I've read many diaries about the poor, deluded Teabaggers, who are usually portrayed as poorly educated victims of a Fox-funded effort to galvanize the drunken and fanatical Republican Base. Such diaries tend to be derisive, obnoxious, and patronizing. They portray the Teabagging movement as strategically useless, describe the leaders of the movement as whackjobs, and paint the teabagger ideology as pure wingnuttery.
Don't get me wrong. I enjoy mocking Glenn Beck as much as any other Kossack, but there's a real political strategy behind teabagging, and diarists who write about the trend are missing the point pretty badly. Follow me over the fold to learn why Republican strategists are way ahead of most Democratic thinkers in understanding the future and planning for the next political cycle.
CONVENTIONAL WISDOM
Let's start with this obvious fact: Republicans did very poorly in our the recent elections. They've been described as a "rump" party with a stronghold in the Deep South, where racist dogwhistles and religious fanaticism rule our politics. It's easy to imagine Karl Rove's post-election memo:
"As pre-election polling suggested, we've lost everywhere but the Deep South, and even there, our successes were few and far between. Should the economy improve substantially, we'll lose this area of the country as well. While the pro-Jesus, anti-Tax message with coded references to Southern racism plays well in the south, we will need to substantially expand the reach of our message."
Conventional Democratic wisdom holds that Republicans have no other choice. The only remaining Repubicans are wingnuts, so appeasing them is the only strategy the GOP can successfully pursue. Republicans can't market themselves as the "sane" party – Democrats are much better at "sane" than Republicans, and worse yet, have co-opted every position that's remotely left of John Birch. Thus, the teabagging movement is a three-way shotgun wedding between the Black Helicopter crowd, Ron Paul fanatics, and the Religious Right, creating a sort of Republican Hippie, complete with protest signs, slogans, marches, and much consumption of a mind-altering substance called "beer." Fox's preachin-man Glenn Beck has sanctified this hellspawned marriage, with Chuck Norris as the demented best man – a born again Christian with fighting skills most militia types can only dream of.
This is Daily Kos's version of conventional wisdom. But it only holds true if Obama can get the economy moving quickly, and without any missteps. TARP II anyone?
KARL ROVE'S MEMO CONTINUED
Unfortunately for conventional wisdom, Karl Rove's imaginary memo continues:
"Despite the recent election, our prospects in the medium to long term are very good. Our intelligence states that Obama intends to appoint Tim Geithner and Larry Summers to high positions, and Bernanke's tenure will continue until early 2010. The presence of such advisors means that the Democratic crowd-pleaser of restoring regulation to the financial sector is unlikely to be part of Obama's tool kit. In addition, despite his promises to UAW members, we believe that Obama has no intention of saving Chrysler or GM from bankruptcy. In otherwise good economic times, this might lead to a stronger, more nimble auto industry, but under current conditions, it is a recipe for disaster."
Even if Obama makes the best possible decisions, we can expect the economy to continue getting worse for at least the next six months, with unemployment lagging until late 2010. Thus we should expect already high unemployment and underemployment to continue worsening through the next mid-term election. Because unemployment is substantially underreported, we can expect to see real unemployment of close to 20 percent by 2010 – and that's the best-case scenario."
"If just one of the automakers goes bankrupt, unemployment will be much worse, and many of the unemployed will be ex-auto workers with a grudge against the administration. States with heavy concentrations of both current auto workers and retirees include Michigan, Alabama, Ohio, Indiana, Missouri, Oregon, Illinois, North Carolina, Texas, and Minnesota. There are also large retiree populations in California, New York, and Pennsylvania who will be affected by an auto industry bankruptcy. These angry, financially distressed voters, recently betrayed by the Democratic Party, will be looking for leadership, and each unemployed worker will be positioned to influence the votes of friends and family members. People who lose their job in the coming years will be a massive block of swing voters in the next election, and we need to get ahead of this trend immediately."
Does teabagging look a little different now? Let's imagine an America which has undergone the worst-case economic scenario, a-la Bonddad's recent diary, plus bankruptcies by both Chrysler and GM. Beyond putting hundreds of thousands of GM and Chrysler employees out of work, this will destroy the companies which supply the auto industry – every little company which makes a special fastener that's only purchased by one line of GM vehicles will go out of business. In addition to the people who are directly hurt by the bankruptcies, we're looking at incredible damage to economic confidence, all of it easily blamed on Obama – and let's be real, the transition from "Obama's taking our guns," to "Obama took my job," is very short and easy. These
Add to this the coming commercial real-estate crisis, the coming credit card crisis, and a wave of further foreclosures as auto workers give up their homes, plus massive numbers of displaced people moving about the country looking for work, and you have a recipe for political disaster. The Republican teabagging movement, led by disaster capitalists, has already staked out this territory. Each teabagger who shows up on the news may as well be marked with a label saying, "Have a beer with this person if you're pissed."
In 2010, Teabaggers will be the GOPs shock troops. They'll be knocking on our doors, handing out flyers, working at the precinct offices, doing data entry, talking to friends in the unemployment lines, and holding rallies every Saturday, complete with signs that say, "Obama took my job." These people will be well-placed to demogogue our nations problems, blaming the usual suspects - Jews, Commies, immigrants, "welfare mothers" out-of-touch liberals, bankers, etc - and they'll happily recruit all the rust belt people right out from under the Democrats – and why shouldn't they? The Obama team is too busy paying off the banks and letting auto companies fail to pay attention to the next election.
And what are the liberal Democrats doing about the problem of pissed off, unemployed people who might get caught up in the worst-case economic scenario? Are we showing up on the news with a rally designed to attract the disenfranchised? Are we doing any grassroots organizing?
Nope.
I haven't yet seen a diary here on Daily Kos about how Democrats can use the coming economic issues to our advantage, (though this diary came close.)
To quote Karl Rove, "We need to get ahead of this trend."