Was anyone else pushed to the Left by the Tea Party?
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  Was anyone else pushed to the Left by the Tea Party?
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Author Topic: Was anyone else pushed to the Left by the Tea Party?  (Read 1608 times)
DevotedDemocrat
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« on: February 04, 2014, 12:33:57 PM »

Before the rise of the Tea Party, my views as a younger teen would probably have been called Conservative. I supported President Bush loyally because I believed it was patriotism to fully support your President. By the time I really got interested in politics it was 2008 and Obama was in the spotlight. The Tea Party was rising as well. The more I read of the Tea Party and their ideas and aims, including the undoing of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, elimination of the minimum wage, destruction of labor unions and elimination of regulations almost altogether, I realized that Conservatism meant giant steps backward for American society to a time of red baiting, laisse faire economics and evangelical religion. While I was learning more and more about politics, I was also learning more and more about history, and in being educated about events such as the Triangle Shirt Waist Fire, I realized what America was facing if the Tea Party fulfilled their agenda. I also leaned about the New Deal and Great Society in depth and how they both transformed American society in great ways. As the Tea Party came to dominate the GOP, I realized it was no longer the home of good men like Ike, Nelson Rockefeller, Gerald Ford, John Connally, and that even good moderates like Bob Dole and George HW Bush were no longer welcome. As I learned more about the Tea Party and more about the alternatives, my views pushed further and further to the left, and now I'm a New Dealer, a devotee of the Great Society, a supporter of Obama with my only regret brig I couldn't vote for him in 2008. Romney seemed like a return of sanity to the GOP and he seemed to be an old fashioned Republican, and I was tempted to support him until he caved in to te Tea Party.

Did the Tea Party help push anyone else toward the Left?
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IceSpear
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« Reply #1 on: February 04, 2014, 12:40:52 PM »

I mainly got interested in politics in 2006, at the height of the Dubya backlash. I naturally identified as a liberal and opposition to Dubya solidified me as a Democrat. The Tea Party has had no effect on my views, except to reinforce the fact that the Republican Party should not be able to gain the levers of power due to their far right archaic views.
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Mordecai
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« Reply #2 on: February 04, 2014, 01:05:12 PM »

For me I'm not so sure it's a matter of being pushed towards the Left as it is backing away from the Extreme Right (as well as religion). I identify more with "center-left" (economic rationalist/pragmatist) parties because they don't tend to have (or have less) religious fundamentalists, racists, homophobes, xenophobes, sexists, anti-intellectuals, creationists, reactionaries, and social conservatives. Other factors were increasing wealth and income inequality, concern for labor and the social safety net, and general economic f[Inks]ery of the Right.

Also:

moderates like Bob Dole and George HW Bush

Dole and Bush weren't moderates, they were solid conservatives.
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TheDeadFlagBlues
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« Reply #3 on: February 04, 2014, 01:08:32 PM »

I was pushed to the right by the tea party. Its thoughtless attacks on consensus viewpoints and intellectual culture made me more likely to identify with otherwise offensives centrism and moderation. I have this feeling that if the tea party never existed and McCain was elected, I would be a True Leftist.
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Paul Kemp
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« Reply #4 on: February 04, 2014, 01:28:52 PM »

The American right as a whole has done a great job of making sure that I won't be voting for any conservative politicians for a long time, saying this as a former Republican.
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TNF
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« Reply #5 on: February 04, 2014, 01:31:35 PM »

No, I was pushed to the left by the wuss in chief.
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Just Passion Through
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« Reply #6 on: February 04, 2014, 01:35:02 PM »

moderates like Bob Dole and George HW Bush

This again.

Someone, please explain how either of these two can be remotely considered 'moderate.'  Provide examples.
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Vosem
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« Reply #7 on: February 04, 2014, 01:41:22 PM »

The TP probably pushed me to the right on economic issues; I quite liked their opposition to Obamacare and success at mobilizing voters against it back in 2010, and I was inclined to be more sympathetic to their views the more I saw of them. I found it difficult to identify as a TP member because of my socially liberal views (and, later on, as the name 'Tea Party' started to mean less and people affiliated with it began to piss away winnable races), but in its heyday I had a very positive opinion of the TP.
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All Along The Watchtower
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« Reply #8 on: February 04, 2014, 01:41:43 PM »

moderates like Bob Dole and George HW Bush

This again.

Someone, please explain how either of these two can be remotely considered 'moderate.'  Provide examples.

Because they weren't religious fundamentalist crazies?

idk, that seems to be the only criterion for "moderate Republican" these days.
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Small Business Owner of Any Repute
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« Reply #9 on: February 04, 2014, 03:51:55 PM »

HW Bush was a pro-choice, pro-Planned Parenthood moderate until he needed a 1980 makeover to join Team Reagan. Voodoo economics, anyone?
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HagridOfTheDeep
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« Reply #10 on: February 04, 2014, 03:57:56 PM »

Not particularly. It was an organic movement of the people. What the Tea Party has made me feel though is strong distate for the weasely politicians who pander to them, lie to them, and give legitimacy to their weakest arguments. Here's how I see it: You can't blame "the people" for being unfamiliar with how government works; you can blame Ted Cruz for instigating a shutdown when he obviously knew better. It's the Ted Cruz types I hate; not the Tea Partiers themselves.
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TNF
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« Reply #11 on: February 04, 2014, 03:59:56 PM »

HW Bush was a pro-choice, pro-Planned Parenthood moderate until he needed a 1980 makeover to join Team Reagan. Voodoo economics, anyone?

Being pro-choice and pro-planned parenthood doesn't make Poppy any less of a right-winger when it comes to bread and butter issues.
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badgate
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« Reply #12 on: February 04, 2014, 04:13:34 PM »

I'm not sure I was pushed left but the TP movement definitely demonstrated to me that they are not capable of governing and shaped my opinions of where politics needs to go to eradicate their disgusting political dishonesty and anti-intellectualism.
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ElectionsGuy
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« Reply #13 on: February 04, 2014, 04:18:58 PM »

The Tea Party has had no effect on my views. In fact the only thing that it did is make me dislike the conservative movement even more. Of course I liked the limited government part of it all, but some of the folks out there really are quite extreme and don't realize that constantly calling out Obama for being this Muslim Kenyan communist/socialist who wants to destroy America, is absolutely ludicrous. I realize they may not represent the majority, but there's quite a bit that are like that, making the movement very unattractive for me.
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shua
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« Reply #14 on: February 04, 2014, 04:20:56 PM »

I was pushed to the Right.  Darn Whig radicals dumping perfectly good tea into the harbour!
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Joe Republic
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« Reply #15 on: February 04, 2014, 04:22:23 PM »

Pretty much, yeah.  I was already questioning my semi-apathetic centrism by the time I moved to NV, which was just in time to see Sharron Angle run for Senate.  That was the point when I realized that she and her ilk were a legitimate threat to the economic, social and intellectual wellbeing of our country.
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Paul Kemp
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« Reply #16 on: February 04, 2014, 04:31:02 PM »

Hopefully nobody was pushed in either direction by the Tea Party. It doesn't make any sense to change political views as a reaction to someone else's.

Sure it does.
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DemPGH
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« Reply #17 on: February 04, 2014, 04:54:25 PM »

They made me a champagne-drinking elitist, not a liberal! Wink

If I was pushed leftward it was by real life economic / corporate scandals which made me think that rich people steal a LOT and call it free market or whatever, and also by religious right activity. I went from being only semi religious but not spiritual to being neither religious nor spiritual, so religious right activity became a major turnoff. Whatever they thought, I thought the opposite, basically. Now I know why I think what I do, but that's how it started.

And I have to observe again, DD, that you have some odd ideas about who is and who is not moderate. Tongue
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Tetro Kornbluth
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« Reply #18 on: February 04, 2014, 05:47:02 PM »

I think the Tea Party has finally falsified for good the theory that what drives people in politics is their self-interest as economically understood.
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Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee
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« Reply #19 on: February 04, 2014, 06:04:04 PM »

The TP probably pushed me to the right on economic issues; I quite liked their opposition to Obamacare and success at mobilizing voters against it back in 2010, and I was inclined to be more sympathetic to their views the more I saw of them. I found it difficult to identify as a TP member because of my socially liberal views (and, later on, as the name 'Tea Party' started to mean less and people affiliated with it began to piss away winnable races), but in its heyday I had a very positive opinion of the TP.

One of the biggest mistakes the Tea Party ever made was to go national on social issues in such fashion. One of the biggest initial appeals of the party was that it brought the GOP back to a small gov't footing and were it not for the former, there was a great missed opportunity in many parts of the country whereby the Tea PArty could be the bridge by which certain people returned to the Party after having been driven out by excesses of thel ate 1990's and early 2000's.
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Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee
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« Reply #20 on: February 04, 2014, 06:12:22 PM »

Not particularly. It was an organic movement of the people. What the Tea Party has made me feel though is strong distate for the weasely politicians who pander to them, lie to them, and give legitimacy to their weakest arguments. Here's how I see it: You can't blame "the people" for being unfamiliar with how government works; you can blame Ted Cruz for instigating a shutdown when he obviously knew better. It's the Ted Cruz types I hate; not the Tea Partiers themselves.

A movement seeking to dethrone the out-touch incumbents and their allies has the effect of providing numerous people with the chance to advance. Pat Toomey, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, and so forth were all benefactors of this and we are better off on certain issues from having them. On the other hand, people like Dan Maes, Angle, Miller, O'Donnell, and Akin were able to also catch that ride and we have suffered as a party for that.
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All Along The Watchtower
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« Reply #21 on: February 04, 2014, 06:40:03 PM »

It was an organic movement of the people.

what
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All Along The Watchtower
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« Reply #22 on: February 04, 2014, 06:46:11 PM »

I think the Tea Party has finally falsified for good the theory that what drives people in politics is their self-interest as economically understood.

A disproportionate number of Tea Party activists are small business owners/managers of some sort. A lot of them are also relatively affluent (not really rich, but relative to the general population...) and/or retired individuals who have at least some personal safety net. Not to mention, the influence of certain segments of the American economic elite in the Tea Party "movement" is important to consider.

But I do agree, there is a mixture of anti-intellectual resentment, racism, and pining for the "good ole days" along with the usual small business-owner paranoia about unions or such, and overused platitudes about "individual liberty" and "freedom from the government" that have become defining features of so-called "movement conservatism."
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True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)
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« Reply #23 on: February 04, 2014, 06:50:23 PM »

It's not that I've been pushed to the left, but the Republicans have been pushed to the right which has changed me from a Republican-leaning independent to a Democratic-leaning independent.
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Lief 🗽
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« Reply #24 on: February 04, 2014, 06:54:22 PM »

I was pushed to the right by the tea party. Its thoughtless attacks on consensus viewpoints and intellectual culture made me more likely to identify with otherwise offensives centrism and moderation. I have this feeling that if the tea party never existed and McCain was elected, I would be a True Leftist.

Wow, this exactly. The tea party (and the extreme right more so I guess) is increasingly turning me into a Matt Yglesias/Josh Barro centrist and it's horrible.
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