Thanks to the Tea Party for providing some light relief after all the brow furrowing of this week’s US election.
After Barack Obama’s victory over Mitt Romney, the Republicans have been agonising over what went wrong with the right of the party, including the Tea Party, predictably saying that Romney failed for being too moderate and insufficiently right wing. He is apparently, a big woolly softy. They say that to attract voters and win the next election they need to position the entire Republican party further to the right.
Really?
Let’s get this clear. The American people have just elected a conspicuously liberal president to a second term (and the only other Democrat to win two terms since Roosevelt was Clinton) by a comfortable margin and the Republican right are saying that Romney lost because he was too moderate.
What exactly does this mean?
Are the Tea Party people and their fellow travellers suggesting that because Romney was too moderate, the hard right of the party refused to vote for him and instead voted for Obama? Is that what they are saying? Instead of going ‘Shit, Romney’s a big girl’s blouse, but at least he’s our girl’s blouse,’ they all declared, ‘Dang, I guess if Romney ain’t our kind of conservative, it’ll have to be Obama’?
Are Tea heads suggesting that in despair at Romney they voted for the man they styled a foreign-born, socialist Muslim?
Well, OK.
The right are never very good at joined up thinking. Even the Tea Party name is based on a misunderstanding of the historical tea party.
I’m sure there are lots of Americans who would like to see these people pull so far in the opposite direction to the majority of voters they fall right off the edge of their flat earth.
And then everyone will go tee hee hee. Or tea hee hee.
Chris Page 
Hello Chris,
From your post.
Are the Tea Party people and their fellow travellers suggesting that because Romney was too moderate, the hard right of the party refused to vote for him and instead voted for Obama?
I write,
Cute. The fellow travelers bit. Of course the term has a specific meaning in the U.S.
As far as the rest of your thoughts. No, that isn’t what it means. I wonder how you came to that conclusion.
You also wrote,
Even the Tea Party name is based on a misunderstanding of the historical tea party.
I wouldn’t rely on what ever source you do. As I understand it the tea part of the name refers to ‘Taxed Enough Already’. If you do some searching beyond Wikipedia you will find the same.
I think these thoughts, paraphrased on that oh so nasty, right wing site, Taki’s magazine, will help you in your understanding of what went on in the U.S. on Tuesday.
When the voters recognize that the public treasury has become a public trough, they will send to Washington not persons who will promote self-reliance and foster an atmosphere of prosperity, but rather those who will give away the most cash and thereby create dependency.
Hope to get together for a coffee soon.
Dave
LikeLike
Hi Dave. Thanks for the comment.
Actually, I wasn’t suggesting the Republican right voted for Obama at all. I was being wholly ironic. My intent was to satirise the reaction of certain sections of that party.
I’m a bit surprised that anyone took that literally. I thought the Mad Hatter illustration would have cemented the facetious intent.
Re. the term ‘fellow traveller’, I just checked it in my American dictionary and it tells me that in US English it means a follower of the Communist Party without being a member. That is indeed different from UK usage which is a person with similar views. Thinks: Orwell used the term a lot when discussing communist sympathisers in Britain during the second world war so perhaps that context helped define the term when it crossed the pond.
Re, the historical misunderstanding behind the Tea Party name, my understanding is that the name is derived from the Boston (and associated) protests. The position of the 1773 protesters was ‘no taxation without representation’; protesting against being taxed by a government in whose parliament the people of north America had no representation. I believe the modern Tea Partiers mean ‘taxed enough already’, but that acronym was a later invention. The current Tea Party members have representation as do most US citizens. Thus their historical misunderstanding. Unless I am missing something.
Of course, the choice of name may not be a misunderstanding and may be appropriation; changing history to fit a current narrative, which is more insidious. (Segue to Orwell).
I hope that helps.
Meanwhile, a coffee or something more psychotropic, would be good. See you in the email.
C>
LikeLike
Americans don’t understand irony, Chris. The world might be a safer place if they did.
LikeLike
I wish I could say that your explanations cleared things up for me but they sound more like the typical ‘I know English’ type of lecture one often hears from the British. I will listen the first time I hear someone from England speaking in Modern English, as Modern English was spoken in 1550. Or is it that only the British are allowed to morph ‘their’ language? I should also say that the changing of language isn’t insidious. It is a natural process. It is happening now in England. Does the rest of the world have to wait for the ‘rightful’ owners of English to allow the changes to come down?
English, Old English, Beowolf, had an extremely limited vocabulary. Welcome the Normans, French, or Vikings if you will. Can you give a response in only native English words without any cross matching of prefixes or suffixes in relation to roots and without loan words please. After that I will listen to how ‘Americans’ don’t have a grasp and aren’t allowed to morph the language to fit their needs.
Regarding your points.
The U.S. electorate had a clear choice this time around. That is unusual for the U.S. It is simple. Nothing insidious. One choice lost. See my quote above. I notice you didn’t respond to it so I will re-insert it here. This was the choice the U.S. electorate made.
When the voters recognize that the public treasury has become a public trough, they will send to Washington not persons who will promote self-reliance and foster an atmosphere of prosperity, but rather those who will give away the most cash and thereby create dependency.
The choice they rejected was the more austere one. In response the dollar lost ground against most currencies, the DOW Jones lost 340 points and one state has submitted a petition to peacefully leave the Union, https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/peacefully-grant-state-louisiana-withdraw-united-states-america-and-create-its-own-new-government/1wrvtngl Your dry humor aside, some Americans take the choice, race-less as it was, very seriously. You will recognize the beginning of the petition. It is the same one used when the subjects of your King/Queen decided they would like the option to morph the language as they saw fit. What is interesting to me is what will the electorate do when austerity is the only option. That day is coming.
See you for tea sometime after 7 on a Friday.
LikeLike
Typical, eh?
We seem to be labouring at cross purposes here, so I’ll go back to the beginning.
The post was satirising, taking the piss out of, the reaction to their electoral defeat by a specific segment of Republican supporters. Nothing more or less. I am not quite sure how that would be unclear or need explanation.
That’s about it.
I invite any reader who thinks that I am dissing America, the American people, the American electoral process, the choices of the American people, American English or that I am in some way lecturing to a. read the post and my comment again, b. point out by reference to specific statements in the post or the comments anything that might constitute dissing or lecturing. Because it just isn’t there.
I hope that helps.
LikeLike