This morning, a breach in the space-time continuum opened in my office (Don't you just hate when that happens?) and I suddenly began to hear what was apparently a PoliSci 101 class at some American university from the year 2050. I rushed to my keyboard and hastily transcribed the following discussion, which seemed to be about our current campaign season.
"...cliche about snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. We've studied some classic examples of this, but the national elections from forty years ago in 2010 provide an excellent case study involving the old Republican Party and a fringe element within it called the "Tea Party." From what we can tell from archived news and opinion sources, this "Tea Party" began as a legitimate populist protest movement, but almost immediately was co-opted by powerful, moneyed right wing interests from the media and business communities, along with some out-of-favor politicians. Those groups and individuals apparently saw an opportunity to leverage this resurgent populism as a means of opposing and unseating the incumbent elected Democrats, who were perceived as vulnerable, given the lingering economic crisis that (ironically enough) had arisen from policies and practices of those same right-wingers. A unified effort by Republicans in Congress to stymie legislation and appointments helped the cause as well.
The strategy appeared initially likely to succeed. Incumbent Democrats were almost universally losing in "If the election were held today" polls, and an "enthusiasm gap" was frequently observed between the energized "Tea Partiers" versus Democrats frustrated with what they felt was a lack of progress on core agenda issues. The Republican leadership made some tentative moves to reach out to Tea Party organizers, apparently looking for common cause, and Tea Party events (while drawing some public criticism for their apparent appeal to racists and other hatemongers among their attendees) got both large crowds and media coverage throughout the United States. The groundswell was often compared to the 1994 mid-term elections which swept Republicans into power in Congress.
With the start of primary season, however, it all began to fall apart for the Republicans and their alleged allies in the Tea Party. First, a number of mainstream Republican senatorial candidates in states like Alaska, Nevada and Delaware, who had been expected to cruise to easy victories over Democratic challengers in the November general election, were opposed and then defeated in primaries by self-proclaimed Tea Party candidates whose extremist views, demonstrated ignorance on key issues and sheer eccentricity immediately boosted the prospects of their Democratic opponents. Consider that nominee Christine O'Donnell in Delaware had previously been a leader of an anti-masturbation group, and had described herself on a national political television program as having tried "witchcraft," forcing her to produce an official campaign advertisement beginning, "I'm not a witch." On the state level as well, Tea Party candidates defeated more mainstream Republicans and put elections into greater jeopardy. Consider Carl Paladino, a local businessperson known for sending pornographic and racist e-mails, who won the Republican nomination for governor, and continued to make and retract incendiary and bigoted public statements almost daily that cost him the support even of his most likely backers.
While these extreme, unqualified candidates were winning primaries but then losing ground among the general electorate, the arrogance of the wealthy corporatists who had tried to use the Tea Party for their own purposes started showing through, further weakening the election chances of Republicans. West Virginians were outraged to discover that a national Republican senatorial campaign committee had described them as "hicky" in a campaign commercial audition call, and the allegedly populist, reformist message of the Tea Party was undermined by the discovery that it was being promoted by literally hundreds of millions of dollars worth of issue ads paid for by shadowy special interest groups taking huge contributions from undisclosed entities, who might even have been foreign governments. The "men behind the curtain" funding the Tea Party turned out to be millionaires and billionaires, hardly the "everyday people" whose cause they supposedly represented.
Even given these serious missteps and problems, though, the Republicans could still have squeaked by with sufficient victories to win control of both houses of Congress, were it not for the strong resurgence in election interest among progressives. Democrats who might have been somewhat dissatisfied, and dispirited, by what they perceived as the failures of their own party, and who were not feeling drawn to the polls to support its candidates, were pushed to the polls and to donate money to Democratic campaigns by the revulsion and fear they felt at the prospect that these Tea Party and corporatist candidates could win instead. On Election Day, it was that re-energized Democratic base that completed the turnaround, and ensured that for once, it would be the Republicans who snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.
Any questions?...Yes, Ms. Peltin, it is astonishing from our modern perspective how such an anti-intellectual movement could gain national prominence, and how so many could be fooled for so long about the hidden role of corporations and the wealthy. To understand it, you may want to reread the section of your materials titled "The Rapid Rise and Final Fall of the House of Murdoch." Pay special attention to the discussion of the background to the false advertising and incitement charges...Any other questions? All right, then for next class, I want you to absorb the next chapter of the neural implant and be ready to discuss...."
Unfortunately, at that point, the rift closed, leaving behind only a scrap of metallic-looking fiber, possibly part of a garment, with the holographic slogan, "Grok the Vote." {ProfJonathan}