Tea Party is Mainstream

Former history professor turned Tribune "reporter" Ron Grossman amuses himself with his offensive and inaccurate characterization of adherents to the tea party movement.

The genesis of the tea party movement was outrage at the piggish excess of the (failed) stimulus bill, piled on to the bailouts of the financial industry (some of which was certainly necessary to keep liquidity in the system, much of it was not--here's looking at you Dems) and the auto industry (read allowing for union members to retire in their 50's with fat benefits on our dime). Oh, and a spending bill that was stuffed with thousands of earmarks. There is nothing fringe about this angst.

Most who consider themselves tea partiers, and I count myself among them, are not looking to form a third party, rather to force both parties to tackle the unsustainable entitlement spending that will soon overwhelm us with the wave of Boomer retirements. Assuming we can afford to retire. Independents and small government conservatives comprise a large part of the tea partiers who turned out in unprecedented numbers to townhalls and peopled the National Mall last fall.

Mr. Grossman is apparently an admirer of FDR, who put into place of lot of these unaffordable entitlements that torment us now. FDR did win in a landslide or two. But so did Ronald Reagan. I think that is the more apt history lesson these days. This Grossman characterization of an anti-FDR lament has resonance today: "Get the bureaucrats, the plutocrats and the party hacks off our backs." And so does President Reagan's first inaugural address:

Now, so there will be no misunderstanding, it's not my intention to do away with government. It is rather to make it work--work with us, not over us; to stand by our side, not ride on our back. Government can and must provide opportunity, not smother it; foster productivity, not stifle it.

The Tea Party movement is broad-based and hearkens back to the time of the founding fathers. You know, when we had the first Boston Tea Party against taxation without representation. We draw on de Tocqueville, not Alinsky. We respect the American Constitution. Who is the real political malcontent "with personal grudges to air", Professor Grossman?

As far as anti-Semites, they reside in large and virulent numbers on the left.