is the obsession with standardized tests. Like sport contests, standardized tests are measured with numbers. Those numbers can be compared, and that means they provide platforms on which schools can compete, just like football or basketball. Students are under enormous pressure to do well on standardized tests in order to make their teachers look good, their school look good, their district look good, and their state look good.

This means that many teachers are teaching to the test. Much of that involves memorization. So, students are presumably learning how to do well on tests, both those that are standardized and those that are part of their regular classroom studies.

Teachers are also under enormous pressure to teach the state-mandated curriculum. It gets to the point where many teachers become robotic in what they present to students. Spontaneity, which is another way of saying “being tuned into the moment,” becomes more and more rare. If teachers are not questioning what they are “supposed” to do, how can students learn to peacefully question teachers, and others who are in positions of authority?

This fits right in with the right-wing agenda. Follow-orders; rarely question; and always remember that you are competing against others, particularly those from “elsewhere.”

So, how can we change schools so that students develop much more in the way of critical thinking skills and empathy? Ultimately, we need teachers who are more human, or who already are human and are not afraid to show their humanity. We need teachers who are willing to be like quarterbacks, or coaches. They need to call the right plays, and often that means calling an audible (making a last-second change). What makes teaching much more difficult than running an offense or a defense in football is that what might be a good play for one student may not be a good one for another student. Teachers need to do the best that they can at making sure that they are providing the best information and techniques for each student in their classes.

So how do we do this? Here are several suggestions:

1. Reallocate resources so that technology can do more, freeing teachers to have more time. Anyone who has taught knows that teaching is far more than a full-time job. Most teachers have several hours of work to do each evening. We need to cut back on the “make-work” that consumes many teachers, and also give teachers shorter working hours. The stress that teachers experience “trickles down” to students, sometimes like a shower. We need to reduce the amount of stress and tension in our schools.
2. If we want students to become better critical thinkers and to develop more empathy, these are two of the most important qualities that we need in our teachers. But this begs several important questions:
   1. What percentage of today’s teachers are good critical thinkers?
   2. What percentage of today’s teachers feel and express empathy to their students?
   3. If these percentages are lower than what we would want, then does it have anything to do with the ways in which we teach teachers?

So much of what teachers learn in education school is so prescribed and top-down. Over time, this squeezes some of the humanity out of students who will become teachers.

Additionally, it takes a certain type of person to decide to major in education and take classes with rigid curricula. This person is often someone who is comfortable with top-down decisions and may not value autonomy and creativity as much as others.

When they finally become teachers, combine the rigidity of their training with the pressure that parents, administrators, teachers and students all feel to achieve to the max, and you have a very oppressive environment.

We need to find ways for the nation’s best and brightest, and also most empathetic to become teachers. This means looking for individuals who will bring a maximum amount of empathy and critical thinking to the classroom, regardless of what training they have had.

This is not easy. But now is an excellent time to ramp up this movement. We have a tremendous shortage of teachers and districts are now loosening their certification requirements. If you are a person who thinks that you can humanize learning for students, and make them less likely to wind up as Tea Party or MAGA members, then it is a good time to step forward. We need teachers who are civil and civic-minded to help avoid civil war.

The post Changing Our Schools is Vital to Our National Healing appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Joe Biden has been elected the 46th President of the United States of America but not without any costs. Biden’s electoral theory as many warned was not watertight and while he was able to notch a convincing victory nationwide, Democrats down ballot were not so lucky. The majority in the US House of Representatives has been greatly diminished after leadership all but guaranteed an expanded majority. The balance of power in the US Senate will now be decided by a double-barreled runoff election in Georgia, a state trending purple which Biden won but only within a recount margin. The news was worse in non-federal elections where candidates for statewide office and state legislatures were defeated handily. This is all to say that this election simultaneously served as a rejection of Donald Trump and the Democratic establishment.

Much ink has been spilled about what went wrong for Democrats including a patronizingly racist campaign to Latinos that assumed monolithic political attitudes, tens of millions wasted on consultants like the Lincoln Project who failed to materialize GOP support for Democrats (Trump won a higher share of the GOP vote than 4 years ago), the disappearance of in-person direct voter contact, and of course another campaign about Donald Trump’s vulgarities as opposed to uplifting policy. What has not been discussed is what opportunities lay ahead for the Democrats, especially those on the populist left if they are willing to do the work.

The reduced House majority came exclusively at the expense of centrist Democrats, progressives were consistently able to win re-election. Rep. Katie Porter whose district is +3% GOP leaning, won re-election after endorsing Medicare-for-All. So did Reps Josh Harder, Ann Kirkpatrick, Matt Cartwright, Mike Levin, Peter DeFazio, Jared Golden (endorses in 2018), and Susan Wild who represent districts that are more GOP leaning than the nation as a whole. Meanwhile in less GOP leaning and even Democratic leaning districts, like FL-29, FL-27, IA-01, and NY-11 Democrats lost. The center has attempted to blame activist rhetoric about “Defund the Police”, even though nearly 80% of Americans understood the actual meaning of “Defund the Police”. Whatever the reason for this disparity, we know progressives in swing districts won re-election more often than not.

The Left has found themselves in a position not too dissimilar to that of the Tea Party in 2012. Their candidate of choice had twice been denied the Presidency in favor of more establishment candidates. Huckabee in 2008 and Santorum in 2012 for the Tea Party, Bernie Sanders in 2016 and 2020 for the Left. It was clear that their policy positions were the majority view of base voters even as their candidates of choice failed to capture support. They were ridiculed and written off by party elites, the mass media, and academics who claim to have turned politics into a science. However, what the Tea Party had then is what the Left has now, enough members to block legislation, a mastery of social media where most Americans get their news, and a dedicated base of reliable donors and voters.

The House majority is narrow, so narrow that the newly expanded squad (welcome Reps. Cori Bush, Jamaal Bowman, Marie Newman, and Ritchie Torres) can torpedo legislation that is insufficiently progressive. John Boehner too faced this problem with the Freedom Caucus (a spiritual successor to the Tea Party caucus) and eventually became so ineffective at holding his coalition together that he resigned. The defeat of House majority leader Eric Cantor by Tea Party professor Dave Brat in 2014 too was then appropriately seen as the beginning of a new era in GOP party politics. The same should be recognized by the defeat of Joe Crowley by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in 2018. The Left will and should challenge the party consensus, it is the only way to maintain relevancy and voters deserve a choice as opposed to an echo.

The reason the Tea Party was and continues to be so successful in its takeover of the Republican Party is simple. We can look at white cultural resentment or economic anxiety and that has its place, but what separates the Tea Party from the establishment in either party is that they consistently materially reward their voters with wins on issues they care about and they are unapologetic in the fights on these issues. The Tea Party voters wanted a hardline immigration policy, deregulated gun laws, restrictions on abortion, tax cuts, and for their politicians to actively fight the culture war. With every election they achieved more of those goals by replacing the old guard in primaries and abandoning old party affiliations and after 6 years, the Tea Party elected the obvious heir to their movement in Donald Trump and the takeover was completed. The Left with its ability to stall the Congress and extract concessions should focus on materially rewarding it’s voters too because while making peace with the establishment might make the Left more popular in Washington, the real battle is in every city and suburb outside of the beltway where the base desires more.

Some argue this comparison of the tea party and the Left is not perfect, first because they say the tea party was devoid of true ideology and was simply a bad faith movement inspired by racial resentment towards the first black president. However, the Tea party was meaningfully different from the establishment Republican party, and those differences extended beyond race and materialized in policy from trade to education to infrastructure. Another argument against this parallel is the Tea party came of age as an opposition party, and the left is about to find themselves with a Democrat president. I challenge that with a simple question, was Mitt Romney of the Tea Party? I should say no he was not, and had he been elected those on the right still would’ve seen themselves in opposition as they were opposed to his candidacy for the nomination and ambivalent about him as a general election candidate. This is also true of the Left which makes no secret of their distaste for Joe Biden who many see as a marginally less worse alternative to Donald Trump in terms of temperament and policy. The Left may not be the opposition party for the mainstream Democrats, but they are a opposition party and that has become clear in the post-election rhetoric from party elites. Finally, some will say “oh but what of the moderates and the middle class?”. I say that these people are the rearguard of political movements and historically have been very mailable in their beliefs and have already begun to conform to new party dynamics as they are not organized or aggrieved enough to challenge the Left or the Right.

The Tea Party very quickly gained an appreciation for the power of grassroots organization and how that can translate into electoral success. The Tea Party also was patient and persistent, withstanding hard loses but staying uncompromising in their policy goals essentially forcing the rest of the party to move towards them or continue to lose influence. We can see this most clearly in the 2012 US Senate race in Missouri compared to the 2018 race. Todd Akin failed where Josh Hawley succeeded, and it wasn’t because those candidates had any major ideological differences or radically different views on gender. Josh Hawley won because the grassroots infiltrated the party and voters had a sense of ownership and buy-in and therefore were self-motivated enough to ignore the obvious shortcomings of their new candidate. The Tea Party’s greatest achievement was convincing its voters that the old neoconservatives and country club moderates were not just in disagreement but an active roadblock that needed to be disempowered. That is the task ahead of The Left, showing its voters that their interests are not the interests of Nancy Pelosi or Chuck Schumer and that those leaders cannot be pushed. It’s going to require a hard-nosed approach and seemingly being everywhere in terms of organizing but it can be done. Democrats won 80 seats in 2018 categorized as “Urban” or “Urban-Suburban”. The Tea Party saw the immediate path of least resistance through rural districts, the Left must recognize their opportunity in cities using Rep. Cori Bush as a model.

The Left can learn from these successes, but it should also learn from the consequences. Yes, the conservative movement is at its most successful, dominating rural states and creating a multiracial coalition of politicians and voters. We are living through a political realignment that will last for a generation if not longer. However, it has also activated the worst of our country and elevated a lunatic demagogue who has irreparably damaged our country. Militant vigilantes march through American cities and gun down protesters while law enforcement passively looks on. True believers are present at every level of government but their commitment to democracy and equal justice is sometimes little to nonexistent. A critical mass of people has become unreachable, so detached from reality that they live and breathe conspiracy. Meanwhile a media ecosphere has developed where propaganda is reported as fact and dissenters are labeled traitors. In this age of ideology defined by twin crises of income inequality and coronavirus, Americans will become more desperate in their genuine desire for relief. The Left must be careful to not let themselves be totally consumed by these illiberal elements who always appear in populist movements. This will be difficult as grift can often be subversive and some popular figures can be credibly accused of being pretenders. There’s also the matter of moral relativism, we’ve seen a leftist state house candidate in Kansas be elected despite admitting to revenge porn. Values matter if we say they do, and there will be something permanently lost if we decide that they don’t.

I don’t know if the Left can succeed in this country and I don’t know if the same fervor that carried the Tea Party can be recreated. What I do know is neoliberalism is one the way out and if the Democrats cannot reorient themselves and do it soon, we will be left behind as we’re lapped by a charismatic but destructive force that will remake America in its image. Those are the stakes of this decade, and god willing the Left will rise to the occasion.

The post What the Left Can Learn from the Tea Party appeared first on Occasional Planet.

My introduction to the Tea Party involved a Town Hall meeting where several Tea Party seniors were waving signs inscribed “Save our Medicare.” They had been told – and believed – that the goal of Obamacare was to take their Medicare away from them to pay for healthcare for undeserving poor, probably black, folks. That was when I understood that this was not a movement that merited respect.

This impression has been borne out over the last few years as the GOP, which was the sole beneficiary of misinformed Tea Party ardor, has, sometimes subtly, sometimes blatantly, gone after Medicare while basking in the support of the predominantly middle- and senior-aged Tea Partiers. Although Missouri Senator Roy Blunt, for example, has never exactly been a Tea Party favorite, he gets their votes. This is the same Roy Blunt who has voted again and again for Republican budgets that would voucherize Medicare while shifting much of the cost onto the shoulders of the recipients. Almost all GOP members of the Missouri House delegation, overtly Tea Party or not, have also consistently voted to support Paul Ryan’s proposed budget plans, all of which seek to voucherize or otherwise decimate Medicare under the rubric of “reform.”

Now one of the leading GOP presidential candidates, Jeb Bush, has put the issue on the table front and foremost, proposing to “phase out” Medicare. How does he plan to sell this “phase out”? By persuading the gullible that the Medicare sky is falling. Medicare, he claims, is too expensive and will eventually run out of money. Bear in mind that Bush, as Governor of Florida, went all out to cut taxes for the wealthy. It’s no wonder that he can’t imagine that Medicare solvency could be addressed from the revenue side – that’s not the Republican way; instead GOPers all want to reform it out of existence.

Nor, as a Republican, can Bush acknowledge the fact that savings realized through Obamacare haves added years to Medicare’s stability, ensuring that the program is financially secure through 2030 – and proving that there are better ways to address the future of the program than to destory it through privatization. Ironic isn’t it? Medicare-baiting was a major mechanism used to rile up Tea Party seniors against Obamacare; now it looks like Obamacare is adding years to Medicare’s solvency. The voice of the Tea Party, the Republican Party, won’t “Save our Medicare,” but Obamacare might help us reach that goal.

The post Gutting Medicare: Tea Party legacy? appeared first on Occasional Planet.

We are being told not to expect a “grand bargain” in Congress this year or next. This should not be a shock to anyone who has done a little homework about the philosophical differences between the two major political parties. The “free market” extremists currently in charge of the Republican Party truly believe their theories about trickle-down economic benefits reaching the working poor. Lack of evidence hasn’t deterred them since the 1980’s when the privateers began changing the mind of Americans about how much we should look out for one another.

This is the basic difference in the value systems of the two major parties as evidenced by their party platforms. Democrats view human nature as imperfect but redeemable with care and support. Republicans see only the dark side of our nature and want to punish it. We see the difference every day in the way elected officials debate issues like food stamps, Social Security, health insurance, etc. Democrats believe helping individuals and families lead healthy productive lives benefits all of us in the long run. Republicans would have each of us fend for ourselves and then blame us for our failures.

This foundational conservative belief system, combined with new global economic challenges, produces what we see today in both Washington and many state capitals. Wealth is being shifted up the income scale at an alarming rate, and the end game is the privatization of all the social safety net programs we developed during the 20th century. This is not just an abstract difference of opinion. The majority of American families benefit in one form or another from those programs.

Income disparity today is the highest since the late 1920’s just before the Great Depression. Tea party Republicans want to eliminate the minimum wage as well as the social welfare programs that millions of service workers depend on for survival. But they are okay with billions of dollars in subsidies to oil companies and the offshoring of profits to avoid paying U.S. taxes. That is evidence enough that their argument about the national debt rings hollow.

Voters will have to decide between now and next November if we are going to continue to treat each other as opponents in the struggle to survive on the crumbs thrown to us by billionaires, or if we are going to demand the respect we deserve. The difference between the two major parties is blatantly obvious, and the choice is ours to make.

The post The philosophical-political choices facing American voters appeared first on Occasional Planet.

We are properly focused on the short-term concerns about Republican obstinance in Congress. One way or another, we will get beyond this. The result may be as small as the United States being slightly damaged or as large as our planet sustaining a major economic blow. At this point, the right wing Republicans either don’t understand what is happening or they simply don’t care.

But what comes next after this particular episode of obstinance is over? Chances are that until the 2014 mid-term elections, President Obama will remain staunch in support of reason and logic. We need him to do that. And chances also are that the Republicans will declare victory and continue to make a mockery of democracy.

There are few times in American history where the people will have as clear a choice for their representatives in Congress as 2014. The Tea Party will be there on the ballots, both in primaries and general election. Members of the Tea Party give every indication that they are unwilling to compromise. In all likelihood, only a few of them will run as lions cloaked in sheep’s clothing. It doesn’t seem to be in their nature to “trim their sails” and pretend that they are moderates while campaigning and then as radical rights when they govern. Most of them will run as the right-wing zealots that they are. Some incumbent Tea Party members will lose to more moderate Republicans in the primaries. And those who make it to the general election are more likely to be threatened by their Democratic opponents.

The dynamics are more complicated than that. We tend to see our present political party alignment as Tea Party Republicans to the right; moderate Republicans to the center; and all Democrats as a united front against those in the Tea Party. Differences that exist in the Democratic Party are largely obscured by the unity that the Tea Party created among Democrats. But truth be told, there are at least two strong factions in the Democratic Party: (1) moderates who support the general agendas of labor, minorities, environmental reformers, etc. and (2) progressives who want to tackle the really difficult issues such as campaign finance reform, real gun control, economic redistribution, Medicare for all, etc.

Conventional wisdom would be that the best way for the Democrats to defeat the Republicans in 2014 would be to find engaging, reasonable candidates whose politics are really “Republican Lite.” At times this political animal has been referred to as “Blue Dog Democrats.” Some, perhaps most of the Democrats currently in Congress are of this ilk. They support major entitlement programs but are rather leery of new federal spending to jump start the economy. They support environmental regulation, unless it has a negative impact on their own district or their contributors. They want to reduce the budget and they hesitate to raise taxes. Fortunately, they do realize that generally the more money that the government spends the healthier (in many ways) the American people will be. Because they are about as close to the Republican philosophy as any Democrat can be, they are considered the least threatening kind of Democrat to Republicans who may be able to step away from their party, at least for the time being.

However, a somewhat different and possibly more lucrative approach for Democrats to take would be to run real progressives against the Republicans. Why progressives? First, they have an enthusiasm for their agenda that might be the equal of  Tea Party fervor. Second, there is a bit of a libertarian strain that runs through both groups. Tea Partiers want to be left alone from those who would control their guns or impose safety regulations on their business. Progressives oppose the government imposing their reproductive choices or limiting basic human rights to a few of the “more privileged.” Progressive candidates will give the Democrats needed energy and they will excite much of their base.

A strategy of running progressives in the 2014 elections and seeing how well they do against Republican candidates compared to “Republican lite” Democrats would tell us a lot about what the future of the Democratic Party should be.

Wherever that might be, following the 2014 elections, Democrats will have a much better idea as to the political philosophy they most want to follow. Also, at that time, progressives need to work more at the grass roots to show the wisdom of their philosophy.

The post How to run against the Tea Party: Go left appeared first on Occasional Planet.

As I write this, Senator Rand Paul [R-KY] is still standing on the floor of the Senate, filibustering against the appointment of John Brennan as head of the CIA. Surprisingly, I agree with Sen. Paul on the need for more transparency regarding American policy on the use of drones. I’m in good company there, as even a progressive like Sen. Ron Wyden [D-OR] is calling for more openness about how our country views the use of drones.

But when Sen. Paul insists on holding up Brennan’s appointment until Attorney General Eric Holder promises that drone attacks will never be used against a U.S. citizen on American soil, he’s gone too far.

That’s a promise no president can make.

Putting drones aside for the moment, I’d like Sen. Paul to answer this question: Has the U.S. government—more specifically, agents of the U.S. government, such as FBI agents or U.S. Marshalls—ever used any type of lethal weapon against a U.S. citizen on American soil? Have state and local government agents used lethal weapons? Of course they have. And tough-on-crime Republicans have applauded law enforcement in many of these instances. I’m not fan of guns, and I do not welcome the recent hyper-militarization of American police forces, but even I can imagine circumstances in which the only course of action is to use lethal force—against a U.S. citizen on American soil.

It’s no more realistic to exact a pledge of no-drones against Americans than it is to prohibit law enforcement from doing its job when necessary. Would a Senator in the 1930s have demanded that Eliot Ness and his newly formed FBI not use machine guns against the gangsters [they were American citizens] of the Prohibition era, just because machine guns [as automatic weapons were known back then] were the most advanced weapons of the time?

A few days ago, Sen. Lindsey Graham [R-SC] tried to convince us that it doesn’t make sense to ban assault weapons—citing the supposedly reassuring fact the he owns an AR47 himself. That’s going to make us feel better? Graham said that, if America experienced a major cyber attack in which we had food shortages and no electricity, it might be a good idea for citizens like him to have assault weapons. For what? To protect ourselves against marauding hordes of fellow, desperate U.S. citizens on American soil? He didn’t go so far as to mention a zombie apocalypse, but it’s pretty interesting that he wants to protect his right—and that of other survivalist citizens—to get violent against one another, while prohibiting the U.S. government from stopping anarchistic or terrorist activity with the most advanced technology available.

Where were these guys when Bush and Cheney used weapons of mass deception against American citizens on U.S. soil? If there was a filibuster demanding a pledge not to use torture during the Iraq invasion/occupation, I’m not aware of it.

Sen. Paul’s point seems to be that perfectly innocent citizens, like himself, could be sitting in a café having a latte when, poof, out of nowhere they are vaporized by a drone attack launched by our own government. Hasn’t it always been illegal in the U.S. for government to attack innocent citizens—no matter what the weapon of choice of the day? But, silly me, I forgot that Sen. Paul is a Tea Partier and a conspiracy theorist whose main theory is that the U.S. government is conspiring to take over the United States.

Anyway, between the time I started writing this post and now, Sen. Paul’s filibuster publicity stunt droned on [pun intended, of course], flew way off course into delusional territory, and finally came to an end when the Senator declared that he needed to go potty.  Also, Eric Holder issued an answer to Sen. Paul’s main question: The President is not legally authorized to use a drone attack against a non-combatant American on U.S. soil.  The Senate confirmed John Brennan as head of the CIA.  Rand Paul has been excoriated by more rational members of his own party [including John McCain!]. And the talking filibuster appears to be back in fashion.

The post Ranting about Rand (Paul) ranting appeared first on Occasional Planet.

He was considered anathema to progressives; the most conservative member of the Republican Party. The time was the 1960s, and his name was William F. Buckley. He was from New York State and was publisher of the National Review, the voice of the conservative movement.

As conservative as he was, he stayed within shouting distance of the mainstream of the Republican Party. In 1960, he helped his brother, Jim, win a U.S. Senate seat. Jim Buckley ran in the combined parties of the Republicans and the Conservatives (a unique characteristic of New York State where there are actually four parties). As conservative as he was, William Buckley took a firm stance against the extreme John Birch Society, an organization that in many ways was the forerunner of today’s Tea Party. As op-ed contributor David Welch wrote in the December 3, 2012 New York Times, “the Birch Society was an influential anti-Communist group whose members saw conspiracies everywhere they looked.” The biggest challenge that Buckley had with the Birch Society was in the late 1950s and early 1960s, when he took on the founder of the Birch Society, Robert Welch. “Birchers demanded that the government rid itself of supposed Communists — including, according its founder, Robert Welch (no relation, thank heaven, to the op-ed column in the Times), Dwight D. Eisenhower.” Sound familiar? Keep in mind that the Birch Society was founded shortly after the Joseph McCarthy Army hearings in the U.S. Senate, an exercise that was generally considered to be a false purging of supposed Communists in and out of the U.S. governmen,t including its military.

As David Welch further states,

Fast forward half a century. The modern-day Birchers are the Tea Party. By loudly espousing extreme rhetoric, yet holding untenable beliefs, they have run virtually unchallenged by the Republican leadership, aided by irresponsible radio talk-show hosts and right-wing pundits. While the Tea Party grew, respected moderate voices in the party were further pushed toward extinction. Republicans need a Buckley to bring us back.

While  in 2010, the Tea Party did support candidates  who captured offices at both the federal and state levels, their clout waned quite a bit in 2012. All too often, Tea Party candidates won primary elections and eliminated moderate Republicans who would have had far better chances of defeating the Democratic opponents in the general elections. Perhaps the best example was in Indiana, where Tea Party candidate Richard Mourdock (a member of the so-called “rape caucus”) defeated moderate Richard Lugar in the primary race. Lugar had been the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a true scholar of international issues. He was one of the few Republicans to comfortably work with Democrats and promote bi-partisanship. Tea Partier Mourdock was soundly defeated in the general election by Democrat Joe Donnelly.

As David Welch says in the op-ed,

The absence of a Buckley-esque gatekeeper today has allowed extreme, untested candidates to take center stage and then commit predictable gaffes and issue moon-bat pronouncements. Democrats have used those statements to tarnish the Republican Party as anti-woman, anti-poor, anti-gay, anti-immigrant extremists. Buckley’s conservative pragmatism has been lost, along with the presidency and seats in Congress.

He calls for so-called moderates in the Republican Party to clean up the GOP:

Mr. Christie and Mr. [Jeb] Bush are ideally suited to drive extremists from the party. While some say Mr. Christie’s praise of President Obama after Hurricane Sandy hurt him politically, in fact it cemented his role as party truth-teller. In conjunction with his spirited defense of Sohail Mohammed, a State Superior Court judge who was absurdly attacked for allegedly wanting to impose Shariah law, Mr. Christie should be celebrated by sane people everywhere.

Mr. Bush and Mr. Christie best represent realistic, levelheaded conservatism. Both have crossed the aisle numerous times to the betterment of their states. Yet they enjoy sterling reputations in the party. This occurs when common sense trumps partisanship.

William F. Buckley, who died in 2008, demonstrated that true conservatives could define how far to the right their party could go without making their candidates unelectable or too distant from the mainstream so that it was difficult to take their ideas seriously. It may be coincidence, or it may be cause and effect, that upon his death,  the Tea Party was established and seized control of the right wing. Buckley was successful in silencing the John Birch Society; perhaps he could have done the same with the Tea Party.

The post Reminiscing about the conservative movement of the 1960s appeared first on Occasional Planet.

On November 29, Pew Research Center reported that since the 2010 midterm elections, the Tea Party has lost support nationwide and also in the 60 congressional districts represented by members of the House Tea Party Caucus. In what could be good news for Democrats in the upcoming election, the reputation of the Republican Party has declined sharply in Tea Party controlled districts and to a lesser extent across the country at large. It’s not surprising since the movement was never a true grass roots movement, having been conceived by corporate lobbyists as a way to further the interests of the 1%.

In the latest Pew Research Center survey, conducted Nov. 9-14, more Americans say they disagree (27%) than agree (20%) with the Tea Party movement. A year ago, in the wake of the sweeping GOP gains in the midterm elections, the balance of opinion was just the opposite: 27% agreed and 22% disagreed with the Tea Party. At both points, more than half offered no opinion.

Throughout the 2010 election cycle, agreement with the Tea Party far outweighed disagreement in the 60 House districts represented by members of the Congressional Tea Party Caucus. But as is the case nationwide, support has decreased significantly over the past year; now about as many people living in Tea Party districts disagree (23%) as agree (25%) with the Tea Party.

Republican party also losing favorability

According to Pew, the Republican Party’s image also has declined substantially among people who live in Tea Party districts. Currently, 41% say they have a favorable opinion of the GOP, while 48% say they have an unfavorable view. As recently as March of this year, GOP favorability was 55% in these districts, with just 39% offering an unfavorable opinion. Among the public at large, only 36% say they have a favorable opinion of the Republican Party, down from 42% in March.

The Democratic Party has lost public support but not by nearly as much. Nationwide, polling shows a drop from 50% favorable last summer to 48% in October. In Tea Party districts, only 39% have a favorable view of the Democratic Party, while 50% hold an unfavorable view. In other words, voters in Tea Party districts are now viewing both the Republican and Democratic parties negatively. Meanwhile, Democrats are holding their own nationwide.

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Conservatives breathe the same air as progressives; they drink the same water. They fly the same planes and they eat the same food.

It would stand to reason that conservatives are just as concerned as liberals about longevity, avoiding toxins, safety in our skies and avoiding food poisoning.

Yet conservative are willing, even anxious, to reduce or eliminate the regulations that we have to protect ourselves from illness, injury, or even death. They cite the burdens of regulations and taxes on businesses as reasons why our economy is in neutral at best, as the job market continues to stagnate.

Maybe they know something that progressives don’t. In their view, businesses, left to their own devices, will take all necessary steps to protect both their workers and their customers. If this means not polluting our lakes, rivers and streams with toxic effluents, they will take whatever measures are necessary. If this means ensuring that the food we eat is safe, they will test the meats, fruits, vegetables we eat to ensure that no unwanted bacteria or viruses are present.

Perhaps what conservatives know and progressives don’t is that all citizens, particularly those in business, and most particularly those running mega-businesses, are kind, gentle, altruistic individuals. Yes, they want to make a profit, but not at the expense of the public good.

What conservatives don’t like is the imposition on their freedom from government regulations, no matter how noble the purpose of the regulations might be. It’s like one adult being told by another to drive safely. Why say it? The driver already knows it.

There are some of us who even flaunt rules when we think that they are unnecessary or just plain silly. If we see a message in a theater with a high-amp sound system telling us to be quiet during the movie, we may be inclined to carry on a conversation, because the movie is assaulting us with excessive decibels.

So, if the conservatives are right, at least in theory, in their contention that even reasonable regulations are not needed because those whom they impact already know what to do, then maybe progressives should back off and eliminate some or all of these regulations. It would cut costs, humanize relations between competing groups, and perhaps most importantly, affirm the basic “goodness” of humankind.

On the other hand, if government eliminates regulations and private industry shows a lack of regard for public safety, then conservatives have a choice to make. They can join progressives in supporting necessary regulations to protect us from harm. Or they can follow the option expressed by Rep. Ron Paul in the “Tea Party” debate on Sept. 13. We can live with whatever results the free market provides us. Ron Paul, who is a physician, felt that it was more important for a seemingly healthy thirty-year-old to have the right to not buy health insurance than it is for him or her to be treated in a hospital for a serious injury. If recovery could come only after emerging from a six-month coma, then the market would say, “Tough luck; you could have chosen to buy insurance, but you didn’t.” You die, and the market wins.

One of the key characteristics of progressives is empathy. We are uncomfortable with and pained by the thirty-year-old dying because he or she hadn’t purchased insurance in a free market system. There is something greater to us than the sanctity of the free market.

So, if conservatives can provide convincing evidence that the private sector has a conscience that cares for others as effectively as regulations do, then I’ll join them in their efforts to de-regulate America. However, if left to its own devices, the private sector shows little regard for the health and safety of others, then I’ll remain committed to my support of regulations. Of greater importance is, if in the face of evidence that deregulation leaves people unnecessarily at risk, will conservatives accept the necessity of regulations. If the answer to that is yes, then I’ll believe in the integrity of the current anti-regulation mantra expressed by conservatives.

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Members of the Tea Party purport to revere a document written by many of the founding fathers. You might think that we’re talking about the Constitution, but that guarantees too many actual freedoms to the liking of many Partiers. In reality, their views seem to be more in line with the Articles of Confederation, the document that preceded the Constitution.

The Articles didn’t work. They were too weak, so the founding fathers opted to replace them with our present constitution, which created the actual United States of America. The Bill of Rights, which shortly followed, made the federal government the primary protector of citizen rights. It took less than a quarter of a century to toss out the idea of the Articles and replace them with our present system of government.

What was weak about the Articles of Confederation, and thus attractive to Tea Party members? It asserted the supremacy of the separate states over the confederation government.

“Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by this Confederation expressly delegated.”

That’s a fancy way of stating the supremacy of states’ rights. No federal government could provide citizens with equal protection under the law. The states could do as they pleased and, as history has shown, they have far less regard for human liberties than the federal government does.

How did the Articles describe the United States? It didn’t use the term United States of America or even the words “nation” or “government.” Instead it said,

“The said States hereby severally enter into a firm league of friendship with each other, for their common defense, the security of their liberties, and their mutual and general welfare, binding themselves to assist each other, against all force offered to, or attacks made upon them, or any of them, on account of religion, sovereignty, trade, or any other pretense whatever.”

In other words, the states would presumably take care of themselves without the presence of a central government.

Powers given to the federal government were essentially limited to declaring war, setting weights and measures, and for a Congress to serve as the final court for disputes between states.

The movement in the final quarter of the 18th century was towards unification. In the first quarter of the 21st century, the Tea Party and others are calling for the dismantling of unification.

An intriguing question is, “If the Tea Party got its wish of drastically weakening the federal government, would it be satisfied with states, or would it try to strip away their powers? After all, we already have a movement in California to divide the state into two new ones, North California and South California? Why not divide Illinois into Chicago-land and downstate? How about South Florida and the Florida panhandle?

One might argue that there are certain people who are never satisfied with what exists. TheY almost always want to change it. So, Tea Partiers currently don’t like the federal government and say they would prefer states’ rights. But if states ruled supreme, would they prefer regions within each state? Would they then want separate metropolitan areas, and then the kind of balkanization that exists in St. Louis County, MO (95 municipalities in one county)? Would that be enough, or would they prefer block units, or family units, or ultimately just anarchy with each individual being thoroughly in charge of his or her life?

For now, maybe we have to settle for asking Tea Party members and their allies to take a little time out and read about life under the Articles of Confederation. Today may not look so bad.

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