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The Left’s “Tea Party Moment”?

The unions have long been unparalleled in their ability to organize and get the vote out during election time. The Tea Party has provided them with a new challenge, and they’re rising to the occasion as best they know how: Astroturfing. They believe, according to Alexander Bolton in The Hill, that their “Tea Party” moment has come.

The first question that should be asked is what has changed to swing things in their favor? Do they believe that there is enough momentum behind the union supporters? What do they believe will be the galvanizing force? The reality is that there isn’t any issue to unite the left right now.

Additionally, these union leaders and Democrat strategists don’t understand the true nature of a grassroots groundswell. The major catalyst for Tea Party activists was ObamaCare – they flooded the health care Town Halls. This didn’t take marching orders from anyone. Many were doctors who were legitimately concerned. There was a basic level of self organization through local Tea Party groups, but as much as the left hates to believe this, there was no coordination nationally. There was no GOP affiliation – in fact, the GOP was often the target of the Tea Party ire.

David Freddoso points out:

In this case, union members will be confronting their congressmen with demands that they preserve their piece of the pie. This could work, but only if the public comes around to their way of thinking about government spending.

There is nothing whatsoever to support the notion that a majority of Americans – or even enough to make significant waves – would rise up in support of more spending. Nothing can compete with the motivation of people who are passionate about their cause. Despite their best efforts, one thing the unions will never be able to manufacture is a mass of activists who are committed and focused and don’t need to take orders from anyone to get things done.

The union and Democrat activist plan is to send them to town halls, arming them with “targets” (rhetoric!)and talking points about the evils of spending cuts. The major difference, as Freddoso starts to say, is that this isn’t about public opinion or the good of the country. This is solely about promoting the agenda of the unions and organizations like MoveOn.org under a weak “grassroots” facade.

If this is enough to sway the masses into action, then there is no hope for our country. However, I have little faith that they will be able to recreate the incredibly synergy that the became the Tea Party.

Crossposted from TabithaHale.com

COMMENTS

  • constitutionalconservativeguy

    Astroturfed indeed. Either way let’s hope that 2011 sees many Right to Work and union-rollback bills enacted. And let’s be on top of our game like never before for 2012. We have a great chance to make things better for generations to come — at the workplace and in our elections.

  • potkas7

    With the world’s gaze fixed on the turmoil sweeping the capitol cities of the Middle East it’s easy to forget that the first citizen uprising took place here as hundreds of thousands of ordinary Americans marched through the streets of Washington D.C. and millions more gathered on the streets of their home town’s in a truly spontaneous reaction to the size, intrusiveness, and unsustainability of the Federal government and government debt.

    What is different here is that the people could effect the change they demanded through the ballot box; and they did.

    Winston Churchill once observed that proof of the superiority of the Western style of government was found in the simple act of a single man, alone in a voting booth, marking his ballot paper, and changing the government of the nation. The rest of the world can only dream of such a thing.

    • throwback59

      Right?

  • potkas7

    And you realize there will be a post-Obama, right?

    Wherever men talk politics, they will still quote Churchill long after Obama, his flunkies, and all the rest of us have passed from the scene. He was the colossus of the 20th Century.

  • chbroussard

    the Tea Party was born out of concern for what was happening to our COUNTRY. If the left is having a Tea Party moment, it is because of concern for SELF. Typical progressives. What have you done for me today??

    • BlueStateSaint

      “Gimme, gimme, gimme–and to Hades with the consequences!” That’s what the mantra of the unions is. They’re so . . . selfish. It’s the personality of an addict.

  • earlgrey

    republican state reps in TN are starting to waver on our own bill to combat teacher’s unions. I feel ilike we must bust the unions to get our country back.

    They have been protesting for a lont time, and I am curious how/if public opiinion will change over time.

    • carolina

      In addition, check out what this post from politico says about state union workers in MD:
      His interest in unions are strickly to keep the money flowing from the union coffers to the O’Malley campaign coffers. And he is unsing the state employee to pay off the union. He pushed through a bill in our legislature last year to allow the public sector unions to take money from all state workers, whether they volunteer to join the union or not. So, starting July 1 the union will gain an addition 30,000 fee payers that would not have choosen to join the union. The union gains over 11 million dollars, the state employees loose 11 million dollars. In addition to the the unions in Maryland public sector have NO POWER. There are always “qualifiers” with and promises the union gets from the Governor. So, final decision on if state workers get the “union gains” rests totally on the Governor and legislatures. And in the past three years state employees in Maryland have had furloughs, increased health care contributions, no promised 401 matches, layoffs (seniority is never considered) and increased workloads. State workers in Maryland and currently facing increased contribution to the pension plan (they currently contribute 5% for a multiplier of 1.8, which is one of the lowest in the country), and increased healthcare costs again. Co-pays on perscriptions are about to double, and retires will not have healthcare benefits other than medicare. So, how is O’Malley NOT attacking the state workers in Maryland???? What Christy is doing in NJ is small potatoes compared to O’Malley. NJ employees have higher salaries and much lower contribution rates than those in Maryland.

      I would really like to see a comparison, State by State, of each states workers/teachers union wages/benefits/bargaining rights. I think there might be some significant differences worthy of note.

      • renny

        but teachers in my district pay 1/3 toward their pensions and their districts pay 1/3 and pensions here would be ok except since the dot-com collapse in the late 90s, the state has not kicked in its 1/3. McGreevy and then his place keeper and then Corzine did not fund the pensions because they were busy spending whatever wherever. They also robbed both the unemployment fund and transportation fund and I don’t know what else to make the state budget billions out of whack.
        Whitman borrowed $300,000,000 out of whatever billions and to the best of my knowledge repaid it, but the NJEA blames the Rep. for the pension shortfalls.
        You cannot get a teacher’s pension in NJ until the state has audited your own and your system’s contributions. If those are not in line, the payout is penalized or costs have to be made up;. The state, however, doesn’t audit itself nor penalize itself for lack of its legal committed contributions.
        Christie balanced the budget last year but made no pension contributions. This year he says he will not commit state funds until the system is “fixed” by which I think he means restructured.
        NJ teacher retirees pay all taxes on their pensions, unlike NYC where public employees evidently don’t contribute to pensions and don’t pay city or state taxes on them.
        Altho’ on Medicare now–which is paid for by a $98+ deduction from Soc. Sec, monthly, I never paid for my medical ins. that did increase over 30 years from major medical to dental to visual. As a retiree, I lost dental and visual.
        Now my state medical is secondary to Medicare, but I have a better prescription plan than Medicare D.
        A retiree pays much more in co-pays than a teacher under contract and always has partial payments like even ER or lab work, which was once 100% covered.
        Does that answer any questions?

        • carolina

          There do seem to be significant differences between states.
          I was amazed to read that MD actually seems to have a fairly ‘stingy’ approach compared to some other states. Too bad that only gives OMalley an easier time spending on all of his other pet projects. It would be good for the MD taxpayers, except for OMalley’s overspending on other things. Typical dem.

    • rightwingmom52

      I call the TN 4th district rep on behalf of my parents quite often, but since I don’t live in TN, I don’t always hear about the local stuff. If you send me a link, I’ll make a call next week.

      • earlgrey

        http://wapp.capitol.tn.gov/apps/BillInfo/Default.aspx?BillNumber=HB0130

        Okay. I can’t do a link in here. I have never tried til today, but if you tcopy and paste this into your browser the billl should come up.

        Debra Maggart is the sponser, but is wavering support.

        Another key sponser Curtis Halford (whom I made GOTV calls for) is voting no now.

        Speaker of the House is Beth Harwell.

        Please let me know if you can’t get to the bill from here or need some phone numbers. I really appreciate your support.

        • rightwingmom52

          I’ll make some calls on Monday. On a side note, I went to college with Beth Harwell. She was a couple of years older than I, and I doubt she would remember me even though it was a small school.

          Thanks for the info.

          • earlgrey
  • Wayne

    We like to dress our self interests in more attractive and romantically altruistic terms, but it’s human nature we are talking about here. The U.S. Constitution was written to protect us from it.

    As the economy goes so does political sentiment. The private sector economy is in shambles from generations of fostering the “entitlement” paradigm. The public sector is being told to “wake up and smell the coffee”.

    This drama has been played out throughout historic times with predictable and unpleasant outcomes. The only question is whether the Constitution will save us from ourselves now? And, do we have time to return to it?

    Mine guess is that we’ve gone too far left to have a slight swing to the right save us, though it is our only hope. But after just finishing reading Road to Serfdom, my vision of the future is depressingly bleak. Any encouraging words welcomed! But, I believe our collective futures have been cast.

    My two cents…

  • johnt

    to be self evident. Crazed, screaming rabble are not endowed with the unalienable right to riot and obstruct.
    When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for people to think, the decent opinions of Mankind will distinguish between Tea Parties..
    In other words, one conducted themselves decently and civilly, and were called racists in total, the other behaved in a manner that would embarrass the inhabitants of a zoo.

    • sharonmcp

      • johnt

        Perhaps a senior staffer for the NY Times.? Thanks, sad but this is getting less and less unusual.

  • msctex

    But quite another to gather to fight for it, as though it were a right. There will always be some willing to do it, but their numbers will never be great, because there is an undeniable, ever-present sense in that it is simply wrong.

  • mine

    Outside the hard left there is little love for unions. For myself, there is NO love for them at all. I hate them with a passion. I see them as legalized mafiosi. We need to have the ideological fight against them again. This is the same fight Reagan and Thatcher had in the 80s – and won. Two decades later, we are called on to have the same fight again. Those opposed to the oppression of big government, big unions, and big business needs to get involved. Unions and their Democrat allies cannot be allowed to control workers against their will. Workers must have the freedom not to be part of a union.

  • http://pocketchangeproductions.net/ anotherindyfilmguy

    Isn’t repeating the same failing behavior over and over again a potential sign of insanity*?

    *when applied to others that is… I plan on getting it right whatever is is no matter how many times it takes…