The problem started under Nixon, and accelerating under Reagan and finishing up under Clinton and Bush II, the US went through a Revolution. It was NOT violent, but it was severe. The New Deal Democratic Coalition broke up under Nixon (it had been under strain since the 1960s) and the GOP slowly took control over the USA. With the switch to GOP standards (Even when Democrats controlled most branches of the Government prior to 1994) Right wing ideas became the norm, This included an attack on Unions and Unionization, an attack on wages of the working class, and attack on Public Education. and a reduction of taxes on the top 1 %.
The attack on Labor opened up in 1967 when the Rules on Immigration were changed. Immigration has always been used in the USA to reduce wages. You constantly hear the claim that immigrants do jobs Americans won't do, that is a lie, the real complaint is "Americans will NOT do jobs that does NOT pay them a living wage". The issue on such jobs was NEVER that Americas will not do them, but that Americans will not do them for low wages. Wages of Americans had hit its peak in real terms in the 1960s and the 1% wanted those wages cut, and increasing immigration from third would countries was the first step in that process.
The Second step was after the Victory of the National Association of Letter Carriers Postal Strike of 1970. Union membership peaked in the late 1940s, then started a slow decline, but a decline that was very minor till the 1980s. The 1% knew all the tricks to reduce unionization and used all of them, including showing that most Union could not really increase wages by much and thus the protection of joining a union was not that valuable.
This whole policy was undone when the Letter Carriers went on Strike in 1970. The Strike was illegal by Federal but the Carriers went out anyway. Nixon and his administration openly talked bout jailing of the striking Letter Carriers. Replacing the Carriers with National Guard members were also discussed. When it was pointed out that the limited attempts to replace the Carriers had failed almost completely the US Government gave into the Carriers.
The Right Wing 1% hated this outcome and looked for a way to undo it. The reason for the hatred for the Strike strengthened labor enough so when the inflation of the 1970s hit, labor demanded and received cost of living adjustments in their labor contracts. This saved the income of the Working Class, but the 1% refused to take the hit and ended up taking it from Lower Management and the Professional Classes instead (Such Upper Middle Class people did NOT have cost of living adjustment clauses in their contracts). The 1% also made sure Labor was blamed for the inflation not that the 1% did not want to pay the cost of Government, when those costs were aimed at bettering the 1% (Social Security paid for itself and was capped well below what the 1% earned). The Oil Crisis was excuse for the inflation, but it was the failure of the 1% to be taxed to pay for Government programs (including the cost of the War in Vietnam and the upgrading of the Army, Air Force and Navy in the 1970s).
At the end of the 1970s, labor was again attacked in the form on permitting in massive amount of Steel imports from third world countries (as early as 1964 this Steel Crisis was expected, a US Steel President reported that he foresaw nationalization of the Steel Industry within 20 years as part of a program to save domestic production given what was already foreseen as a massive exportation of steel from third world countries). In the 1960s and 1970s the prospects of such imports permitted American Steel Makers to adopt a policy of milking their mills for all they could get out of them, and then closing them down. The United Steel Workers complained about this, but Congress refused to do anything about it.
Thus you had the Steel Crisis of the late 1970s and early 1980s. The Mills had seen no real upgrade since the 1950s were finally at the stage that they had to be upgraded or closed down. Given the decision to permit massive imports, imports handled by the same companies that made the Steel in the US, the US companies just closed them down (Rolling mills and Specialty Steel shops stayed open, and "Mini Mills" opened up to produce Steel needed but in to small a quality to justify importing it).
Side note: The Mini mills main business was in producing steel for orders that needed to be filled as soon as possible, not ordered six months to a year before it was needed. Thus the Mini Mills could charge a higher price for its product then could oversea producers, but had to keep looking for customers who needed steel NOW, not six months from now. Electronics also fell into this market, many electronic makers in the 1980s and 1990s turned to over seas production, but kept so much production in the US so that the domestic producer was around to fill in any gap in the importation of the same part. The net affect of this is to reduce wages, for if charged to much such importers will just wait for the import.
Come Reagan the Steel Crisis was in full swing. Reagan refused to do anything about it. Then the Air Traffic Controller went on Strike, and the 1% saw they chance to undo the effect of the Postal Strike of 1970. This time they fired the Air Traffic Controllers and replaced them with Military Air Traffic Controllers and those Controllers willing to cross a picket line (Reagan also reduced the deregulation of the Air Line started under Carter to reduce the number of domestic flights to a level these controllers could handle). Some disruption but the 1% got want they wanted, a massive firing of people who went on strike. This was a massive attack on labor and I remember my father saying the head of the AFL-CIO should have called for a nation wide strike to protest that firing. Looking back, my father was right, even if such a call for nation wide strike would have failed, it should have been done to show that Labor would NOT accept such an attack on Labor. Do to no such defense of Labor by the AFL-CIO, labor saw the next 30 years of steady decline.
The decline in unionization since Reagan was made worse by the Left's decision that Social programs (women's right, Gay Rights, etc) was more important then Labor Rights. This abandonment of Labor Rights by many in the left, saw working class people tossed away, and with with abandonment, the Working Class looked to people who provided them a way to express their dissatisfaction with the decline in their income. The Left blamed the workers for not adopting their concerns about Social Program, the workers said without addressing the economic issues, any change in social program was a waste of time.
Thus the left abandoned the workers and the workers were left looking for anyone who was willing to address their concerns about declining income and increase unemployment. This has happened before, the Fascists under Mussolini, and the Nazis under Hitler used these dis-satisfied working class people as the basis for their movements.
The same thing is happening among the Working Class in the US, they are unhappy about the decline in their standard of living since Reagan, but nobody but the Tea Party is addressing that concern with anything more then lip service. Sorry, many on this board may dislike the Tea Party's position on immigration, but it addresses the issue of one of the main reason for a decline in wages among working class people. I have NOT heard of a single left wing program that says HOW it will increase wages and HOW it would increase wages in the private market place. The Left does say it wants to increase wages of Women and other minorities, but not of white males whose income has DECLINED since 1980 (and the increasing equality of males and female income is more a result of a DECLINE in male incomes then an increase in Female Incomes).
In 1964 George Wallace and some other Conservative Southern Democrats went to the GOP convention to see if a joint Dixiecrat GOP ticket could be made. The Right wing was in total control of the GOP in the 1964 Convention and when the Right Wing Democrats came they demanded that such a coalition agree to abolishment of Social Security and the rest of the New Deal. The Dixiecrats rejected that position for Social Security and the rest of the New Deal was popular in the South.
I bring up the 1964 meetings between Southern Democrats and the GOP to show that even in the South as long as wages were increasing (and that was the situation in the 1960s even in the South) while they was opposition to integration, it was not an attack on a general increase in wages, even for minorities. In fact many of those same Southerns who opposed Integration, would vote to keep Social Security Benefits for African Americans (and in many ways those benefits were more important to African American then was integration). These same Southern Conservatives kept voting Democratic (and Texas went for Humphrey, the Democratic Candidate in 1970, while Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia went for Wallace rather then voting for the Republican candidate Nixon).
The next true competitive election was in 1976 (1972 election became a landslide for Nixon do to various Democratic missteps so that election was NOT competitive). Again the South went for the DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE. In fact the liberal bases of the West Coast, California, Washington and Oregon, all went GOP in 1976.
I bring this up, for the Tea Party strength is in the South (The 11 states of the Confederacy, AND Kentucky and Missouri) and the Mid West (Pittsburgh to St Louis and Minneapolis/St Paul, Yes I know Pittsburgh is in Pennsylvania, but while Pennsylvania is an Eastern State, Pittsburgh is a Mid Western City, the same can be said of Buffalo NY). In the years since Carter (this is to include Reagan years), this is the area which has seen the largest drop in income and property values among working class people (and a drop in population as compared to the Coastal areas with the exception of Florida and Texas, both of which has seen massive increase in population).
Side Note: While it is traditional to include Maryland in the South, given the massive growth in Washington DC, Maryland and Northern Virginia (and the Norfolk area of Virginia) are no longer part of the South. Cantor's district was in that part of Virginia that is still part of the South and why he lost.
The Tea party is a reaction to this drop in income, they are reactionaries for they have been the most harmed by the "Revolutionary" changes since Reagan and are rejecting those changes. They want to return to the 1960s, when they income in real terms was greater then it is today. They really do not want to return to the racism of that time period, but no one but the Tea Party is addressing their concern over Wages. The Left gives out platitudes but then does not even pass the check off system for Union representation (The Democratic Party says they for it, but leave the GOP kill it in the House and Senate).
Sorry, the Tea Party is the result of the decline in real wages since the 1970s, and the fact no one is offering any solution to that decline EXCEPT the Tea Party. Address the issue of the decline in wages, then the Tea Party will disappear, but do not address it then the Tea Party will fester till it either implodes (as did the KKK in the US in the 1920s) do to inherent inconsistencies OR explode in some sort of Right Wing Revolution as happened in 1922 in Italy or 1933 in Germany (Which of course was followed by a Right Wing Government that also ignored the drop in wages. This avoiding the issue of the drop in wages, forced Hitler to look to War or lose power by the late 1930s. Mussolini took power just before the US boomed in the 1920s, which relived a lot of pressure off his government till the Crash of 1929, thus his invasion of Ethiopia in 1936 for the same reason Hitler made his moves in the late 1930s, it was to make War to forestall another revolution).
Just a comment that many of the people in the Tea Party will support anyone who offers a plan to increase wages of the Working Class, an issue the Left has ignored in favor of Social liberal programs.
Please note, a third alternative is possible. If and when the Tea Party Implodes, its membership will look to someone else to lead them on the issue of wages. The left can picked them up (as the Democratic Party did with many of the KKK members in the late 1920s and 1930s) by addressing their need for increase wages. This includes Card Check for unionization and increase domestic spending. Again this is what the Democratic Party did in the late 1920s and 1930s and won Labor to the Democratic New Deal Coalition. Thus the Democratic Party has to make SERIOUS efforts to increase domestic spending AND Card Check (and other laws to make it easier to form a union, and harder to close down a unionized business).
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