Are the Democrats Trying to Lose in November?

I wrote last week on the Huffington Post about how the Tea Party has the potential to energize both the Republican base and the Democratic base this November. The movement is scary, not only from a xenophobic standpoint but also a policy one (or lack of policy), and the prospect of someone like Christine O'Donnell walking the halls of Congress just might be enough to get Democrats out to vote Democratic in an election cycle when, in all honesty, Democrats have not proven themselves worthy of our votes.

New York Governor Race Already Ridiculously Negative

I shouldn't be surprised; this is, after all, a coveted position in Albany. I should have expected the candidates to turn to low-brow tactics that assume the voter is an idiot and will only pay attention to photoshopped images of their opponent, be him in the shower or with a pig body eating at the "public trough." Maybe I did expect it, just not at this early stage in the general election campaigning.

November Election Prospects Forecast Grim Future for Climate

There's no question that Democrats will lose seats in both the Senate and the House of Representatives in November. The question is how many. Current projections show the Republicans taking control of the House as well as the possibility of their capture of the Senate. Americans are upset that the economy has not improved under two years of Democratic leadership in both the Legislative and Executive branches, and primary elections are indicating a widespread movement to oust incumbents. Even incumbent Republican Senators like Bob Bennett (R-UT) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) have been unseated by Tea Party contenders in their primary elections.

Are Tea Party Victories Good for Democrats?

Given last night's primary wins by Tea Party candidates, many have pointed to shifting tides in the electorate and the downfall of Democratic "dominance" in the legislature. I'll be the first to say that Democrats have lacked serious leadership and have been wracked with communication issues, leading to popular dissension. The Republicans now face the same dilemma.

Beck Belies Founders, Tries to Reintegrate Church with State

Last Saturday, thousands of conservative, self-professed members of the "Tea Party" converged on the National Mall to attend a rally organized by Fox News pundit Glenn Beck. It was dubbed the Restoring Honor rally, and was allegedly an apolitical gathering--a tribute to our men and women in the armed forces and, perhaps unexpectedly to some, a call for religious revival in the United States.

I must admit, I didn't attend the rally at all (though I did get to hang out with scores of Tea Partiers who were checking out the human evolution exhibit at the taxpayer-funded American Museum of Natural History later that day). Many Beck supporters reportedly camped out along the reflecting pool to secure a good spot for the event, and I just didn't have the heart to show that kind of commitment. But in hearing and reading about the rally in the days after, I'm left feeling very perplexed about the whole thing.

Oklahoma City Remembered

Fifteen years ago today, domestic terrorists bombed the Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people, including 19 children under the age of six. Timothy McVeigh, who personally carried out the bombing, was a sympathizer of the Militia movement who wanted to exact revenge on the federal government for the Waco Siege, an attempt by the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms to search the Branch Davidian ranch for illegal firearms.

The Oklahoma City Bombing was the most murderous and destructive act of terrorism in the U.S. prior to the September 11th attacks. Now, fifteen years later, we find our country in a frighteningly similar situation, with regard to right-wing fury over both gun rights and the size of government.

Attending a Tea Party Rally on Tax Day

On Thursday the grand finale of the "Tea Party Express," as they've been calling it, held a demonstration in Washington, DC, ostensibly protesting taxes, big government, and excess spending, but also evoking some other, rather unrelated issues. I only had time to stay for a few minutes, but I got to talk to a few people and take some pictures. I think I was there at a bad time, because I just saw a guy doing a bizarre stand-up routine that had very little to do with the rally, and the people I was around seemed pretty bewildered by it, though they all broke into wild applause when he ended with "So are we gonna vote these guys out of office?!" and made a reference implying assassinating our incumbents that related to a joke about Lincoln he'd told a few minutes earlier. Here are some photos:

Happy April Fools' Day!

To honor this unofficial holiday I was going to write a post praising Palin and the Tea Partiers, ending it with "April Fools!" However, trying to come up with a post that sounded realistic and not over-the-top ridiculous proved to be an impossible task. So instead, I wanted to focus on Palin and the Tea Partiers in two humorous ways (is there any other way?).

More Conservative Politicization of Teaching

In a horrifying follow-up to my last post, evangelical conservatives in positions of power have once again breached the barrier between government and education. According to the Times, seven fundamentalist right-wingers on the Texas Board of Education have added a slew of changes to the state's textbook curriculum, including amendments to pedagogy on government, history, and sociology.

Unsurprisingly, as we find ourselves in a hyperpartisan political atmosphere countrywide, government officials have actually summoned the audacity to make changes to educational standards that shine capitalism, small government, conservative values, and the conflation of government and religion, in a more positive light. They hide their reprehensible political agenda behind the often repeated (by right-wingers with a political agenda) notion that American education is "skewed toward the left."



In a similar vein, Tucker Carlson recently attacked American colleges and universities on Fox News as bastions of biased liberal thought. His analysis of the report to which the segment refers is fallacious, and the entire clip is essentially just conservatives feeding off each other's contempt for liberalism. These strategies of claiming bias in places where bias does not exist in order to bolster one's own political agenda are sinister, but they are also clever and will likely prove effective in the long run.

The "tea party" movement is not only a backlash against hyperbolic visions of big government takeovers; ironically, it has manifested itself as a big government takeover of its own, trying to use political power to instill certain political values in Americans from an early age. When party-line democratic votes like the one in Texas are able to fundamentally change the way children view history, we must take a step back and question the efficacy of our system of government and our intellectual freedoms. Once government begins to tweak the way history is taught, where do we draw the line between our free democracy and propaganda-riddled, freedom-constrained governments such as China's?

Saturday's "Tea Party" Rally

I just watched this video. Let me just say that I realize and appreciate that not everyone who came to the DC rally on Saturday is comparable intellectually to the people portrayed in this video. I also realize that there are many ineloquent, uninformed people who espouse liberal values and opinions and they can be, and often are, embarrassed on camera in the same way.

However, I am also a resident of DC and passed by many of the protesters on the day before and the day of the rally, and I had the opportunity to overhear quite a few conversations. My own small sample reflected the same statistics of those who were shot in this video. In other words, the people who actually showed up for this rally were, in large part, uneducated, uninformed people who watch Glenn Beck, feed off each other's anger, and don't seek to understand the intricacies—or even the realities—of the issues that they so passionately speak out on.

Should these people lack the right to protest or be heard? Of course not. The First Amendment is one of the greatest things about this country, and the fact that these people have such a loud voice is a testament to its strength. However, I will argue that these people should not be able to influence policy the way they seem to be right now.

I am not saying that uneducated people are less important than educated people. In fact, it is my hope that they or their children will get the same kind of education that all Americans should be entitled to as a fundamental right (though that might require the government to play a role...). I am saying, though, that we are a republic for a reason. We elect representatives to represent the people, and for the most part, those representatives are intelligent and well-informed. And they have intelligent, well-informed staffs who assist them in crafting policies and voting on complex and intricate pieces of legislation. When uninformed people raise racist, belligerent, hateful signs and get great press coverage and the praise of some of our most powerful leaders, a disservice is being done to the truth and to reality.

Sure, there are a lot of liberals at health care rallies around the country who don't really understand the details of any of the health care proposals in Congress right now. But their main goal in supporting the change is to provide health care to those who don't have it, and give people more options in receiving care. What are the teabaggers' main goals, when you really get down to the crux of their anger? To not be taxed so much? Because I'm pretty sure our country isn't actually at risk of turning fascist-socialist. Incidentally, I invite members of the "Tea Party" to explain to me how that would work.

P.S. My favorite sign is the one that says "More Czars than the USSR." I guess this is what happens to people when they get pulled out of school so the President can't indoctrinate them with his socialist back-to-school speech.

Images: Protesters at Saturday's rally (Fox News)