Why The Tea Party’s Power Keeps Growing (Must Read)

[brooklynite]

Democracy Corps:

Today, Democracy Corps is releasing findings from focus groups with evangelical, Tea Party, and moderate Republicans. Our conversations with these Republicans help explain why the GOP is committed to shutdown politics — and why in the future, its leaders likely will move more deeply into intransigent far-right conservatism.

While moderate Republicans want their leaders to seek what they call “middle ground,” they form only one quarter of today’s Republican voters. The most conservative factions in the party — evangelicals and Tea Party adherents — now comprise more than half of Republican partisans. These folks do not worry that Republican leaders’ intransigence has led to this kind of shutdown politics in Washington. Instead, they worry that current Republican leaders are too compromising:
- The problem is there’s not a party that thinks like us. We don’t have a voice in Washington. Or where else? The Republican Party? They might as well just have a D beside their name, as far as I’m concerned. (Evangelical man, Roanoke)
- I don’t have a party anymore. (Evangelical man, Roanoke)
- And the Republicans – a lot of Republicans are just RINOs – Republican in name only. But we’ve really got to turn this ship around, or we’re in deep doo. (Evangelical man, Roanoke)

Above all, they think that the Republican Party has proved too willing to “cave” to the Obama administration’s agenda:
- They cave all the time. (Evangelical woman, Colorado Springs)
- They’re rollovers. (Evangelical man, Roanoke)

They turn to the Tea Party because it gives them hope that someone is finally “standing up” and “fighting back” against the forces of Obama and big government.
- Well, I would say, the rise of the Tea Party, that people are getting involved, and they’re standing up… Grass roots. I’ve never been really into politics. And I’m getting more involved. And people I think are standing up. Like you were talking gun control. People are saying hey, this isn’t what’s in our Constitution, and it’s not what’s in our schools. And I think people are taking a stand now, and we need to, before it’s too late. (Evangelical woman, Colorado Springs)
- America is rising back up and getting a backbone again, and making our voices heard one way or another, whether it’s Tea Party, or whatever else. People are being emboldened. (Evangelical woman, Colorado Springs)

Beyond depressing

[leftstreet]

1. It's too bad the Democrats don't have a far-left flank

[Xipe Totec]

5. There's no such thing as a fantical rationalist. nt

[daleanime]

10. +1

[stevenleser]

2. The good news is that this suggests we will keep the Presidency and the Senate for a long time to

come.

National and state wide media will tend to expose extreme views in senate and Presidential candidates, just like we have seen in the last few elections. Radical House candidates can slip beneath the radar.

[dkf]

8. And they will keep the house and this is how it will be til possibly redistricting. Great.

[stevenleser]

9. If they keep making dumb moves like the shutdown, maybe that's a good thing in the short term

Let them hold the lowest house only long enough to completely destroy the brand without being able to actually do anything.

[dkf]

11. Yet the house is supposed to be responsible for funding. I don't see how you can relegate them as

"Lower"

House Powers
According to the Constitution the U.S. House of Representatives has the following key powers:

Power to set in motion impeachment proceedings (it is up to the Senate to bring those proceedings into a trial setting). For example, had Richard Nixon not resigned his position as president for his role in Watergate, the House would likely have voted (a majority) to impeach him, at which point any formal proceedings would have moved to the Senate.

Power to elect the President of the United States. This would only happen if electoral votes were tied. The Senate has the power to do the same with the office of Vice President. Of course it cannot choose randomly, but must select from candidates with the most electoral votes.

Power to introduce laws and legislation that specifically deal with revenue and taxes. Because revenue and taxes are issues closely related to their constituents or the people that voted for them, the House is granted the power to introduce these.

Power to introduce laws and legislation other than revenue-related, but this is also a power shared with the Senate.

Power to participate in Joint Committees alongside senate members, such as the Joint Committee on Taxation or Joint Economic Committee.


http://congressbase.com/100/u-s-house-of-representatives-powers-and-functions/

[stevenleser]

12. I didn't invent the term. It has always been seen as the lower house. nt

[dkf]

13. Designating the "people's house" as "lower" is depressing.

On the other hand look at the UK's House of Lords vs House of Commons. I guess the House of Commons is supposed to be the "lower" also.

I just wish government worked. I thought the Clinton years were the worst with the absurdity of impeachment. Well maybe they haven't sunk to the level of spying on Obama's sex life, but the dysfunction is amazingly even worse.

[randome]

3. Focus group 'surveys' don't seem reliable to me.

Adding in a few sound bytes from a handful of angry voters does not make me depressed.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Treat your body like a machine. Your mind like a castle.[/center][/font][hr]

[brooklynite]

6. Yes but...

Focus Groups, if properly done, are balanced to express a range of demographic, economic and opinion groups. If this accurately represent the 30% of the nation who self-identify as Republican.....

[Xyzse]

4. They are also those that don't know how things work

People that just want to have their way without thinking through what type of mess it would create, and are too lazy to educate themselves.

[dkf]

7. Like you haven't heard those exact words from a D before?

It's almost heresy to say Obama should compromise. Well they think its heresy of Boehner compromises.

Yada Yada.

[Recursion]

14. Douthat (yes, I know...) points to two different understandings of the Reagan years

http://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/02/why-the-right-fights

Interesting, if alien to me, take.

[CanonRay]

15. Having lived in the Colorado 5th Congression District

which included Colorado Springs, I would say those comments are about par for the place. It's one of the reasons I left...got tired of banging my head against the brick wall surrounding their brains.

[LiberalFighter]

16. If you have focus groups with just those groups

how is that indicating an increase in power? Focus groups are hogwash for that.

[Egnever]

17. I dont see any evidence their power is growing

They do fine in gerrymandered districts but thats the only place they can get elected. That is not growing power that is gaming the system.

[WinkyDink]

18. There is no "Tea Party." This is a sub-set of R-W Republicans and Libertarians.