A new Pew poll released today contains some ominous omens for the Republican Party. As national support for the Tea Party declines, support of Republicans by Tea Partiers is also in decline. Only 19% of Americans support the Tea Party now, and within the Tea Party support for the GOP budget plan has dropped from 74% to 52%.
The latest Pew Research Poll has found that the American people are growing disgruntled with divided Congress’ inability to do anything, and they are blaming the Republicans for the lack of progress. The big problem that Republicans face is that they sold their supporters an ambitious and completely politically unrealistic budget and deficit reduction plan that they have not been able to deliver.
After the 2010 elections 35% of Republicans supported their party’s deficit plan, support has now fallen to 22%. Republican candidates used the Tea Party to gain control of the House of Representatives, but there are dangerous signs that these same voters have already grown impatient with the GOP. Support for the Republican Party’s deficit reduction plan among Tea Partiers has plunged from 75% just after the election to 52% now.
Raise your hand if you didn’t see this one coming a mile away. A bunch of political neophytes who have no idea how their government actually works, believed a slew of campaign promises by a Republican Party that promised them things that they had no chance of delivering with a Democratic president in office, and now those supporters feel betrayed and are disgruntled and angry.
The reality is that the Republican Party set itself up for this from day one, by promising things that they knew they could never deliver. Voters have become extremely impatient since 2006. When they vote for change, they want it NOW. Republicans promised a change in spending and deficits that they could never bring about. In fact, the Republican House leadership of John Boehner and Eric Cantor had no interest in delivering their budget and deficit plan.
In a nutshell here is the problem:
53% of Americans say that the deficit should be a top priority, but a sizable number of those same Americans (34%) worry that deficit reduction will hurt job growth, and 61% of Americans support lowering domestic spending, but 65% of them oppose ANY change to the two biggest federal entitlement programs, Social Security and Medicare. 67% of Americans oppose raising taxing, and they are split 49%-47% on cutting military spending.
The political dilemma that congressional Republicans face is that the deficit is of top importance to the Tea Party, but America at large is more concerned with jobs (34%), rising prices (28%), and then the deficit (24%). On top of this, national support for the Tea Party has declined to 19%, but this bloc is still a powerful force within the GOP.
Republican incumbents all over the country are nervous, and they should be. They know what happens when the Tea Party is unhappy. The Tea Party candidates elected in 2010 could be facing a slate of Tea Party 2.0 primary challengers in 2012, but what’s even more likely to happen is that presented with a slate of less than inspiring presidential candidates to choose from, these voters simply stay home.
Either way if these voters don’t learn about the legislative process and the limitations of only controlling the House, Republican incumbents are looking at a gloomy situation in 2012, the GOP wanted power and now they are being held accountable. The Tea Partiers naively believed what they were sold in 2010, and they are finding out just how used they were by a corporate AstroTurf movement that exploited their emotions, but had no intention of delivering on their agenda.
The real agenda belongs to the Koch brothers and all the corporate interests who secretly funded the “organic” Tea Party. The Tea Partiers were used and thrown away after Election Day, but they shouldn’t worry; Republicans will come calling again next year speaking the language of deficit reduction and liberty.
All those older white Americans who call themselves Tea Partiers are really Koch whores, and if they break away from the corporate machine, they’ll quickly discover how powerless they really are:
Additionally:
With Fox News host Glenn Beck’s ratings down and the biggest tea party rally eclipsed by a recent pro-labor rally in Wisconsin, could this tea be losing steam - leaving a smattering of radical republican debris in its wake? A great sign this is true:
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| Tea Party Event |
Joseph Farah, the founder of the birther news website World Net Daily, who spoke at the event, promised “lots of opportunities for interactivity between participants and presenters.” Indeed, this photo from the convention posted by Saint Petersblog suggests attendees would have little competition to meet Farah and the other speakers:
Aimed at the farthest right of the far right, the three-day event touted a sponsorship from the John Birch Society and an appearance by Stewart Rhodes, the founder of the Oath Keepers militia. But this kind of uber-conservative fare has had no trouble attracting bigger crowds not long ago.
Footnote: There’s no video of the event — which didn’t include a single female speaker — since “video recorders and audio rendering devices are prohibited and would be grounds for removal without refund.”
NFTOS
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