True Colors, Shining Through: Dick Armey Isn't Very Bright

You might have noticed by now that I don't have a great deal of respect for the Tea Party movement. Anyone fluent in American history will tell you that riding a wave of populist anger is a good way to achieve national prominence, but it almost never wins national elections. This is evidenced by the fact that the only truly populist president, Andrew Jackson, was elected in 1828. There have been any number of populist nominees, but none were elected.

Infiltrating and overthrowing a party's power structure through the primary system is one thing - and not a particularly different thing to do - but using that structure to win actual elections is quite another. Barry Goldwater's enthusiasts took over the Republican party without breaking a sweat between 1961 and '64 ... and got destroyed by Lyndon Johnson in the general, winning only seven states.

I don't believe the Tea Partiers believe or even know much of anything. If they really were interested in taking down the much-dreaded "special interests", they might consider repealing sections 501(c)(4) and 527 of the Internal Revenue Code, which allows for political participation without paying taxes by non-charitable groups. They would also support a ban on lobbying by former members of Congress and their staffers.

Nor do I think that the Tea Party is particularly serious about the economy, the deficit or the debt. Sure, they make the right noises about those things, but they lack anything that be described as specificity. Worse, they exclude such wide swaths of the budget untouched - Social Security, Medicare and defense - that there's little left to cut or reform. Indeed, if they ever achieve a governing majority, they'll be tied down by their own campaign rhetoric.

Having said that, I will give them great political credit for focusing almost exclusively, although only in the most superficial way, on the economy. Their leadership knows that it is not just the winning issue of this cycle, it's the only issue.

An exclusively economic platform also helps the movement escape the trap of social issues, which have a long history of dividing conservatives. Fiscal and foreign policy conservatives have long feared and distrusted the Christian Right, and the country as a whole never embraced their views. Economic populism also has the potential to bring disaffected conservative Democrats into the movement that abortion and gay marriage doesn't.

Earlier this summer Indiana governor Mitch Daniels, the only potential Republican presidential candidate that I don't find myself laughing out loud at, called for a "truce" on social issues. Unifying the conservative movement around core principles that are universally agreed upon isn't just smart politics, it's a great governing strategy.

Of course, Dick Armey - the former House majority leader, lobbyist and denizen of the 501(c)(4) and 527, FeedomWorks; which is primarily responsible for the Tea Party movement - is having none of it.

"Tea party" advocate Dick Armey, chairman of Freedom Works, says that if Republicans take control of Congress in November’s elections, changing policies on social issues like abortion will be on their agenda.

(...)

When asked Monday at a Monitor-sponsored breakfast for reporters about the possibility of a truce on social issues going into the presidential campaign, Mr. Armey said, “A truce? No. These are issues of the heart. People are not going to turn their hearts and minds away from things that they have so heartfelt.”

Armey, who served as House majority leader, added, “the fact of the matter is there is sort of a question of first things first priorities. If we lose this nation, if it falls into insolvency, then all of these issues pretty well fall by the wayside too, don’t they. So i think there is a setting of priorities.”

He specifically referred to the abortion issue. “Since President Obama has been elected, there has been extraordinarily high levels of funding for international abortions through what is called the Mexico City language. That fight hasn’t been had for a few years. Now that fight will be had with this majority," he said, referring to his stated expectation that Republicans will win control of the House, and perhaps the Senate. He added, “these issues are too important to be left behind and they won’t be left behind.”

For a guy who seems to taking a large majority for granted, Armey doesn't seem to be very serious about winning one. I can't think of another reason why he'd give the Democrats a gift like this, let alone introduce wedge issues within his own movement.

Here's a short history of abortion and the GOP. When Roe v. Wade was decided in February of 1973, the Republican party universally ignored it. I'm not sure that presidents Nixon or Ford mentioned it at all, and Ronald Reagan's 1976 primary challenge focused almost entirely on foreign policy. In fact, as governor of California, Reagan signed America's most liberal abortion law at the time.

Abortion only became a controlling issue in conservative politics in 1980, where it stayed until about 2000. Even during the Reagan and first Bush presidencies and the Republican-era in Congress (1995-2007), there was a great deal of rhetoric about abortion, but virtually no action. This is because the national consensus was on the other side, and everyone but the activist base of the GOP knew it.

After the 2000 election and the Florida recount, abortion largely disappeared as a national issue, having been largely replaced by the growing gay rights movement. Since 2004 conservative support for things like gay marriage and a repeal of the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy has grown far faster than almost anyone could have predicted.

So why bring back the ghost of the singularly ineffective abortion wars of the 1980s and '90s, and why introduce into an economic populist movement that has heretofore been silent on social issues that can only divide it?

Long story short, Dick Armey doesn't know very much about history or politics. The rap on him in the House was that he was little more than a tool of Tom DeLay's, much like Dennis Hastert was after Newt Gingrich was successfully thrown out of politics in 1999. If you really want an idea of what a loathsome individual and sleazy operator Armey is, I highly recommenced reading the last few chapters of Joe Scarborough's first book, Rome Wasn't Burnt In A Day. Scarborough was one of the only conservatives to speak out against the 2001-'06 Bush spending spree that Armey couldn't wait to vote for. Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly and Mark Levin didn't.

According to his Wikipedia page, Armey had no shortage of problems with James Dobson and Focus on the Family when he was majority leader, with Dobson going so far as to call him "a consultant to the ACLU."

Well, the economic focus of the Tea Party movement frees Armey from Dobson's nonsense. Social conservatives are currently in the weakest position they've been in since 1976. Worse, if Armey gets the Tea Party involved in a socially conservative crusade, it's membership, and therefore it's power, will inevitably shrink, if not fracture entirely.

Part of the Tea Party's charm is that they are outsiders and political amateurs who proved to be remarkably skilled in taking out Republican incumbents in the primaries. But if they think that they're going to be a sustainable force in American politics, they are going to have to separate themselves from the personal political machinations of Dick Armey and the corporate agenda of FreedomWorks.

If they don't, they will ultimately be nothing more than an extension of the Republican era of 2001-'06, which did more to discredit conservatism than any liberal, let alone Barack Obama, ever could.