Getting the Tea Bagger GOP Argument Right

E.J. Dionne hits on something today in WaPo that I've devoted a lot of time to here at The Fold Blog. And again, I think he too is missing the boat.

Trying to explain the blathering fury emanating from tea baggers, Dionne correctly and historically labels them as anti-statists. He also writes:

Understanding the principled anti-government radicalism that animates this movement explains why its partisans see the conservative Bush as a sellout and the cautiously liberal Obama as a socialist. For now, their fears of Obama are enough to tether the Tea Partiers to the GOP

True enough, glad we can still logically discuss political ideology after the last year of Republican idiocy. But what's the point? It's a one-sided conversation. Republicans are busy talking about socialist takeovers, birth certificates, literacy tests, death panels and islamoterroristliberalsocialistfascists, amongst other conspiracy theories.

Progressives and liberals, Democrats and left leaning independents can aim for logical and accurate discussions all day long but no one else is listening. Certainly not the MSM, mostly because modern media is geared toward flashy new buzz words, 30-second sound bites, and tabloid gossip. Why worry about trying to properly define tea baggers? There's no point.

There's no sense in making this a graduate lecture on how technically speaking it's this or that. It's much simpler than any of that. The true definition of tea baggers and their movement is GOP. They are Republicans, no doubt about it. What they are-- and I can't stress this enough-- are people who voted for George Bush twice that are mad their party isn't in power any more. That's it. It's that simple.

Dionne, and many in the media are getting this wrong. Bush isn't a "sellout." He's the leader of their movement. He is the guy they voted for twice. There was not one single tea bagger in the street protesting anything he did. He grew government enormously, ran up a $1.3 trillion deficit and instituted 8 government taxpayer-funded bailouts of private industry. He did more to centralize and socialize this country than any president in history, especially in terms of interfering in the private sector. And not one single tea bagger ever called him a socialist or held up fancy buzzword signs about Big Government. Why? Because Bush is Republican and so are the Tea Baggers. There's no reason to make this any more difficult than it needs to be.