Maybe so, but the demographic trends are against them.

And they still won't go away. Just like Republicans. Best metaphor ever.

FR neglects to remember that once Obama wins, they are history
and two, that the teasters are only a small fraction, and the real power base in the republicanparty are the Bush family and their worldwide friends

and to keep them viable for someday coming back in office, they also need the teasters to be repudiated so Ryan will be blamed for the loss, the teasters will and Jeb will attempt to rise like the phoenix in 2016(and ultimately because of demographic change be foiled by Hillary45/Biden.

Where have you gone frankrich? A nation turned its lonely eyes to you


We know (didn't you frankrich?) that 2008 voters came out
2009-2011 voters in the democratic party stayed home figuring Obama can do it on his own without help.

The rightwing did NOT win in 2009,2010,2011,the democrats lost by not showing up to vote

2012 will be 2008 again.

DEMOCRATS MUST VOTE IN 2014 AND 2018.
the midterms are as important as the presidential

and democrats must win back the governorships and fast

and Texas shall be blue when Julian Castro becomes governor and kicks the repubtealibertarians out of office.

With Texas, we shall have every major state in the country, leaving slim pickings for the opposition(and most of those Alaska like states have 3-4-5 electoral votes only.)

(We must also never give up the electoral college at that point either.You will see all of a sudden a rush(limbo) of republicanlibertariantea attempt to change it.)

we must be vigilant.

Why did you leave the NYTimes FR? now what, once a month or two at New York mag? and a couple of online.
You were the strongest media voice, now mostly silent or should I say silenced. WHY???

Sorry, in Rich's words. 'dream on'. These people aren't going away, and in fact when Obama wins, they'll double-down on the craziness, as will the pukes in congress double down on the obstructionism.

war crimes and crimes against humanity, I would argue that the Tea Party would never have happened. Instead, Obama tried to work with a bunch of parasitical sociopaths and, in so doing, showed weakness. And therein lies the story. (Personally, I blame Rahm Emmanuel for the debacle of 2009-10, but the buck stops at the top.)

Obama's first order of business should have been to order the U.S. Department of Justice to commence criminal investigations of the Bush Junta.

in the political field never go to jail...repugs mostly...they kill people, they destroy people and never go to jail...corporations are running this country and the very rich do not see jail..and it has always been that way...

of Obama and, while I will hold my nose and vote for him in November b/c Romney is so unbelievably dreadful, hold no further illusions that Obama represents the second coming of Martin Luther King nor of FDR. A center-right administration will be less harmful to the working class than a fascist administration. But the blinders are off for me with regard to Obama and his crew. I was definitely schmucked in 2008 but won't be again.

Where all the liberals in the country hang out. And those progressives, too (the ones too intimidated to call themselves liberals). But we also have a whole bunch of more conservative people who just don't feel a welcome with the batcrap crazy Republicans.

There is nothing conservative about trying to make decisions about someone else's uterus and maxing out the credit cards.

'Liberal' has to be the great backdrop of the whole enterprise if inclusiveness is to be the rule. If so-called inclusiveness is preoccupied with bolstering the privileged opposition, then in reality it is the exception.

Keeping liberal and conservative factions in the same party may work well for the people who run the party machinery, but under the circumstances it makes them more of a service than a political unit. 'New Democrats' are largely a body of professionals with corporate clientele who are allowed to write the legislation and to buy them off.

Because of this, 'New Democrats' have greatly contributed to the political culture of manufacturing false equivalence between conservative and liberal, not to mention fostering a huge blind spot for the libertarian-right.

OTOH, Republicans have come to resemble a mixture of activists and mercenaries -- a powder keg about which Democratic politicians and their repurposed management consultants have no clue (nor any desire to get one).

who consider Progressivism to be to the left of Liberalism. It was the early Progressives in Wisconsin who first enacted the Socialist platform that included unemployment compensation.

From Wikipedia:

The Wisconsin Idea, in United States History, also refers to a series of political reforms of the late 19th century and early 20th century whose strongest advocate was Robert M. La Follette, Sr., Wisconsin's governor (1901–1906) and senator (1906–1925). The Wisconsin Idea was created by the state's progressives to do away with monopolies, trusts, high costs of living, and predatory wealth, which they saw as the problem that must be solved or else "no advancement of human welfare or progress can take place."[4] Reforms in labor and worker's rights were one of the major aspects of the Wisconsin Idea. The progressive worker's compensation program was first introduced by German immigrants, who were abundant in Wisconsin. The system was adopted from the existing system in Germany, which was based on the idea that the employer was obligated to take care of his employees and keep paying them as they grew old.[5] Many of the reforms were based on traditions and customs brought to the state by German immigrants. The emphasis on higher learning and well-funded universities stressed by the Wisconsin Idea was derived from the education system of Germany. Progressives also proposed the first state income taxes, as well as submitting the idea of a progressive tax. They also passed legislation prohibiting pollution and police brutality.[6]
The Wisconsin Idea would go on to set an example for other states in the United States. The progressive politicians of the time sought to emulate and ultimately transcend the states of the east coast in regards to labor laws. Wisconsin progressives wished to make Wisconsin into a benchmark for other Midwestern states to strive towards. Although many of the reforms went through in 1911, conservative opponents of the progressive party took control of Wisconsin in 1914, thus minimizing the magnitude and effects of the reforms.[7] The Wisconsin Idea would continue to be a revolutionary precedent for other universities, and its educational aspects are still relevant today. Robert LaFollette, Sr. was the man who implemented much of this legislature, and he was among the earliest supporters of direct election of senators, which is now a national practice. These progressive politics also helped pass the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Amendments to the American Constitution.
These proposed reforms, all of which were eventually adopted, included:
Primary elections, allowing the rank-and-file members of a political party to choose its nominees rather than caucuses usually dominated by political bosses.
Workers' compensation, allowing workers injured whilst working to receive a fixed payment in compensation for their injuries and related expenses rather than forcing them to go to court against their employers, which at the time was extremely difficult and had little realistic chance of success.
State regulation of railroads in addition to the federal regulation imposed by the Interstate Commerce Commission.
Direct election of United States Senators as opposed to the original method of their selection by the state legislatures, eventually ratified as the Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Progressive taxation, where the wealthier pay a higher rate of tax than the less-affluent, made possible on the federal level in part by the adoption of the Sixteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

How the hell did you get form Battlin' Bob to Scuzzy Scott?

When whites are a minority, no tea party. That's in essence what they stand for. It's their last hurrah and they get more and more desperate each time.

That even when the impulse is racist and conservative, the threat to your own group causes liberal and democratic alliances?

I had a deeply conservative friend who wound up ringing doorbells for Democrats because he heard some Republicans talking. (He was so terrified he called me from a payphone--and no, I don't remember the details, just the fear.)

It's human nature and I think that it what Rich's article points to. There are plenty of examples in non-European countries around the world.

but not of Tea Party quality. Thank God. Won't be the same as the white racists. No one with long history of privilege.

Most senior citizens, I am one of them are supporting Democratic principles. Just the angry low informed, political correct for stupid, are the GOP base. And they are dying off or becoming senile.

I mourned when Rich and Herbert left the NYT. This piece seems to've missed the target entirely.
For about 15 seconds the Tea Party expressed the incogerent thought-clouds floating above the heads of a regressed far-right mob dressed up in Continental Army surplus tricorns, knee-breeches and powder horns draped over buckskin vests.

After the Koch Brothers co-opted their message,
the insidious phenomenon that FR and everyone else in America has missed began to metastasize.
(For some reason, I can't get the 1978 version of Invasion of the Bodysnatchers out of my head as I write this, which says it all.)

As time goes by, each iteration of Rightist crypto-fascist ideology grows more overtly racist, violent, and malevolent. The Death Star/dark orb from the 5th Element, etc. You get my drift. Three things seem obvious.
1) the mass of money available for their media/
propaganda effortsms increases geometrically.
2) It's western-states extraction industry, casinos
and semi-legit off-shore cash being laundered
in the US political process. Nothing new there.
3) most alarming is there's an inverse ratio betw.
the amounts and the sources. More and more
money from fewer and fewer sources.
That last one is intuition, unsupported by data but it feels right because common sense says if more money's in fewer hands, the political fractal reflects that reality. That's the edge of tyranny.

The Federalist Papers (real Tea Partyers), Jefferson DeToqueville, et. al. warned against corruption of Constitutional rights, loss of freedom; everything we are helpless to stop.
"Poverty is the mother of revolution and crime."
Aristotle
If you think the corrosive cultural regression we
are enduring is circumstantial, you are mistaken.
We are being infantilized, driven into collective fear, and permanent war. Why? It takes a lot fewer of "them" to control more of us.That is what Rich and others have not addressed.

No campaign finance reform, no freedom.
No taxation without representation.
We the People (not the corporations) have been given by our Creator certain inalienable Rights...
among them are the right to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.

Corporations are machines made of paper.
Apply income obtained from tax increases to the
issue that really matters: the Earth is dying in front of our eyes while we're being misled by smug narcissists. Meanwhile, more moronic retards are pretending they'll to do those same jobs even better. Vote Democratic, vote often.

says it all - thank you...

I'm glad you have joined DU.

A most hardy welcome.

Who funds it?

The Koch brothers are the major donors to the tea party. They pay for the buses to take people to rallies and pay people like Dick Armey to organize astro turf events.

their leaders have to invent some new boogeyman for them to fear. It's already become ludicrous. I can't imagine what they'll come up with next.

the right. During the Bush years, (one of America's worsts modern day Presidents), the left failed to grab power or defeat him. However after 2008, the GOP should have been marginalized out of the pages of history. What happened instead? In 2010, we saw the biggest swing in Congress since 1948.

What has taken place during Obama's first term? Essentially, a handful of radical, regressive republicans have taken America hostage and steered public policy, despite the Dems having most of the power. This has lead to Obama having a difficult time passing his agenda, which he was vote in for, and then Republicans turn around and blame Obama and his poor policies. However, republicans were successful in implementing austerity measurements and keeping the Bush tax cuts for people making more than $250,000. What is holding us back economically? Austerity measurements. If Obama was successful at passing his jobs bills or successful to keep state and local government employment growing as it did during the Bush years, we would be looking at an additional 1.4 to 1.7 million jobs, minus any multiplier effect or essentially an unemployment rate below 7%.

I was reading Krugman before the first debate. I agreed with him that this election was not about voting for Obama, but a referendum election on Republican ideas. While many liberals and independents have been disappointed with Obama, then alternative is a GOP agenda, and people at the time were rejecting it.

After the first debate, Republicans came roaring back, turning this into a very close election.

For a bunch of radical, regressive people, these people do not go away. Time and time again, they unfortunately demonstrate their staying power.

I think President Obama was set up for failure in that Debate. There is a difference from the perception of common Americans and elitist. Obama built his lead, on the campaign trail. On the campaign trail, he is all gloves off. He was handcuffed in the Debate. The American people like fighters. Before his first Debate, Elites, including the media, was telling Obama to look Presidential and not like some "Angry Blackman."

What about the "Angry Whiteman?" It was OK for Mitt Romney to bully the President and the moderator? The media and the audience sp inned it as Romney looking like a strong leader. If Romney called me a liar in front of millions of people all over the World, Dam the media and audience also. I'm going to defend myself.

Vice President Biden didn't take Ryan's bull and Ryan knew it was coming. Some of the same media and those on the Right tried to spin themselves out of it, but Biden actually kicked Ryan's butt and they know it. They are Crying a River. Romney did not win on substance. He won on theatrics. Right now, they are telling the President to be careful. They are doing it again. Call Romney what he is. He is a liar. And dare him to defend himself. He want be able to do it.

He keeps claiming the President cut 716 million dollars from Medicare. Several sources have debunked it. Simply call him a liar and state the sources that say so. He claims his accountant don't know anything about his tax deductions on his offshore accounts. Call him on it and tell him to prove it by showing his tax returns. The president had a Worldwide audience to force Romney out ta his hole. Embarrass the guy, he deserve it.

will be the nail in their coffin.

I thought the grave dancing on the conservative movement in America in 2008 to be very premature. And no matter how many polls show that we have a "progressive majority" (in that people like some progressive ideas), they never factor in how the public responds when one of these seemingly popular ideas reaches the point where it might be legislated. The right wing swings into action with its anti-government rhetoric and soon makes short work of it. That's because the public is split between liking some progressive ideas like single-payer and at the same time believing government is inefficient and corrupt.

The changing demographics, especially the increase in hispanics, should finally break the back of the conservatives. However, that will not happen for a while, and at some point, the GOP will likely drop their anti-immigration policies and try to co-opt them.

You can't kill them. Somehow they survive, no matter what. They don't listen to reason. Best thing to do is squash them whenever you see them. Crush them into the dirt or pavement. But they'll be back.

Bake

Last article I read said every decade less and less people are going to church or even believe.

I would say the opposite of Frank's ideas will happen. As more people want choice and open minded about gays, pot and other social issues tea party Christians won't be ahead.

About small goverment most people know we need schools, police, social security and Medicare and in the end that will win.

the balance of power between humans and cockroaches is one that I'd be content to replicate between humans and conservatives.
Rich's theory seems to be that some thought all conservatives would vanish if we elected Obama? Does not even make sense. No one thought that. How could anyone look at Palin's campaign and think 'gee, America is almost done with radical right wing nuts'? Seriously, how?
Quoting Stan Greenberg, who makes a living off of predictions and chatter about 'trends' he finds in his polling as if Stan Greenberg represented the thinking of actual liberal people is part of Rich's problem here. Political professionals always rush to the hyperbole, especially when they have a service to sell.
And the 'Tea Party' is not a populist movment, it is a contrived segment of the GOP, highly funded and run by Republican operatives as part of that party. Rich is strange in this piece, he sounds really white and not very astute.

Repukes ideals (ha!) have always, always, always lost in the end. Angry impotent white men are fading in numbers.

For one thing, con-victories are not the result of a grand conservative movement, the intellectual genesis of which began with William F. Buckley in the 1950s, but rather the apathy of citizens -- who are mainly progressive even if they don't know it. American culture is trending left.

Secondly, the reason there are con-victories such as Rich mentioned is because cons are well-organized and well-financed, which is a notable advantage when so many citizens are apathetic and don't even vote.

Third, the plain fact is that most teabaggers are old, white, and fat. Their impressions of political philosophy are limited, simplistic, inaccurate, and based in fantasy. Recall the sign at a teabag festival that said, "Keep the government out of my medicare." They may enjoy and even appreciate the rhetoric based on the philosophy of John Locke and translated into our Constitution by Thomas Jefferson, but they have no real idea of what it means. But Rich seems to think that they do.

The predicament of our electorate has little to do with philosophical movements or protests as Rich suggests, but rather the fact that most people in this country are easily influenced, overtly manipulated, or apathetic. And this is by design since it suits the Corportacracy for people in this country to be so inclined.

Rich, like many of his ilk, has been infected with the Group-Think of the media elite. A cadre of dullards whose real occupation is massaging each other with ostentatious verbiage and gossip at cocktail parties in Washington and New York.

And might also add that when times are "bad", liberals tend to be elected. And when times are good, thanks to the hard work and tough choices of the liberal, what passes for "conservatives" get elected, after which they drain the treasury and public trust, leading to a collapse, leading once more to liberals getting elected. The degree to which the turn arounds happen determine how long each phase seems to remain in office. And of late, certain tactics, such as voter suppression and owning media for propaganda, serves to try to mess with the cycles.