I had one last show to do before I went on a hiatus for a few weeks thanks to some family time and other obligations. So on Friday I stepped into the ring of a show called “Ringside Politics” with host Jeff Crouere on WGSO-AM in New Orleans. (They podcast the whole show, I come in about the 3:02 mark.)
It’s actually a gig I’d been seeking for awhile, but there were a few roadblocks placed in the way: I let them get through a hurricane, sent him a copy of the book to review, and finally got him to agree to a spot on the last day I was going to do shows before I took the time away. It’s interesting because I think years ago I was on Jeff’s mailing list but somehow we lost touch.
Anyway, the one issue I had initially was originally I was slated to be on at 9:00 a.m. his time. A few days beforehand, Jeff contacted me and asked if we could push it back a half hour, which was no problem with me.
But when it came to the appointed time, my phone was silent. So I went online and checked the station only to find he was talking to another caller. After going “hmmmmm…” I texted him to ask if I was bumped; a half-hour later I got a call from the station asking if I was ready to come on.
Thus, I was a little unprepared because I was also working on a project for work that had grabbed my attention again, but once I got back in the flow I thought I did okay. The biggest issue I had was where I rolled into a break before I was informed we were coming up on it; otherwise, I would have wrapped things up better. But it was a nice overview of the TEA Party and the frustrations that we had to endure.
I probably should have held my tongue on Bobby Jindal, though. It was really intended as a passing remark, but Jeff took it and ran with it. Live and learn.
So now I’m on a radio hiatus for a little while, for reasons I will further explain in a few weeks. There are two to three outlets which are still interested in speaking to me once the fall comes so we’ll see how pursuing them goes.
First of all, it was a return of sorts to my hometown, on the very station which defined its local conservative radio, WSPD.
Secondly, I had some invaluable help in arranging this one since my friend Bob Densic was the intermediary between myself and their morning host, Fred LeFebvre. Bob put the wheel in motion and I grabbed on for dear life. It was definitely not the longest segment I’ve ever done, but it was the one which most reminded me of my old days doing spots live on the radio here, back when WICO-AM was at 1320 and a talk station. Perhaps it was a little detrimental because Fred and I talked over each other several times, but it was fun for me.
And a third reason was the comment from Bob afterward:
You hit on a point that was a major dividing line with our area Tea Party groups. After the second Obama election we regrouped to discuss what went wrong. We had so much success with the 2010 election. Many of our group wanted to redouble our election efforts…. Focusing on finding and promoting candidates. Myself (Back to Basics) and the leaders of a few other groups wanted to shift focus to educational and outreach programs…. Trying to win the hearts and minds of our fellow citizens.
Many Founders warned that our republic could only survive if the people were moral and well educated. I wonder if those from many, many years ago who took our education away from the churches truly had this long term plan in mind. Now we have a system with millions of “useful lemmings” eager to do the bidding of “the system” without truly knowing the overall goals.
We will not win this battle in the halls of Congress, in the State Houses or even our local city hall and school board. We win this battle over the backyard fence, at the water cooler and the dinner table.
God bless you brother!
E-mail from Bob Densic, 8/2/19.
As I went through doing the book, the parallel realization I had with how the TEA Party elected Donald Trump was about how corporate the larger groups trading on the TEA Party name became. Obviously the TEA Party Express was about political candidates from the start, while TEA Party Patriots tried to keep a neutral facade for a few years, but there were countless organizations who would pass their collection plates to the people who made up the TEA Party, including the “scam PACs” I devote a couple pages to in the book. (Look in the chapter “The TEA Party Is Dead.”)
If you check back to the early, early days of the modern conservative movement, you’ll notice that most of its movers and shakers were also thinkers: William F. Buckley was a good example of this. Certainly National Review was created as a means to change hearts and minds, as it was not a moneymaker according to Buckley. Yet the TEA Party tried a different approach: to change the political players by constant fundraising, which only served to disillusion the rank-and-file when nothing really changed (except the bank balances of those who were running the scams.)
Thus, having said what he did and knowing his background, I pressed Bob on another subject I brought up in my book: the belief that governing was really the hard part for the TEA Party. (This is very lightly edited for a few typos and misspellings.)
Let me separate that into two parts. First, the act of governing with conservative principles is not a challenge. It does take twisting the norm on its head a bit. Rather than focus on what “special request” or project someone may ask for, I try to look at a larger perspective of what challenges are rooted in our government that prevent the project or issue being quickly or efficiently solved. It’s a bit like being the 7-Up of politicians…. I am the “un-candidate”. What can I info to make this work.
The second part involves working within the bureaucracy. Government by design, or at least Legislative action is to be slow, deliberative and transparent. It is very frustrating on both extremes to have to go through committees and multiple readings on certain issues, yet to see readings waived and emergency clauses attached to others.
The larger frustration is dealing with entrenched concepts of how government is to work. We are a very blue-collar, multi-year all town. “This is how we do this” is the most repeated phrase in all our municipal buildings. There is a lack of acceptance of economics impact of decisions. Our area has the highest property tax rate in the county along with some of the highest income tax rates. Yet the answer for every department is new equipment, new manpower, new money. The deep state exists at the local level. Lifetime bureaucrats will do everything (or nothing through a pocket veto) to keep the status quo. In our town as with many others it is more about who you know rather than what you know.
One major plus of being an elected official, it has provided a larger soapbox to teach from. As I get the chance to talk about “the why” of my votes or actions, people get to hear a new perspective. Too often my past educational efforts through Back to Basics ended up as preaching to the choir. As a councilman I talk with people who would never take a Saturday morning or week night to learn about the Constitution. A bit like Paul, I can preach to my Roman captors.
Bob is actually a very good example of being accountable, as he regularly engages with his public on social media to explain the governmental process. But he points out yet another reason hearts and minds have to be changed in the proper manner before political fortunes improve: notice the emphasis on “it’s always been done this way” and political fiefdoms. (Fred brought up the same point: if you have certain last names in Toledo, you will most likely be a Democrat and almost become a shoo-in for elected office no matter the qualifications – or lack thereof. I’m sure they are on third-generation elected officials in the same family, just like here in Maryland: Ben Cardin got his first political seat when his uncle with the same name left it – now it belongs to Cardin’s nephew Jon Cardin. )
So this edition of radio days was more than just a radio show, but the process of keeping a kinship going. However, I do have another gig coming up on August 16 in the great state of Louisiana once again.
As most who are not under rocks or out of range of news broadcasts know, the last few days have featured two mass shootings, one in Ohio and one in Texas. But rather than focus on the victims, these incidents have become political footballs as each side of the political aisle tries to blame the other, at times darkly intoning that the history of these shooters is being whitewashed in order to make their side look bad.
Yet there is one fact that remains: the perpetrators (one of whom survived in Texas, the other being killed by police in Ohio) decided to take a weapon ordinarily reserved for self-defense and use it in an offensive manner, with a provocation that existed only in their twisted minds. (And note: when I say “weapon ordinarily reserved for self-defense” I mean guns as a class of weapon, not the specific type or caliber selected by these individuals.)
It goes without saying that those on the other political side from me will complain that “thoughts and prayers” are ineffective and the time has come for significant action, such as banning so-called “assault rifles” and “weapons of war” from our streets. Yet consider where these perpetrators chose to create their mayhem – it’s been reported that the one who was killed went on his rampage for less than a minute before being engaged by law enforcement and shot to death. On the other hand, the Texas assailant chose a “gun-free zone” and indeed, it’s apparent most respected that rule – the one who reportedly was carrying chose not to respond in kind for fear the police would believe he was the shooter, so he led others to safety.
I’m just not convinced more gun restrictions will be the answer because that cat’s long since been out of the bag. People won’t give up their guns without a fight, and that’s a fight few in law enforcement really wish to tangle with.
Sadly, I’m afraid the fix is not one that can be immediately implemented. for it’s a generational change that has less to do with weaponry and more to do with respect for life. It’s often been noted that rifles and shotguns were often brought to school a couple generations ago, although in those cases they were locked in a truck in the school parking lot because they were used for hunting. Let’s assume that was so, then ask why school shootings weren’t a weekly occurrence?
And it’s funny – the more we talk about anti-bullying policies and legislation in school, the worse these incidents seem to be becoming. Both shooters in these incidents were young men, under 25, so they’ve grown up in this era of low bullying tolerance and so-called peaceful conflict resolution, yet they struck back in this manner.
Maybe if we got back to the idea that life is sacred because there’s a higher power who commanded us not to kill, well, perhaps we will quit blaming the inanimate object. But that’s not coming anytime soon.
To prove that I’m in no real rush to break news, these radio spots occurred over a week ago. But seeing as the big push to secure interviews has slowed down to a manageable trickle – that and being busy with some actual, real life adulting-type stuff rather than my usual fun and games – it took me a little time to get to this wrapup, which will cover a total of four interviews I did during the week of July 15.
Unfortunately, the very first one I did doesn’t seem to be available on a podcast. It’s too bad because the introduction I had to this small-town Texas host was, “Would love to visit with you on the air…. and off!” Brownwood, Texas (a city of just under 20,000) is literally in the center of the state and would seem to have a very receptive audience. J.R. and Celinda were nice enough hosts, and they focused a lot of the conversation (as I recall it) on Donald Trump, which was fine. I just remember that it seemed I got to talk at some length and it went pretty quickly.
Nor have I had any luck with my second radio spot of the week, that of “Real Talk With Riggin.” I truly enjoyed speaking with Faune Riggin, and maybe that podcast is out there someplace, but it appears they only keep a rolling tally of the last 10 or so and that doesn’t cover last week anymore.
Faune was quite well-informed because I sent her a copy of the book (at her request.) And she sounded like she was someone definitely sympathetic to the TEA Party aims, so it was a nice conversation. I remember being pretty pleased with it at its conclusion.
On the other hand, my appearance that Friday was an experience I hadn’t come across before – discussing the book with someone left of center. But Dave Priest and I had a very good conversation, although in listening to it I noticed I have some odd fallback phrases, like per se. Hey, as long as I informed the fine folks of Myrtle Beach and got them interested in the book I suppose I’m doing my task. It was definitely an overview, but for 15 minutes I think I did a reasonable job. Because it was sent to me as an .mp3 file, the show is available from my book site.
Later on Friday I got to tape a segment for broadcast on the following day, which would have been back on the 20th. It’s a show called “Political Vibe” and it airs in the relatively rural area around Chambersburg, PA. (It’s interesting to note that many of my appearances have come in smaller communities, although I’ve also been in the “major league” city of Cincinnati as well as high-minor towns like Richmond, Fresno, and Wichita.)
That show was very enjoyable because, first of all, I got a couple long segments in – no squeezing in between traffic and weather – and second of all, it was hosted by people who had themselves marched with the TEA Party. (In that respect it was a lot like the show I did with Carol Ross.) We had a great conversation, and it was one of those where I sort of forgot I was being taped for later broadcast – except for how Michele did the segment intro. I even got to listen to it online because it was repeated twice on the same day at 11 a.m. and 11 p.m.
So it appears I am beginning to wind down the radio tour – I have a few more show prospects but I’m going to try and wrap up this leg by the middle of August, for several reasons. However, I have a very special show tomorrow (the 1st) at 7:30 a.m. because it will be in the city of my birth, Toledo, Ohio, and WSPD-AM – the station which introduced me to talk radio giants like Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and Sean Hannity, among others. I’ll be joining host Fred LeFebvre for a segment, which will probably be over before I know it!
Programming note: Even though tomorrow is the first Thursday of the month, the fact that it’s literally the 1st and the Shorebirds played a night game last night – well, we will do July’s Shorebirds of the Month on the 8th.
I also made another executive decision to push back the August Shorebirds of the Month to the second week in September because, should the Delmarva nine advance to the SAL Championship Series, there will be a Shorebird Position Player and Pitcher of the Month for September, too. (If not, I have to add in the stats for the few September games.) Barring rainouts, errant tropical weather, and so forth, that would assure the Shorebirds play at least 7 games in the month, with potential to play up to 10.
Back with bloggy goodness in bite-sized chunks of a couple sentences to a few paragraphs. Let’s see what the e-mail bag has in store.
A pro-life concern
Political e-mail is often chock full of hyperbole, but I found a recent e-mail from the folks at the Maryland Pro-Life Alliance PAC interesting – is there really a renewed pro-abortion push here? They call it a “political attack group,” a 501 (c)(4) which “will be able to take massive checks from outside Maryland starting from Day 1.” But I didn’t find any news story on the subject, which makes it sound like just so much hype.
To me, theirs is the kind of e-mail that sets back the cause. Don’t just tell me there’s an AP story, give me a link – for all I know this was three years ago. It’s bad enough that a group with less than $1,000 in the bank, and a group that didn’t spend a dime on candidates in the 2018 election, is asking for money to counter this phantom threat.
More bad news for Maryland business
The headline of a Maryland Public Policy Institute business climate study made it sound like businesses are becoming less optimistic about business conditions in the state overall, yet they remain relatively positive.
But buried in the remaining information was an interesting dichotomy between businesses along the I-95 corridor, where companies believing the state was business-friendly prevailed by a 49-16 average margin, and outstate companies which only deemed the state business-friendly by a 39-35 count. Given that the overall mark was 46-19, it’s apparent that the outstate entities were but a small portion of the survey – probably no more than 15%. However, that’s 100% of the issue here on Delmarva.
Add to this the war on plastic – which is in the process of having the good guys lose in Delaware – as well as the laughable job creation numbers proponents of the maglev boondoggle are touting, and we may have seen an economic peak on Delmarva until people with real sanity are placed back in government, at least in the view of the MPPI.
But their annual magnum opus is the Annapolis Report, which grades the Maryland General Assembly on its work for the session. If they were a college student, the MGA would be on academic probation.
The Democrats’ deplorable problem
For decades the prevailing belief was that Republicans were for the business man while Democrats were for the working man. In 2016, however, that philosophy was turned on its head as thousands and thousands of union workers ignored their Big Labor bosses who backed Hillary Clinton and pulled the lever for Donald Trump, enabling him to win in Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.
But, as David Catron recently argued in The American Spectator, the Democrats who think those voters are the key to 2020 victory are barking up the wrong tree. He contends:
(S)upporting Trump simply isn’t the done thing in polite society. To do so is to risk loss of social status – if not outright ostracism – and open conflict with friends or family. Trump supporters mislead pollsters or simply refuse to answer their questions pursuant to similar psychological and social incentives. All of which leads to a lot of confusion concerning who it is that supports President Trump and precisely why. This, in turn, renders it very difficult for round heel politicians like Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren to pander to “working class” voters they badly need to “win back” to the Democratic fold in the 2020 election cycle.
David Catron, “Why the Dems Will Never Win Back Trump Voters,” The American Spectator, June 24, 2019.
I’ve talked about this a couple times on the radio, and Catron makes the argument as well: I sensed this back in 2016, which is why I did “Bradley effect” updates on the Presidential race. If you believed the actual polls on a state-by-state basis, Hillary Clinton should have had upward of 300 electoral votes. But if you assume the polls underestimated Trump by five points, your blue map becomes a shade of pink that carries The Donald to victory. My last couple “Bradley effect” maps suggested a narrow Trump win so I wasn’t as shocked as I thought I might be when it really happened.
On another deplorable front, the pull of Big Labor doesn’t seem to be as strong as it used to be. I remember writing on this situation for The Patriot Post back in 2014, but even after another half-decade of trying the UAW still can’t get its hooks into an auto plant south of the Mason-Dixon line, failing again to unionize the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee. This latest update comes from my friends at the Capital Research Center.
More on the Presidential sweepstakes
I have a number of different items here.
Let’s start with Erick Erickson, who points out in a brief but conciseResurgent article that Joe Biden’s not a racist – it’s just proof of how far the Democrats have moved the Overton window on that subject.
And if you want bat-crap crazy Democrats, look no further than the Indivisible crowd.
After the recent Democrat debates, the Astroturf group polled its followers and found that their preferred candidates didn’t line up with the ones on top of the mainstream polls:
We asked Indivisibles to identify which candidates they are considering voting for and which they are definitely not. The results revealed that the historic candidacies of women, people of color and LGBTQ candidates are faring well among the movement and have plenty of room to grow as the field narrows. It also revealed that some of the presumed frontrunners may hit a ceiling with activists, given how many Indivisibles say they aren’t considering them at all.
Indivisible news release, July 2, 2019.
In other words, identity politics is alive and well. “(I)f the election were held today, 35% of people said they would vote for (Elizabeth) Warren and 31% selected (Kamala) Harris,” they said. Compare this to the Morning Consult poll from yesterday (July 16) where Warren and Harris combined for just 27% of the vote, a number that still trailed frontrunner Joe Biden. In fact, those “women, people of color, and LGBTQ candidates” only account for about 40% of the vote, trailing those white males in the top 2 slots and scattered among the rest.
I’m not going to sit and do the math, but I daresay that Indivisible isn’t much of a movement when the candidates 66% of their group support can’t even muster half that amount of support in a wider poll.
Who’s really gerrymandering?
This is a fascinating study from the CRC. While the Democrats contend that independent redistricting commissions will best address the issue of gerrymandering (which, of course, only became a problem after the TEA Party wave election of 2010, which got the break of getting to draw districts for this decade), this study suggests the hype from Democrats is overblown.
Two more states – but a bunch to go
If you’re a fan of the Constitution Party, the good news is that they kept ballot access in two states (Arkansas and North Carolina) and their goal is access in 35 states. Maryland will probably not be one of them because their 10,000 signature threshold is daunting for the two minor parties which generally qualify for the ballot, the Green Party and Libertarian Party, let alone a smaller entity such as the CP. In Delaware they need over double their number of registered voters by the end of 2019 to qualify, which seems unlikely unless a concerted effort to flip members of other minor parties occurs.
And last…
You may notice this is the day of Tawes, but there’s no pictorial.
After 13 or 14 years of going, I just lost interest in the event the last few years. And considering this is a pretty much dead year on the election calendar – no 2020 Senate election and not much going on in the Congressional realm – it was not worth taking a day off to go and overpay for food, a little bit of beer, and a crapton of diet Pepsi. Since I’m not an invited guest to the tents where the real action is, I’m happier being home.
To my friends who were there, I hope you had a good time. But it just isn’t that much fun for me anymore.
Last week was something I had never tried before, but The Rise and Fall of the TEA Party is creating conversation and interest. So I was on SIX different radio shows in six days, although they weren’t distributed equally: I had Monday and Thursday off but did three Friday.
The week began on Sunday night when I spoke to John Whitmer, who does a Sunday night show on KNSS-AM and FM in Wichita, Kansas.
Now that I’ve listened to it again, it wasn’t quite as bad as I thought it was initially. But there are days I write better than I talk and that was one. I felt like I had vapor lock a couple times, but those pauses that seemed like 10 seconds of dead air to me weren’t that bad. I did hit most of the points and John seemed patient enough – I didn’t know he had a guest right after me so maybe he was rushing through it too.
So, to say the least, I was really, really nervous about Tuesday’s show with Carol Ross and The Ross Report on KPEL-FM in Lafayette, Louisiana, particularly with Whitmer’s show fresh on my mind.
But for whatever reason, I got my mojo back in about two minutes with Carol and it was an outstanding pick-me-up. Maybe it’s because I knew she was prepared for the show: she had actually read my RAF website and the sample chapter, then bought the book. So she had questions about the book I could answer and we had a wonderful HOUR. (I was expecting more like two segments.) Of course, the ONE SHOW where they couldn’t get me a podcast was that one. Complete bummer, because we had a great conversation.
With that conversation out of the way, I felt much more at ease going into Wednesday’s talk with Gail Fallen and “Mornings with Gail” on KFKA-AM in Greeley. Colorado. And Gail was actually rather funny; as you can tell we had a lot of laughs. I come on at the 17:25 mark, although getting to listen to the whole hour meant I could get the promos too.
(Now about that train reference: I work within 40 yards of an active railroad siding. A train comes by, usually twice a day, and this one just so happened to be coming past and blaring its horn just as I went on air. I was sure they could hear it on the other end!)
One thing that impressed me about Gail is how she used the information with which I provided her. In doing this media blitz, I have created a press kit of sorts and she certainly reviewed it before I came on – and this was one of the more quickly-arranged stops on the tour. But I came off that one on a Rocky Mountain high because it was an enjoyable experience.
So I was still in a pretty good way come Friday, which I knew was going to be interesting as I piled three shows on top of one another. The latter two were scheduled just last week, but my first stop was on a station I remembered from my days at Miami University, 55KRC in Cincinnati. (More formally, WKRC-AM, but they have gone by 55KRC based on their 550 frequency for decades; even before the similarly-named sitcom WKRP in Cincinnati made its debut.)
After the hour I spent with Carol Ross a few days earlier, my chat with Brian Thomas was my best conversation of the week. It had good flow, I got most of my points across, and it was obvious he was nicely prepared – in fact, he links to my website from his website, too. This meant I didn’t need to spend precious moments pushing it myself. I think it was because Brian’s interview was planned well in advance – I seem to recall we set the date back in late June when I reached out to stations in the Midwest. (There’s another Ohio station I was supposed to be set up with, but somehow that’s fallen through for the moment.)
And I could relate very well to Brian’s embarrassment about John Kasich – how many of us have backed a candidate we swore up and down would be conservative because he or she talked the talk, only to find out their walk was a headlong run to embrace the Left?
Later that afternoon I returned to Wichita, Kansas to do a show called “The Voice of Reason” on KQAM-AM with host Andy Hooser. Whether fortunately or unfortunately, I can’t seem to find a podcast on it.
Unlike Brian’s, this was a spot which was arranged rather quickly – Andy reached out to me on Wednesday and originally wanted to do Thursday, but I like to have a couple days to prepare so Friday it was. Initially I thought Andy’s show was on a group of stations, but in looking deeper into it I found it’s just on the one in Wichita. (From what I gather it recently became a midday show, too, moving out of a morning slot.)
I think it was an okay performance on my part from what I recall, although I remember more of pacing around my back yard – with two dogs sleeping in the house and a plumber who had fortunately had finished up just before I started, my mind wasn’t completely on his show. For some reason I don’t get the comfort level at home that I do when I’m on radio shows from my workplace – aside from the random train it’s normally pretty quiet there and I know the boss is cool with it (I just stay late to make up the time.)
And that carried over to my last radio show on Friday, reaching across to the Left Coast to be on The Trevor Carey Show on KALZ-FM and KRZR-AM out of Fresno, California. (I come in around the 21:30 mark, after a lengthy discussion of immigration raids and such.)
It took me awhile to get my bearings with Trevor, but toward the end I thought I made several good points, especially the mission field comments. Trevor definitely has some good bumper music, too.
And I get the impression from the advertising and rhetorical style that Trevor is looking for a younger audience, which fits well with what I’m looking for, too. People of my generation aren’t going to make a lasting change as much as those of a younger age can be taught in the way they need to go.
So this was an unprecedented week, one which may not be repeated anytime soon: I still have a number of leads out there as well as one show slated for Tuesday, but this week was probably the peak of on-air encounters. I’ll keep plugging away to spread the word, though.
It took me about a week to get to this for a couple of reasons, with the most important being that I was hoping to stack this up with a second appearance I was working on – alas, through a series of misadventures and perhaps missed opportunities that stop of the Rise and Fall radio tour appears to have gone by the wayside, hopefully just for the time being.
The second appearance for the RAF tour came at a non-local station, WNTW-AM 820 and its repeaters, W249CI-FM 97.7 and W224EB-FM 92.7, out of Richmond, Virginia. So how did I get on a station like that? Well, let’s just say I’m doing a little bit of research and marketing and in that effort I came across a local host by the name of Craig Johnson, whose on-air persona is Brother Craig, the Hatchet Man. The show is called “The Really Real Deal.” It’s also simulcast on social media.
So why local hosts? I figure it’s easier to get on those shows in the medium and smaller markets, which is where a lot of my target audience lives. Would I like to be on Rush, Hannity, or Mark Levin? Yeah, but that’s not something a heretofore small-time author can realistically aspire to out of the gate. I figure I can start small like a ball player does, working my way through the minor leagues of local hosts before making my pitch to the major syndicated programs.
As I found in doing the research, this station is quite conservative in content and it appeared Brother Craig would be the most receptive host. So I sent him my elevator pitch and was on the air with him less than two weeks later.
To say the least, he has the confidence and bravado swagger of a Rush Limbaugh. He is also a snappy dresser – thank goodness this wasn’t on Skype because I was in my work clothes (business casual.) Since this is a Facebook video I’m not sure it will properly embed by itself but I think I got it to work:
If you don’t mind a lengthy Bible study Brother Craig goes into feel free to watch the whole thing; otherwise I come on about the 1:15:00 mark.
Now let me preface this by saying I didn’t listen to the previous day’s show, but one thing I was very disappointed by was the lack of promotion for me as a guest. I would hope he didn’t treat people like David Horowitz or Walter E. Williams (among the roster he claims as previous guests) that way. But the average listener had no idea I was coming on until I was put on coming out of the commercial segment. I’ll grant, though, that the date of my appearance was (unbeknownst to me until I visited his social media this week to find out if this show was up) was among his last at the station. (From what I’ve gathered, Brother Craig has a brokered program, meaning he pays for his time. Fortunately, I have also found he will soon have a new radio home in an even larger market.) So I’m sure I wasn’t foremost in mind – I just appreciate the opportunity.
As for the interview itself, I thought I did a reasonable job of explaining my book and its points, except I wanted to top off the statement about Doug Hoffman by noting the TEA Party’s shotgun marriage to the GOP began with the 2009-10 Scott Brown Senate campaign before I got a bit sidetracked by something Brother Craig said. It was interesting to note that he also spoke at his first TEA Party in 2009 as a longtime activist. Certainly I had enough time to make most of my points, since I was held over through the bottom-of-the-hour news (my segment began at 5:20 p.m.)
All in all, I thought I did a reasonable job of selling the book – yes, I could have done better and hopefully I will with the segments I have already scheduled – at least one and likely a second that should be nailed down this week. (On that one, I may see if I can do it after the holiday instead. Meanwhile, in the interim between when I first started this Saturday and now, I found out I have two more hot prospects!) The one I already have a date for is a return to one of my old stomping grounds so I look forward to it.
Finally, pinned to the top of my social media page for Rise and Fall is the video of my reading from last Saturday, in case you’re interested.
There’s been a lot piling up in my e-mail box as I prepared The Rise and Fall of the TEA Party, so now that I have that wrapped up I can move on to a few long-overdue things, like this one. As always, it’s things I can speak to in a couple sentences to a few paragraphs, wrapped up in a rhetorical bow.
On the Maryland front
I’ve received a number of items from my old friends at the Maryland Public Policy Institute but these few stuck out at me. First was Marta Mossburg’s assessment of our governor’s Presidential election chances:
If Gov. Larry Hogan decides to challenge Donald Trump for the presidency, he will lose before stepping into the ring.
A man who in the State of the State and at his second inauguration tried to out Roger Mr. Rogers with calls for bipartisanship has no chance outside the small neighborhood of Maryland. Anyone with an R beside their name is evil to those on the progressive left throughout the nation even if they never don a MAGA hat. And what in his record will speak to the national Republican base so loudly they would be willing to dump Mr. Trump for him?
“Maryland needs to win for Gov. Hogan to win higher office”, MPPI blog, February 5, 2019.
Not to mention we already have a socially-liberal #NeverTrump in the running for losing the GOP nomination. But the point remains: Donald Trump, for all his faults, is probably more conservative than Larry Hogan is. A conservative Larry Hogan would veto practically everything the Maryland General Assembly passes (instead of caving in to some of their worst proposals) because how often do they even consider his sponsored bills? Add to that the fact that Trump will actually campaign for conservatives (unlike what happened to a certain Maryland U.S. Senate candidate last time around) and the thought that Hogan would be wise to concentrate on Maryland makes more sense.
And if that wasn’t enough, MPPI scored big with their assessment of Maryland’s spending problem and long-standing alternatives to a job-killing $15 per hour minimum wage.
A fast-growing industry
Speaking of Governor Hogan and caving in: despite Maryland’s foolish refusal to get in on the game, extraction is the nation’s fastest-growing industry. But even Andy Harris has been reluctant to advocate for offshore drilling despite its potential benefits, as this op-ed suggests. As I often say, the reason environmentalists oppose seismic testing isn’t the harm to creatures but is truly that of what we may find is out there now that testing methods have improved over those of 30 years ago.
On the other hand, those trying to kill industry in the country are hard at work trying to fool people. Two cases in point come from the Capital Research Center, which posted a couple good pieces on union influence in politics these days in left-leaning states as well as the federal government. But if you really want to take the cake, just listen to what Slow Joe Biden said a few days ago:
It’s time we told the truth about what unions have really done for America.
With the dues they paid, the picket lines they walked, the negotiations they sweated through, those union workers weren’t just standing up for other union workers.
The rights they fought for benefited every American worker.
Minimum wage. Overtime pay. The 40-hour workweek. Safer working conditions. The elimination of child labor, for crying out loud. The list goes on and on.
This country wasn’t built by a few Wall Street bankers, CEOs, or hedge fund managers. It was built by the American middle class.
“It’s Time To Tell The Truth About Unions.” e-mail from American Possibilities.
Here’s a little more truth: I was often told by a relative – who was a union steward, for crying out loud – that “unions are for the lazy man.” When the incentives become perverse, like intentionally slow-walking a task so the productivity expectation remains artificially low, it’s apparent that unions provide a floor level of benefits but also create a ne plus ultra of accomplishment. The most productive and innovative have no place in a union.
Good news for the Constitution (party)
Did you know the Constitution Party has 110,000 registered voters around the country? It doesn’t seem like much but worth remembering is that not all states specifically allow registration to any party but the big two.
But I love the contributions being made by an unknown person who goes by the nom de plume “Digital Paul Revere.” In one statement, DPR said a lot about the type of person the Constitution Party should attract:
I am writing to you because I have witnessed firsthand the absolute horror of socialism. These essays are not newsletters. They aren’t meant to bring you recent Party news. They are long-form commentaries on current events happening in our country. They are viewpoints, seen through the lens of a Millennial American who has lived for a significant length of time under a true socialist dictatorship: China. These essays are meant as an olive branch to young Americans, frustrated by the perversion of the political process today, alienated by the major political parties, crushed under unimaginable debt with little hope of ever having the means to repay it, and “politically homeless”. They are also meant to give older generations of Americans a glimpse into the future that awaits your children and grandchildren, should you fail to act now.
In these essays, I hope to provide a point of view that will help fellow American patriots see the danger that our nation is in and call to action all who wish to see the situation improve. I can tell you with absolute conviction that many Americans do not know the extent to which socialism has corrupted our systems and institutions. I didn’t know either. It is only after having lived under true socialism that I can see the telltale signs of its growing influence on our country.
The Constitution Party also gained a couple more officeholders thanks to partisan switches – one from Republican and another from a conservative Democrat who was elected based on their votes in a North Carolina race. In looking up the results, though, I found this gentleman was an incumbent county commissioner who turned out to be a primary election loser that took advantage of the CP’s newly-won ballot access to avenge his primary loss. In most cases, “sore loser” laws would prevent this, so his victory comes with an asterisk, too. It’s tough to compete with the duopoly, though.
The Kochs of the Left
The penultimate piece before I go is a groundbreaking report from the Capital Research Center on a left-wing dark money entity called Arabella Advisors. If you ever wonder how these left-leaning “grassroots” groups suddenly pop up out of nowhere, this piece may help you to understand that it’s some serious Astroturf. And they had the nerve to call the TEA Party “Astroturf?” Sorry, I know some of the TEA Party founders and believe me, they are legit. If you’re still not convinced, read this.
Flogging the scamPAC horse
That’s not to say that the TEA Party didn’t eventually sell out, though. Call it flogging a dead horse, but the TEA Party Express is coming off like a scam PAC with an appeal that claims:
The recent polls coming out are showing President Trump behind many of the Democratic candidates. Now, as financial disclosures are due for the first quarter of the year, we see that these Democrats are raising unheard of millions of dollars – over $70 million and counting. So Trump is behind in both the polls and in the critical fight for financial resources to communicate with the American people.
We launched the “Tea Party for Trump” to get conservatives off the sidelines and back in the field to preserve the tremendous gains we have made over the last two years and achieve even more victories ahead in a second term of Trump-Pence.
“Fight back for Trump” e-mail from Sal Russo of the Tea Party Express.
There are no less than seven different linked appeals for donations.
Now I’m not sure if the TPX (as I called it for shorthand in my book) ever ran a bus tour for the 2018 midterms – if they did it was nowhere near my radar and I think I have a decently attuned one. But if Lloyd Marcus is to be believed they may get the band back together for Trump 2020. We will see.
Still. it’s a shame how far the TPX has fallen. Luckily my friend Mark Williams isn’t dead or he may be rolling in his grave about this one.
Now that I have pretty much cleaned out my e-mail, I think we can put odds and ends to bed for a few weeks.
Think of it as the first stop of a radio book tour. (Well, let’s hope anyway.)
It’s been a long, long time since I did a radio show (March of 2016 to be exact, thanks to my erstwhile cohort Marita Tedder) and even longer since it was live – for that I have to go back to 2013. That was a less-than-desirable experience because I was the lone conservative on a panel of four left-of-center guests.
In this case, though, I got a nice 20-minute segment that was only interrupted once by traffic and weather. And I got to hear how Mike Bradley did a great job of setting up the segment: since I called in a few minutes beforehand I got to hear the intro. It was also nice to hear that I was a wanted commodity – I guess I had to do something more or less newsworthy and releasing a book was just the thing. I certainly have no objection to being an occasional recurring guest.
Initially I thought it would be a little disarming to begin off topic given that Mike wanted my opinion on Joe Biden’s entry into the race, but it turned out to be pretty good – not just because I could break out the line, “if it weren’t for double standards, the Democrats would have no standards at all,” but because it established some of my bonafides to an audience that probably isn’t familiar with my generally Maryland-centric website. I’m sure it also worked with the station’s morning theme of following Fox and Friends as they broadcast from Rehoboth.
But I really liked getting to explain some of my thinking behind the book. I thought I did reasonably well with that, considering how my morning went.
If I can let you in on a secret: last night I sat down and wrote out a list of talking points about my book that I would use for these occasions. I printed it up, set it on the table with a quote I wanted to use if I got time – and realized halfway to work (since that’s where I called from) that I left it sitting on my table. So I was a little freaked out, but realized the act of writing it was enough to jog my memory in most of the cases. So I didn’t give perfect explanations, but I think I got the point across.
However, the one point I wish I had brought up and had more time for was soliciting and getting the input from the early TEA Party leaders like Mark Williams, Joan Fabiano, and others to use in Rise and Fall. I sort of missed my chance when I talked about the corporate TEA Party and the difference from the early days. If this becomes recurring I may bring it up, although I suspect Mike would be more interested in more topical input.
As a whole, though, I think I would give it a solid B. I was told Mike was a great interviewer (not that I hadn’t heard him do a fair number in the past when I commuted to Delaware for work) and they were right. Considering I was doing this off the cuff and was way out of practice it went really well and hopefully will pique the interest of people in Rise and Fall.
So I appreciate Mike Bradley and WGMD giving me the chance to speak and look forward to doing it some more. Maybe I can get back to the same routine I had with Bill Reddish a decade ago.
The sign said Andy Harris was welcome. But how would the crowd feel?
The last time I went to an Andy Harris town hall meeting, it was a time when “Indivisible” passions ran high and the “traveling roadshow” was out in force. One successful re-election for Harris later, the group on Monday was more subdued.
My spot of activity this week didn’t allow me to get to this right away, which wasn’t the worst thing in the world. I was sort of curious to see if any of his other stops would be controversial and it doesn’t appear they made a splash in the news cycle. And speaking of news cycle, this was a familiar sight.
WBOC wasn’t the only TV station at the event, but they were set up in the lobby when I walked in.
As a matter of fact, had I chose to I could have been on TV myself (on local rival WMDT) but I just didn’t feel like I could answer their questions. My thoughts and recollections are better suited for this space.
After doing it for almost a decade, perhaps Andy has figured this town hall thing out. First of all, you couldn’t help but admire his work in getting a local veteran named George Hornsby the medals and commendations he’d been owed for over fifty years.
Something else that was different (and better) was how the questions were selected. Rather than soliciting index cards for written questions for a moderator (and leaving himself open for the charge of not answering difficult questions) each person had a number given to them and when their number was drawn, they were given the opportunity to stand up and ask their question. In a little over an hour, we got to about 15 people that I wrote down.
And I thought the questions were nicely varied, which made them a little bit difficult to categorize. As a summary and not a blow-by-blow, I think I can take a bit of editorial license and group questions into more broad categories.
The first is a sort of “role of government” track. People had concerns about the direction of the House, and were asking what he could do to assist President Trump. There was a person concerned about robocalls, another who asked about sanctuary cities, and someone else who asked about the Kavanaugh confirmation.
Regarding the direction of the House, Harris just reminded us, “everybody has a vote” each two years. It’s the worst system – except for all the rest, he continued, conceding that the voters wanted divided government. “I try to represent the district,” he added, noting his belief he’s conveying the wishes of the majority of the First District.
Unfortunately, being in the House minority means there’s “not a whole lot” he can do to help Donald Trump, a President he agrees with “90 percent of the time.” One of those cases will be his vote to sustain President Trump’s veto of the rescission of his state of emergency. “My vote will sustain his veto,” said Harris.
One reason he cited was funding for border security. “As a nation you have to control your borders,” he said. Andy also alerted us to the 90% of our heroin that comes across the southern border, not to mention the amount of fentanyl – enough to kill 9 times the population of Maryland from one particular recent seizure – that we stop.
Eventually the conversation on the border led to a question on sanctuary cities, and whether we could cut their funding. Andy told the questioner there was no statutory authority to do so, but having sanctuary cities also “creates a lack of rule of law,” which was something we needed to get back to. I also learned how Andy would handle the DREAMer situation: a “legal pathway” with permanent residency status but no citizenship unless they returned to their home country to start the process there.
All that made the concern about robocalls, which was a concern he agreed with – and even spoke to the committee chair regarding it – rather mundane. It also has an international aspect to it since most originate in foreign countries but spoof domestic numbers.
Harris also agreed the Kavanaugh confirmation was “a spectacle,” although as a member of the House he was but an observer like the rest of us. “In the end, I think the American system worked,” he added.
In a sort of peripheral way, those couple people who were concerned about environmental issues were looking at the government for help, too. One was concerned about garbage, which is a problem in, of all places, the middle of the Pacific. In that case, one of the issues was that China no longer takes our garbage. The reason? We are dirty recyclers: oftentimes the leftover products originally encased within the plastic containers are still present in enough quantity to make recycling less cost-effective. Perhaps a solution is in “waste-to-energy” or chemical recycling.
Their other concern was Bay funding, which President Trump’s budget cut from $73 million to $7 million. The Maryland delegation is working to at worst level-fund it, although if there is a continuing resolution the spending would continue as before, too.
Here Andy brought up one area where he and I part ways: stating that offshore drilling needs the permission of the state, Harris stated his opposition to not only offshore drilling, but offshore testing as well. That is a short-sighted approach, but I think opponents like him are afraid that there’s a vast supply of black gold or natural gas out there. I’m not sure why that’s something to fear, but why not do the testing anyway to verify one way or the other?
A lot of people had guns on their minds. There are “too many guns in this country,” said one questioner. But we have the Second Amendment, which makes us unique among nations.
And guns aren’t necessarily the problem, said Andy. We’re not dealing adequately with the issue in several respects:
The celebration of violence in video games, which was even something President Obama spoke about.
The lack of control of gangs and drugs. Are laws as enforced as they should be?
A decrease in religious observance, which you could also consider a lack of morals if you prefer. (My words, not his.)
And while Baltimore “went after their police force,” they are “allowing young lives to be destroyed” there. And as an homage to Captain Obvious, Harris said “we will never disarm non-law-abiding citizens.”
He had some unkind words about Maryland, too, noting that while the state has universal background checks, they are one of the worst states at reporting mental health issues to the federal government for those checks. Don’t do more gun laws if you’re not enforcing the ones you have, he said: for example, out of the thousands who knowingly stated falsely they didn’t commit a crime – thereby committing perjury on a federal form – only ten of those cases were prosecuted because former AG Eric Holder didn’t make it a priority.
Andy’s opposition certainly had its say, although to their credit they were reasonably non-disruptive. The only exception was a case where two people objected to Andy’s reticence to commit to an hour-long face-to-face meeting with that constituent who disagreed with Andy’s stance against Obamacare. The tension got thick when Andy was accused of anti-Semitism for meeting with a “Holocaust denier” as well as chastised for a visit to Hungary to meet with Prime Minister Victor Orban, leader of a “center-right” government. (Harris, a first-generation American whose parents fled Hungary amidst a Communist takeover, leads the Hungarian-American Caucus in Congress.) It’s “pretty repulsive to me” to be called anti-Semitic, Harris countered. But the disruptive pair were not escorted out as cooler heads prevailed.
While Harris objects to Obamacare, it should be pointed out that he’s for several reforms to Medicare Part B – specifically, the area of prescription drugs administered in a physician’s office or hospital where Andy remarked “Medicare has no leverage” to deal with increasing costs. As it stands now, these providers are allowed a 6% surcharge on top of list price reimbursement, as I understand it. (I’ll plead ignorance since I am not on Medicare.) Apparently HHS Secretary Alex Azar has a plan to revise this scheme to account for the reduced price other nations pay to allow these drugs into their market – a gatekeeping system Medicare doesn’t have. Using a weighted average of the prices charged to 12 other leading industrialized nations plus a 30 percent premium is “a pretty good compromise” according to Harris.
I suppose if the drug cost us $10, the weighted average of the 12 was $5, and the 30% premium added $1.50, yeah, there could be some savings. Of course, I have no idea about the actual numbers.
(It should also be mentioned that opioid addiction was brought up in the meeting. His opinion: “It will take a long time to fix,” because the problem isn’t just drug companies or overly aggressive doctors. But no one ever did any studies on how addictive these painkillers could be until much more recently.)
A more significant part of the time was spent by Andy explaining his opposition to H.R. 1, the (so-called) For The People Act. “What part did you object to?” he was asked, answering “why not (send up the provisions) one at a time?” rather than a 400-page bill that’s been amended several times. “We have to stop doing bills like this,” he continued, holding up a copy of the bill that takes up half or more of a ream of paper.
“Really, it’s an incumbent protection plan,” Harris added, and while in that respect he theoretically should favor it, his primary complaint on it was that “it tells states how to conduct their elections.” He wasn’t in favor of public financing of elections and had a problem with its oversight provisions, such as voting in other states (as a former opponent of his was caught doing.)
Yet a GOP amendment making “ballot harvesting” illegal was defeated – its main flaw is allowing anyone to bring in ballots, rather than specifically a family member or guardian. I personally see it as a chain of custody issue, and ironically the same technique that turned the tide in several California House races was the reason North Carolina voters in their Ninth District have an upcoming “do-over” in their race, won on election night in 2018 by a Republican. Ballot harvesting is illegal in North Carolina, precisely because of those chain of custody issues.
One last thing I’ll bring up is the charge Andy often receives about not having empathy or sympathy. “I take care of patients!” he replied. His job is to pay attention and read the bills, and when it comes to health care it’s to maintain coverage of pre-existing conditions and keep insurance affordable. Personally, I just think there are too many people who equate big government with empathy or sympathy but would object to a faith-based solution because it’s “pushing their religion on people.” To those whose god is government, perhaps I’m tired of you pushing your religion on the rest of us. I’d just like to render unto Caesar only what is supposed to be his and not all of my freedom, too.
But a nice lady had her number called shortly after this and told the audience she had dealt with Congressman Harris’s office regarding her mesh implants and thanking him for helping her with the issue. It’s one where the public and physician databases need to be better integrated so that doctors can be better informed with real-time reporting and analysis. “Sunlight solves a lot of problems,” said Andy.
We also talked about suicide, which was a byproduct of the same culture that’s led to so much gun violence. In a nation founded on religious principles, it’s no surprise to me that being religious cuts the risk of suicide in half – at least that’s what Harris claimed. “If we abandon religion, we abandon some of those (founding) principles,” Harris remarked.
I’m certain there were those agnostics in the room who scoffed at that assertion. “There’s a separation of church and state!” they thunder, and if there could be a border wall built between the two that’s a wall they would support 200 percent and have that sucker built a mile high and twice as deep, halfway to God or Gaia or who/whatever they believe in.
In a letter from John Adams to officers in the Massachusetts militia (October 11, 1798) our second President remarked as a close to a longer point, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” If you presume that “any other” is the irreligious lot we have now, Adams was probably right and, as a group, they tend to be the ones who want to revamp our founding document.
But I get the idea that our Constitution was Divinely inspired, and as such I like to see us hew to it as best we can. While it does need some modern-day tweaking, including a pruning of the amendments ratified in 1913, the Constitution can continue to serve us well if lawmakers just remember their oath to defend it. I think Andy Harris does a reasonable job of that and I’m glad he stopped by.
I made an executive decision as I wrote this: an edited (no blockquote) version is crossposted to my book site.
I’ve been meaning to get to this all week and the opportunity has finally arrived. Last week Erick Erickson at The Resurgentdid a piece on what he called “Jeremiah 29 conservatives.” In the post, he cites Jeremiah 29:5-7, which is a portion of a letter from Jeremiah to those who were captured and forced to relocate to exile in Babylon. Erickson uses it to springboard to his main point:
There is a growing class of conservatives in the United States who can be considered Jeremiah 29 Conservatives. They have given up on national politics. It has become too ugly, too compromising, too unaligned with their values, and too willing to make compromises with bad government and big government to advance a compromised agenda.
These conservatives are trying to seek the welfare of the cities in which they live, recognizing that it is there they will find their welfare. They want good government and understand the most important fight of the day is the one for their family’s daily well being. Washington, they know, is too far removed from their daily lives and, in their mind, Republicans and conservative institutions in Washington have made too many compromises to be effective.
At the end of the Bush Administration and beginning of the Obama era, thanks oddly enough to the Citizens United case, grassroots groups were springing up around the country to help conservatives down to the local level. There were training sessions for conservative activists on simple things like the best way to write editorials to local papers. They grassroots groups provided tools for local activists to contact their state legislature. They explained how to find when a city council met and how to show up to speak on an issue. They encouraged conservative activists to run for the school board.
As the tea party rose, conservative organizations began focusing more and more on fighting Barack Obama. They abandoned the fights in the states.
Obviously this quote hit home with me given my passion for the TEA Party and its principles. But to a great extent it’s true.
I’ve probably researched the TEA Party more than 99% of the people out there and I found that it was a very unusual phenomenon in that the TEA Party began as a nationwide effort but then decentralized itself to the local level for a time. Think of the TEA Party as three early stages, which I’ll distinguish by their dates: February 27, April 15, and September 12. (All these occurred in 2009.)
The February 27 wave occurred in fewer than 50 cities and was really put together for one purpose: to make a statement about the unwillingness of government to consider solutions other than top-down financial stimulus and increased government control in addressing the Great Recession. Some may have organized this believing it would be a one-time deal, but there was such a success created that thousands of others, helped along by mass media, decided to get in on the action at the local level.
So rather than 40-odd mainly large cities, the April 15 (and later July 4) wave of TEA Parties took place in a thousand cities around the nation, big and small. Each local event had its own flavor, with some rallying around strictly financial and national issues and others departing from that script to address local items or topics dear to social conservatives, particularly those in the pro-life movement. There was no “right” way to do a TEA Party, and part of its appeal was the grassroots organization that didn’t get marching orders from a party or inside-the-Beltway group.
But by the September 12 Taxpayer March on Washington – an event I simply call 9/12 – local groups were being encouraged to join up in a national organization, supposedly to increase the clout of the movement. While some TEA Party groups remained fiercely independent, most others gravitated toward an alliance with organizations such as the Campaign for Liberty or Americans for Prosperity. (The latter is basically what happened to our local TEA Party.) This also coincided with the rise of Tea Party Patriots as an umbrella group, although they weren’t the only one as many states had similar entities.
Once the rallies became less frequent, though, hundreds of TEA Party groups withered on the vine. And many of those individual participants who stuck it out for the first couple years were perhaps made complacent by how easily the political tables were turned in 2010 and figured the movement didn’t need them anymore – they let the most passionate ones soldier on. So by the time 2012 and 2014 rolled around, many of those who believed in the TEA Party early on saw that the movement was no longer locally grassroots but corporate-style Astroturf, and no longer fiercely independent but now the red-headed stepchild of the national Republican Party.
As Erickson might tell it, that’s what happens when outsiders try to get involved in national politics, which is way out of the league of the average person. Most people are more interested in local activism, and (to be honest) if government were as it should be that’s all they would need to deal with.
So today I decided to look again at the Tea Party Patriots’ website as they celebrate their tenth anniversary. In a celebratory op-ed by Jenny Beth Martin – the only one of the three original co-founders of Tea Party Patriots to still be with the group – she cited a number of Washington initiatives as accomplishments of the TEA Party and noted they would continue to fight in the halls of Congress – just like any other lobbying group. They pay lip service to the local groups, but their focus is on stopping socialism on a national level. There’s nothing wrong with that, but let’s stop pretending they’re a grassroots group, okay?
It’s very sad to think that the TEA Party may have missed its golden opportunity because they lost focus on the local groups. If local needs are addressed, it’s more likely that states will follow and eventually the nation.
I have a suggestion for all this, but I can’t reveal it here – it’s waiting until my book is ready. (That’s called a tease.) Good Lord willing and if the creek don’t rise, look for it April 15.
For the first time, I’m cross-posting to my book website.
On a humdrum Thursday morning, there were probably a few dozen thousand who were watching the CNBC show “Squawk Box” and a lot of them probably weren’t paying full attention when one man’s statements were the spark that lit the fuse of pent-up political frustration. It was a fire that raged out of control for several years before being contained by a political party more interested in power and winning elections than in its stated principles.
I half-jokingly wrote that night that I thought Rick Santelli would be the next guy on the unemployment line, but instead he’s become something of a cult hero for those things he said a decade ago. Yet in looking up his whereabouts it appears he’s doing pretty much the same thing as he did a decade ago. In that respect, he’s a lot like most participants in the TEA Party who did what they did out of love for the country, not fame, fortune, or political power. I’m sure his name has come up a lot today, though.
But in just eight days after Santelli made his remarks, tens of thousands of people got together in over thirty cities around the nation and began a phenomenon that people still talk about today. And because there are a number of useful lessons that came from the TEA Party, I wrote a book detailing its history: Good Lord willing, I’ll have it ready in time to commemorate the tenth anniversary of one of the most massive and widespread grassroots uprisings in recent American history, the Tax Day TEA Party of 2009 on April 15. I was at the one here in Salisbury, and five months later I was at the unforgettable 9/12 Taxpayer March on Washington. (I posted on that event in twoparts the next two days, and the posts reminded me I had even more photos on my then-relatively nascent Facebook page. Revisiting this with the new WordPress block setup allowed me to add the captions I wrote originally, too.) As they say, the rest was history.
And to think: how many people just thought February 19, 2009 was just going to be another humdrum winter’s day?
