All fun aside, there's obviously nothing wrong with the right attempting to engage in protest politics. The problem is that it was never clear what they were protesting. So far Obama has cut taxes for most of the population and... well, that's it. The protests of "The Left" have long been mocked for lacking message discipline. That criticism has often been fair. The difference is that our side's protests generally have a single point ("don't do this stupid fucking war in Iraq") which gets hijacked by a bunch of other causes when the speakers hit the stage. But the teabaggers... honestly, I still have no idea what it was about. I mean, I know it was about tribal allegiance against Barack Mumia Saddam Obama III. But it wasn't actually about anything else.the crowd yesterday was clearly anti-obama and everything and anything that he was doing. but exactly what were they proposing that would convince anyone that they should be running the economy instead? i was there for an hour and i still have no idea. that's why this tea party "movement" is not going to go anywhere. the polls show that the public trusts obama on economic matters more than the GOP by a fairly comfortable margin. how are they going to convince the public, and especially independents given how low the numbers of self-identifying republicans has fallen in most parts of the country, that they have better ideas? i just don't think that tea parties have any chance of helping them win any debate. if anything, the low turnout compared to say, well just about any demonstration or rally i have ever been to, just makes them seem more marginal.
if there's one impression i didn't get yesterday, it was that this crowd was part of some rising populist uprising against the current administration.
