What should I make of the Tea Party movement? For the past year I’ve pondered that question without ever arriving at a definitive answer. As a conservative I’m leery of populism—even right-wing populism—and fads—especially right-wing fads. I remember how Ross Perot and the Reform Party used to sing some of the same tunes—and I remember where that led (three words: Governor Jesse Ventura). If the Tea Party is some political equivalent of a Perot tribute band, then I think I’ll skip this season’s concert.
My natural revulsion to political rallies, protest speeches, and vague agendas, also makes me want to keep my distance. Nevertheless, I am sympathetic to opposition to governmental growth and fiscal irresponsibility. And if the Tea Partiers are able to use political rallies, protest speeches, and a vague agenda as spears to gore Leviathan, then more power to them.
But I think the movement is unlikely to succeed, not because of an underlying vice but because of an inherent virtue: an excess of enthusiasm. Rather than a Tea Party, I think we need it’s opposite, a Wet Blanket Party—a political movement designed to sap any and all enthusiasm for political and governmental activity.
Sadly, there is only one man who could lead such a movement and he died back in 1933. I’m speaking, of course, of our greatest modern president: Calvin Coolidge.
The liberal journalist Walter Lippman, in his 1926 essay, “Calvin Coolidge: Puritan De Luxe,” wrote an unintentionally beautiful tribute to the patron saint of small-government conservatism that provides an outline for what is needed today:
Mr. Coolidge’s genius for inactivity is developed to a very high point. It is far from being an indolent inactivity. It is a grim, determined, alert inactivity which keeps Mr. Coolidge occupied constantly. Nobody has ever worked harder at inactivity, with such force of character, with such unremitting attention to detail, with such conscientious devotion to the task. Inactivity is a political philosophy and a party program with Mr. Coolidge, and nobody should mistake his unflinching adherence to it for the soft and easy desire to let things slide. Mr. Coolidge’s inactivity is not merely the absence of activity. It is on the contrary a steady application to the task of neutralizing and thwarting political activity wherever there are signs of life.
The White House is extremely sensitive to the first symptoms of any desire on the part of Congress or of the executive departments to do something, and the skill with which Mr. Coolidge can apply a wet blanket to an enthusiast is technically marvelous. There have been Presidents in our time who knew how to whip up popular enthusiasm. There has never been Mr. Coolidge’s equal in the art of deflating interest. The mastery of what might be called the technique of anti-propaganda is worthy of prolonged study by students of public opinion. The naive statesmen of the pre-Coolidge era imagined that it was desirable to interest the people in their government, that public discussion was a good thing, that indignation at evil was useful. Mr. Coolidge is more sophisticated. He has discovered the value of diverting attention from government, and with exquisite subtly that amounts to genius, he has used dullness and boredom as political devices.
It is difficult to read this passage without a sigh of resignation. Our culture is able to provide us with innumerable dull and boring politicians. But how many have the ability to use tedium as a sophisticated political tool?
Sadly, what is needed most is the type of politician we can no longer raise up: the electable deflator. Imagine if we had a political party that was capable of creating even one national politician who had such a grim, determined, alert inactivity. (The concept is so foreign to us today that even conservatives have a hard time imagining what that would look like.) Imagine also if we were able to produce thousands of activists—or rather “inactivists”—willing to neutralize and thwart political activity wherever it showed signs of life.
If you are unable to create such a mental picture it is not surprising. Such a concept is anathema to most “conservative activists.” They aspire to be right-wing Alinskyites because they love the fight, love the energy, and—most of all—love the power that comes from political engagement. They chafe at the idea that the liberals are allowed to have all the fun, with their marches and rallies and bombastic rhetoric, and want to get in on the action too. They want a counter-revolution, not merely because they oppose liberalism, but because, like liberals, they enjoy the thrill of perpetual revolutionary fervor.
I can empathize, of course. I too have a fervor—a fever, in fact—for political inactivity. I want to be part of a movement that makes electoral politics so boring that rather than having term limits, we’ll need laws requiring politicians to serve their full term. I want to join a party that make politics and government work so dull that political journalists and elected officials dream of leaving their fields for the exciting worlds of actuarial science and telemarketing.
I want to thrown in my lot with others who want to throw a wet blanket over politics and whose desire is to dampen the enthusiasm for all forms of political activity. I want to consort with citizens who are willing to arrest the ardor, dash the devotion, sap the spirit, and zap the zeal from anything that remotely resembles political enthusiasm. I want to create a new party, dedicated to the mastery of the art of anti-propaganda and committed to the conscientious devotion of alert inactivity.
If this is your dream too, then I hope you’ll join me in the Wet Blanket movement.
(Thanks to Ted V. McAllister for introducing me to Lippman’s wonderful essay.)
July 27th, 2010 | 9:20 am
The Tea Party is not so much about reducing the size of government but ensuring that entitlements and subsidies its members favor are not re-allocated. When I see more middle-aged Tea Partiers foreswearing their SSI, SSDI, Medicare and veterans’ benefits, as well as tax subsidies like the mortgage interest deduction, then maybe it will have more credibility as a smaller-government force. But I am not holding my breath. Mostly, what I’ve seen locally is more along the lines of Don’t You Dare Give The Stuff We Here Deserve To Those Undeserving Folks Over There.
July 27th, 2010 | 9:40 am
I had gotten far enough in my own thinking to realize that the church, and other civic/non-federal-government organizations, need to take a more prominent, active role in society. But I think what you describe here is a necessary corollary to that. Pouring more energy and focus into more local activities means pouring less of those things into the national scene. I’m afraid (as you mention) that it will take a massive cultural shift for people to take their eyes off the excitement of massive power in play, to no longer be distracted by the attention-hungry at the top, and pay more focus to their local needs and relationships.
July 27th, 2010 | 9:49 am
Liam: Michael Kinsley already owns the franchise on your brand of cynicism. Give it a rest.
Joe: Yeah, the Lippmann essay is great. Al Smith’s tribute to him after his death was as well. And Coolidge’s public addresses were marvelous.
July 27th, 2010 | 10:00 am
Count me in on the wet blanket movement. I further propose, along with mandatory lifetime term limits, that all government positions be part-time and federal workers be docked pay when they actually create new laws. They can be rewarded when they keep their hands to themselves.
July 27th, 2010 | 11:26 am
There is such a hero today, a Coolidge redivivus: Ron Paul. It’s just that he is not all that popular with certain elements on the Right due to the fact that Mr. Paul is for reducing all government: those who sit behind tanks as well as those who sit behind desks.
+HRC
July 27th, 2010 | 11:30 am
Rev. H. R. Curtis There is such a hero today, a Coolidge redivivus: Ron Paul.
You mean Ron “Bring home the pork” Paul? He certainly has his virtues, but he’s no Coolidge.
July 27th, 2010 | 11:51 am
Joe,
Democracy (and that includes the American ‘republic’) inherently tends toward a larger and larger state under conditions of advanced industrial capitalism to counteract the effects of inequality and make us all more alike. Read your Tocqueville.
When you say “As a conservative I’m leery of populism,” I think you mean to say “as an anti-democrat” or “as an elitist”. And as someone who voted for Jesse Ventura in 1998, I have to ask you what was so bad about him? Sure he was a bit of a dim bulb, but he didn’t ruin anything and served as a very valuable chastisement to the two major parties in Minnesota.
For better or worse, Joe, you and your commentors are anti-democrats. Stand up and say as much!
Darel
July 27th, 2010 | 11:57 am
Chapter and verse on Mr. Paul’s pork, please?
Regardless – no one is without his faults. Coolidge, for example, while stopping direct payments to farmers left in place the old style GOP pro-business (corporate welfare) agenda.
The point is – you are looking for someone who makes an eloquent, consistent case for small government who shows the ability to get votes for such an agenda. Surely there is no other to contend with Mr. Paul for that title.
+HRC
July 27th, 2010 | 12:17 pm
Darel When you say “As a conservative I’m leery of populism,” I think you mean to say “as an anti-democrat” or “as an elitist”.
That’s sort of implied in the term “conservative.” ; )
And as someone who voted for Jesse Ventura in 1998, I have to ask you what was so bad about him?
He’s pro-abortion, pro-gay rights, and anti-religion.
For better or worse, Joe, you and your commentors are anti-democrats. Stand up and say as much!
Okay, I will. Like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and every one of the founding fathers, I am “anti-democrat.” I an “pro-republican”, which is to say, I prefer the system of government we had to the system of, say, Athens in the days of Socrates.
Rev. H. R. Curtis Chapter and verse on Mr. Paul’s pork, please?
From the Houston Chronicle:
Surely there is no other to contend with Mr. Paul for that title.
I certainly agree that no politician is perfect. And I do have a lot of admiration for Paul. But I would admire him more if his anti-spending stance were held consistently. It’s easy to vote against federal spending while bringing it back home to your constituents. If he had the courage to look his own voters in the eye and say, “Vote for me and there will be no pork brought back to any district—including this one” I would think he was serious.
July 27th, 2010 | 1:18 pm
Darel,
I am an anti-democrat. Your point is?
July 27th, 2010 | 1:20 pm
Tom G:
Do Tea partiers favor repeal of their SSI, SSDI, Medicare and veterans’ benefits, as well as tax subsidies like the mortgage interest deduction? Just curious. You dismissed the accusation without addressing it, which makes me somewhat skeptical.
July 27th, 2010 | 2:04 pm
The issue of taking government payments when you are opposed to government programs is a tricky one. From Mr. Paul’s perspective, his constituents are being unfairly looted by the federal government. Should he therefore oppose getting some of those looted dollars returned to them on principle? If someone steals my wallet and I have the opportunity to vote to get some of the money back – do I abstain from voting on principle or get some of my money back? Tricky.
But in a way this is beside the point – would you agree that the reason Mr. Paul does not get more support from the right has very little to do with his pork votes and everything to do with his stance against America’s foreign wars?
+HRC
July 27th, 2010 | 2:26 pm
Rev. H. R. Curtis If someone steals my wallet and I have the opportunity to vote to get some of the money back – do I abstain from voting on principle or get some of my money back? Tricky.
A more apt analogy would be if someone steals your wallet and then I vote to get some of the money back in order to give it to your neighbor. The money isn’t going back into the pocket of the individual taxpayer, but to the pockets of special interests who just happen to live in Paul’s district.
If the rational for doling out pork is that it returns some of the money to the people, then shouldn’t we be in favor of more pork (at least in relation to other budget items)?
. . . would you agree that the reason Mr. Paul does not get more support from the right has very little to do with his pork votes and everything to do with his stance against America’s foreign wars?
Partially. I think some people oppose Paul because of his stance on wars just as some people uncritically support him for the same reason.
I respect Paul and think he should have a place at the table. But my problem with him is the same problem I have with all libertarians—indeed, all utopianists: they tend to offer solutions that work fine in theory but are unworkable in reality.
For example, Paul is in favor of returning to gold and silver as legal tender. All there are a number of problems with this idea, one of the biggest is that there is not enough gold on the planet to back our current currency. The fact the he advocates for an idea so unrealistic tends to make me think that he is more committed to paleolibertarianism than he is in being an effective representative.
July 27th, 2010 | 3:37 pm
Mr. Carter,
Ironically, Mr. Paul’s willingness to play the pork game ably displays the fact that he is not a utopian. The best he can do in getting money back into looted pockets is to get it back into his district. That’s not a perfect solution, as you point out: it is a most decidedly unutopian (topian?), imperfect answer to a difficult problem.
Likewise with Mr. Paul’s advocacy of commodity backed currency. He has actually laid out plans for a gradual return to sound money, as have many other advocates of the same policy. No one is saying that tomorrow we’ll wake up to the gold standard circa 1839. But some, for example, advocate allowing competition in money rather than a sole, government legislated legal-tender, which would allow contracts to be written so that they could be paid off with any tender the parties agree to (Mr. Paul is in this money competition camp). Murray Rothbard, on the other hand, wrote a famous, detailed essay about a gradual return to a non-fiat currency based on the US Government’s current holdings of specie and keeping legal tender laws intact.
Mr. Paul, unlike any other politician on the right, has also laid out plans for ending the Social Security ponzi scheme. It involves ending Social Securty taxes on everyone under a certain age and paying for the payments due to those above that age with savings from scaling back the American military machine. That’s ambitious, to be sure – but it is not utopian. Utopian would be thinking that a society can continue to support Social Security with greater longevity, a lower birth rate, and two trillion dollar wars paid for with borrowed money.
Therefore, I think you paint with too broad a brush by implying that Mr. Paul and other libertarians are “utopian.” The spectrum of libertarian organizations and the policies they advocate are worth more considered thought than just tossing them aside in one lump with an epithet. Consider the work, for example, of the Cato Institute. How many of their libertarian policy suggestions have become law? Quite an impressive list, actually.
At any rate – thank you for the cordial and stimulating discussion stemming from Silent Cal. If that quiet Vermonter were still kicking today, I don’t think there’s any doubt about which of the GOP’s 2008 field he would have liked to have seen win the nomination.
+HRC
July 27th, 2010 | 3:54 pm
Joe: This is a joke, right? Hard to tell because there’s no body language and inflection on the web and occasionally some creepy stuff gets posted, but we’re supposed to laugh; hehe, right?
July 27th, 2010 | 6:23 pm
How does inactivism end an activist government? Make government activity so boring no one will work for it or sponge off it? Won’t that require a lot more activity than Coolidge could muster?
July 27th, 2010 | 10:11 pm
The core value of the Tea Partiers is that they don’t want higher taxes. So what happens if we sit back and literally don’t change anything the government is doing?
Social Security will become about 6% of GDP in the long-run according to the latest SS Trustees Report. Medicare and Medicaid spending will be 15% of GDP by 2040 according to the CEA health care report.
SS, Medicare and Medicaid alone will make up 21% of GDP thirty years from now. During the Bush years, the government’s tax revenues were about 17% of GDP.
The moral of the story here is that if you don’t want higher taxes, you need enthusiasts and activists who (unlike the Tea Partiers) present responsible and realistic proposals to curb the growth of entitlement spending and, yes, military spending also.
Otherwise, quit complaining about higher taxes. As Milton Friedman once pointed out, to spend is to tax and the status quo right now has spending sharply increasing over the next few decades.
July 28th, 2010 | 2:23 pm
I made this comment to Matt Anderson who quoted your post and he suggested I post my comment here also:
I mostly agree and understand, but I disagree with your assessment of who “joins” the TEA party movement, at least your description of them, or at least of me…I have absolutely NO desire at activism, do not find it fun, went to a rally with little fervor only a mild interest in what they were doing. Still don’t have and haven’t gained any enjoyment of activism or even for that matter political involvement besides voting. I just hate the direction this current regime has taken us and the end of the Bush years as well (though the blame falls mainly on the Democrat/liberal/progressive control of the Legislature, Bush had the veto pen and refused to use it.) The problem I see is that if we fail to be “We the People” in any way whatsoever, the activists and especially the progressives that currently dominate politics will totally destroy this country and no amount of wet blanket or tea party or anything will prevent it or fix it after it is destroyed. It has only been due to the influence/information/research done by Glen Beck that I have become aware of the genius of Calvin Coolidge and the evil of Woodrow Wilson and the progressive movement in general. I knew nothing from the education system or the general media regarding that time period other than what they wanted me to know, and I have not done research on my own into that either before now.
July 29th, 2010 | 6:01 am
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