Mark Bauerlein, a professor of English at Emory University, rips his fellow academic/intellectuals for the way they have dismissed the Tea Party.
His article begins with a few rather disgusting attacks from the Left–comments about Tea Party members that reveal, at least to me, an ugly form of anti-intellectualism. Bauerlein references Paul Krugman’s comparison of the Tea Party to the KKK in the 1915 movie “Birth of a Nation.” He cites Paul Herbert’s remark that Glenn Beck makes him “want to take a shower.” It is clear to me that many liberals simply have no way of responding to the success of this populist movement so they resort to name calling.
Granted, we have been critical here of the Tea Party, mostly for its members misuse of American history. But if I dive into this kind of name-calling I trust that my faithful readers will call me on it.
Bauerlein concludes:
Wise intellectuals step back from their hostility and return to the virtues they espouse. The more they disdain different social and political groups, the more they appear as but another social and political group. As intellectuals previously were identified with king and church and Party (in Communist nations), so today they are identified with “elites.” This is the opposite of intellectualism in a democratic society. There, intellectuals should be, above all, independent—independent of power and independent of any particular acculturation. They should be universal. They should tell the truth . . . but not get too confident of their apprehension of it. They should disagree with others . . . but not ridicule them. They should refine the common taste, not censure it. They should elevate public discourse, not echo its cheap coinages. We shall see on November 2nd where reactions will go next.
Thanks for the post Jon.
Here's a nice test for whether someone's distaste for the Tea Party is really motivated by disgust at their poor use of history or is simply the result of their own partisan political learnings:
Do they complain about the improper historical understanding of groups on the opposite side of the political spectrum? Are they protesting the distortion of history by labor unionists and civil rights activists? Have they ever complained about the historical distortions promoted by Howard Zinn?
Regardless of the final election results, the Tea Party has already reformed the Republican Party, whose control of Congress pre-2006 became irresponsible politics as usual, buying votes with government largesse.
What would a similar reform movement in the Democratic Party look like? Well, I guess it would look like Bill Clinton, who was on the whole a deficit hawk. Unfortunately for the Dem Party, that looks too much like the GOP, and it was Bill Clinton who lost the Democrat majority. As Harry Truman put it,
The people don't want a phony Democrat. If it's a choice between a genuine Republican, and a Republican in Democratic clothing, the people will choose the genuine article, every time; that is, they will take a Republican before they will a phony Democrat, and I don't want any phony Democratic candidates in this campaign.
The GOP, c. 2006 had become Democrats in Republican clothing. The people voted for the genuine article; the GOP lost Congress.
Even a housewife from Wasilla, AK could see that.
I happen to think Barack Obama stinks on ice, because I disagree with his policies and political philosophy. But if I were a Democrat, I'd think so too. Harry Truman was no orator, but I think it's more important what a man says than how he says it. I'll park Truman's 1952 speech below, to give you a lift, John. If I were a Democrat, I'd find it inspiring. Hell, I'm a Republican and I find it inspiring.
By choosing to attack his opponents without defending his principles, I think President Obama has stunk on ice, and I say this as unpartisanly as I can manage.
The Tea Party—and the housewife from Wasilla—have not made the same error. Perhaps they ain't so dumb afterall.
The “liberal faith” part sounds kinda scary, but perhaps Truman is right, that it is indeed “the political faith of the great majority of Americans.”
“You can always count on the Republicans, in an election year, to remind the people of what the Republican Party really stands for. You can always count on them to make it perfectly clear before the campaign is over that the Republican Party is the party of big business, and that they would like to turn the country back to the big corporations and the big bankers in New York to run it as they see fit. They are just not going to do it.
Just leave them alone, and the Republicans will manage to scare the daylights out of the farmer and the wage earner and the average American citizen. They always do that….
…
Now, we can always rely on the Republicans to help us in an election year, but we can't count on them to do the whole job for us. We have got to go out and do some of it ourselves, if we expect to win.
The first rule in my book is that we have to stick by the liberal principles of the Democratic Party. We are not going to get anywhere by trimming or appeasing. And we don't need to try it.
The record the Democratic Party has made in the last 20 years is the greatest political asset any party ever had in the history of the world. We would be foolish to throw it away. There is nothing our enemies would like better and nothing that would do more to help them win an election.
I've seen it happen time after time. When the Democratic candidate allows himself to be put on the defensive and starts apologizing for the New Deal and the fair Deal, and says he really doesn't believe in them, he is sure to lose. The people don't want a phony Democrat. If it's a choice between a genuine Republican, and a Republican in Democratic clothing, the people will choose the genuine article, every time; that is, they will take a Republican before they will a phony Democrat, and I don't want any phony Democratic candidates in this campaign.
But when a Democratic candidate goes out and explains what the New Deal and fair Deal really are — when he stands up like a man and puts the issues before the people — then Democrats can win, even in places where they have never won before. It has been proven time and again.
We are getting a lot of suggestions to the effect that we ought to water down our platform and abandon parts of our program. These, my friends, are Trojan horse suggestions. I have been in politics for over 30 years, and I know what I am talking about, and I believe I know something about the business. One thing I am sure of: never, never throw away a winning program. This is so elementary that I suspect the people handing out this advice are not really well-wishers of the Democratic Party.
More than that, I don't believe they have the best interests of the American people at heart. There is something more important involved in our program than simply the success of a political party.
The rights and the welfare of millions of Americans are involved in the pledges made in the Democratic platform…. And those rights and interests must not be betrayed.
These are some of the principles for which the Democratic Party stands…. We stand for better education, better health, greater opportunities for all. We stand for fair play and decency, for freedom of speech and freedom of the press, and the cherished principle that a man is innocent until he is proven guilty.
Taken together, these principles are the articles of the liberal faith. I am sure that the liberal faith is the political faith of the great majority of Americans. It sometimes happens that circumstances of time and place combine to deny its expression. But the faith is there, and the reactionaries can never hope to have any but temporary advantage in this country.”
Have they ever complained about the historical distortions promoted by Howard Zinn?
Thx for that bit of clarity and honesty, Paul. And Zinn's text is used in our schools, sometimes as a challenge, “teaching the controversy,” but sometimes normatively. That is not good.
It's not as if the kids don't know that America sucks, what with bagging on the Indians and slavery and all.
What “historical distortions” did Howard Zinn promote?
I read this from partisan minded folk, and never, is any supporting detail given, other than vague allusions to rather minor, irrelevant and immaterial trivialities.
Furthermore, it's often issued by unofficial “state” historians, wrapped up in jingoism and back slapping national greatness, while they themselves are in the grip of cognitive dissonance, only eager to paint a narrative they have preordained.
Here's criticism of Zinn by historian Michael Kazin:
http://hnn.us/articles/4370.html