The Tea Party Risks Scaring Away Voters

While the Tea Party may be making a resurgence in some areas of the country and may still be able to play Republican elected officials like puppets, for a larger portion of the public, the image of the ignorance embracing, venom filled Tea Party crowd is nothing less than scary, and rightfully so.   When Sarah Palin is viewed as a "leader" it is time to write off the GOP as brain dead.  In a column in the Washington Post, Michael Gerson - a conservative - bemoans the negative impact that the Tea Party is having with many voters who haven't had lobotomies and/or who don't suffered from severe psychological problems.  Here are some column highlights:

 A few recent developments have revealed the tea party temperament in its most distilled, potent form.

Former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin called for the impeachment of President Obama on the theory that his border policies are “the last straw that makes the battered wife say, ‘no más.’ ” Excavating the layers of mixed metaphor — the straw that broke the camel’s back is somehow causing an abused woman to surrender in Spanish — Palin demands the ousting of an American president on the constitutional theory that “enough is enough.”

At the same time, failed tea party Senate candidate Chris McDaniel claims that his primary opponent, Thad Cochran, “stole” the election — a serious charge made without serious evidence — and equates overturning his 7,700-vote loss with preserving “the torch of liberty.” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) has embraced McDaniel’s legal challenge, blaming the “D.C. machine” for shifting the election results.

The movement has developed a characteristic tone and approach. It is often apocalyptic. The torch of liberty sputters. The country is on the verge of tyranny. Yet, without apparent cognitive dissonance, the movement’s goals are often utopian. The nation’s problems can be solved by passing 10 amendments to the Constitution or by impeaching the president. And those who don’t share a preference for maximal (sometimes delusional) solutions — those who talk of incrementalism or compromise — are granted particular scorn.

These habits of mind — desperation, utopianism, purifying zeal and ideological simplicity — have had their uses throughout history. But they can’t be called conservative. This is one theme of a careful, instructive essay by Philip Wallach and Justus Myers in National Affairs that ought to be required beach reading for conservatives. The authors describe the attributes of the conservative temperament — humility, an appreciation for what is worthy in our society, a preference for incremental reform, a distrust of abstraction — and contrast them with the “misguided radicals of the left and right.”

Americans will give the GOP another look. They will be either impressed or frightened by what they see. A party that is genuinely excited about conservative anti-poverty proposals, the child tax credit and other reforms — rather than impeachment and the abolition of modern government — might even be judged worthy of the presidency again.

The most urgent requirement for conservative success is the recovery of a conservative temperament.

There is nothing "conservative" about the Tea Party.  It is extreme, it is fueled by hate and ignorance and is the antithesis to what true conservatives would and should be advocating.   I continue to believe that much of the Tea Party insanity comes from the high proportion of Christofascists within the Tea Party.