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- iHaveNet.com: Politics
by Jonah Goldberg
I attended the
First, here's what I didn't see. I didn't see a single racist or bigoted sign or hear a single such comment. Nor did I see any evidence of "homegrown fascism." Though in fairness, such things are often in the eye of the beholder, now that dissent has gone from being the highest form of patriotism under George W. Bush to the most common form of racism under Barack Obama.
But I did see something a lot of people, on both the left and the right, seemed to have missed: a delayed Bush backlash.
One of the more widespread anti-tea party arguments goes like this: Republicans didn't protest very much when Bush ran up deficits and expanded government, so when Obama does the same thing (albeit on a far grander scale), Republican complaints can't be sincere.
This lazy sophistry opens the door to liberals' preferred argument: racism. "No student of American history," writes Paul Butler in the
Butler, a law professor and author of the no-doubt-seminal "Let's Get Free: A Hip-Hop Theory of Justice," speaks for many in the media when he insinuates that nearly unprecedented stimulus spending combined with government takeovers of the health care, banking and automotive industries are dwarfed in importance by Obama's skin color.
I speak for many who have actually spoken to tea partiers when I say that is slanderous hogwash.
But how, then, to explain the relative right-wing quiescence on Bush's watch and fiscal Puritanism on Obama's?
No doubt partisanship plays a role. But partisanship only explains so much given that the tea partiers are clearly sincere about limited government and often quite fond of Republican-bashing. So here's an alternative explanation: Conservatives don't want to be fooled again.
Recall that Bush came into office promising to be a "different kind of conservative," and one of his first legislative victories was the No Child Left Behind Act, sponsored by Teddy Kennedy.
Throughout his presidency, Bush's "compassionate conservatism" surrendered -- either rhetorically or substantively -- to the assumptions of welfare state liberalism, i.e. that your decency was best measured by your commitment to large, inefficient government programs. "When somebody hurts," Bush insisted, "government has got to move."
Many conservatives disliked this whole mind-set and the policies behind it, from comprehensive immigration reform to
Many conservatives muted their objections, in part because they actually liked the man personally or because they approved of his stances on tax cuts, judges, abortion and, most important, the war on terror (we can see a similar dynamic with so many antiwar liberals who still support Obama).
Conservatives didn't necessarily bite their tongues (remember the Harriet Miers and immigration fiascoes), but they did prioritize supporting Bush -- often in the face of far nastier attacks than Obama has received -- over ideological purity. Besides, where were conservatives supposed to go? Into the arms of John Kerry?
The 2008
According to last week's NYT/
Going by what I saw in Cincinnati, second to a profound desire to rein in government, the chief attitude driving the 39 percent of tea partiers who describe themselves as "very conservative" isn't partisanship, racism or seizing the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia. It's "we won't be fooled again." In the near term, that spells trouble for Obama and Democrats. In the long term, that lays down a serious gauntlet for Republicans.
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Tea Parties a Delayed Bush Backlash
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