It is beyond comprehension why anyone would consider the Tea Party movement to be any different than Occupy Wall Street. Both movements were spurred by a sense that something was wrong, but neither seemed to know quite exactly what it was. Both movements were up in arms about the Wall Street bailout, but one group blamed Washington while the other blamed Wall Street. Though I feel both movements are equally laughable, at least the Occupiers are consistent in their ideology as opposed to the Tea Partiers, who exemplify a strangely mix-matched, ideologically inconsistent, statist agenda.
What could have become a singular movement against corporate welfare during the height of the Occupy and Tea Party movements instead became yet another left-versus-right rhetoric battle. Despite both movements being fed up with Washington shoveling money to politically connected businessmen, and both agreeing that the middle class was being shafted, one of these two movements refused to join in solidarity with the opposite side of the aisle. Not surprisingly, that movement was the Tea Party.
Despite their commonalities with Occupy Wall Street, Tea Partiers reacted to Occupiers the way any conservative right-winger would react to anything they don’t understand: with hostility and a pointed finger.
Tea Partiers parade themselves around as if they are limited government enthusiasts just as Occupiers parade themselves around as collectivist radicals. The only difference is that Occupiers are collectivists through and through while Tea Partiers merely employ libertarian jargon while supporting big government, big spending and socially backward politicians. I believe this is why people tend to see the left as the “good guys” and the right as the “bad guys.” As terrible of a reality as it is, at least the left doesn’t lie about its bad intentions.
Two of the Tea Party’s shining stars in Washington are Rick Santorum and Paul Ryan, both who exemplify the very behavior the Tea Party seems so vehemently opposed to. Both of these orthodox cavemen supported the No Child Left Behind, the Medicare Modernization Act, housing and infrastructure subsidies as well as the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, all of which cost the American taxpayer more than an arm and a leg. The combination of this progressive spending agenda with hypernationalism and religious extremism comparable to that of radical Islamists makes for a political sideshow act only conservatives can pull off.
A vast majority of Tea Partiers are also anti-LGBT and anti-abortion, two positions that require massive government intrusion into personal freedoms that have economic impacts as profound as their social impact. Unlike the Tea Party, at least Occupy Wall Street is open about huge spending and employing bailouts again, except this time to bailout indebted college students as opposed to bankers. Both movements demonstrate the tendency to respond with knee-jerk reactions to any stimuli and are incapable of reacting logically in the face of turmoil.
The Tea Party is the Christian right’s cry of mourning for the George W. Bush years, despite the fact that Bush’s surveillance state radicalism has now been normalized under Obama. Bush’s tax policy for the middle class and building the American empire abroad are two more examples of the many commonalities Bush and Obama possess.
The Tea Party should just throw in the towel, return to being simply referred to as Republicans and quit stealing Libertarian rhetoric to propagate lies about its platform. At least Occupy Wall Street is honest about wanting to repeat the very same actions that got us here in the first place.
T. Emmett Ryan is a Santa Fe College political science sophomore. His columns appear Tuesdays.
