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Tea Party: Fake Populists?

Conservative columnist Scott Galupo opens up a can of well-deserved whupass from the right on the Tea Party. Excerpt: About a year ago, I wondered whether the Tea Party was something to respect and/or fear, as it seemed to be throughout 2009 and into the 2010 primary season, or if it was “just a bloc of conventional conservatives […]

Conservative columnist Scott Galupo opens up a can of well-deserved whupass from the right on the Tea Party. Excerpt:

About a year ago, I wondered whether the Tea Party was something to respect and/or fear, as it seemed to be throughout 2009 and into the 2010 primary season, or if it was “just a bloc of conventional conservatives in anti-authoritarian drag.”

Twelve months later, the question answers itself.

The Tea Party is/was composed primarily of religious conservatives, seniors worried about Obamacare’s impact on Medicare, and anti-immigrant curmudgeons. The libertarian ethos the movement projected was an utter fiction, and one that the national press corps briefly lent credence to.

Galupo says that the Tea Partiers talked a big game about ending corporate welfare and the corrupt Big Government + Big Business alliance, but “as conventional conservatives,” whiffed. Galupo:

But when it came down to it, what did Wall Street and corporate America ever have to fear from the Tea Party? Lower corporate taxes and regulatory rollback? Seriously?

He’s right. You have to give the Tea Party credit for getting organized and becoming a serious force in Republican politics. But they were never a threat to business as usual. How could they be? One of their leaders is former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, an insider’s insider. I know more than a few conservatives who truly are populist in their view that there’s something really sick about the cronyism between Wall Street/Big Business and the U.S. political system. I don’t think any of them take the Tea Party seriously.

UPDATE: More evidence that the Tea Party is a paper tiger:

It was a(nother) great day to be a member of the Washington elite.

On Wednesday afternoon, the House was steamrolling toward passage of a trio of free-trade agreements without a whisper of objection from the Republican side. Finally, hours into the debate, Rep. Walter Jones (R-N.C.) rose to appeal to his fellow Tea Partyers to heed the people who elected them.

“Here we have roughly 9.1 percent unemployment in this country, due in no small part to the Washington elite jamming these job-destroying trade agreements down our throats,” Jones pleaded on the House floor. “It’s time we started listening to the will of the American people, doing what’s in the best interest of the American people, not in the best interest of the foreign nationals who desperately want to take our jobs.”

It was a passionate speech but useless. Lawmakers, including the overwhelming majority of Tea Party Republicans, voted in support of the three trade deals, which had been at the top of corporate America’s wish list.

That was just one of the day’s party favors for corporations.

Hours earlier, House Speaker John Boehner made clear he would guard the corporate elite’s interests in avoiding a trade war with China. He refused to take up a bill that would have punished China for its currency ma­nipu­la­tion, saying he had “grave concerns.” (The bill would have passed easily if it had the chance.)

Boehner and his Republican colleagues aren’t necessarily wrong in their desire to expand trade with Colombia, Panama and South Korea, as they did Wednesday, or to prevent a tit-for-tat with China. But the Republican support for the free-trade deals, and the leadership’s refusal to consider the China legislation, show where the power still resides in Washington.

For all the talk of populist foment – the Tea Party on the right and the new Occupy Wall Street movement on the left – business interests remain firmly in control. Forced to choose between their voters and their donors, lawmakers don’t hesitate before choosing the latter.

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