Rude awakenings

[unixronin]

In which a well-meaning woman starts up a 'kinder, gentler, more civil' opposition movement to the Tea parties, and is surprised to find that it doesn't work out that way.  Two months in, and "her" movement is already fracturing because some of her members don't think she's mean enough or confrontational enough, and think that this idea of people working together is a load of sentimentalist codswallop.

Comments

[polaris93.livejournal.com]

I really, really hope that the Left truly believes people shouldn't try to work together when it comes to politics. If so, they're dynamiting the very ground they need to take their stand on, and are thus commiting political suicide. I hope.

[rain-manpnw.livejournal.com]

What I took from this is:

-That the Coffee party is seen as the antithesis of the Tea party.

-That the participation was 0% Republican (and therefore implied, though not stated, 100% Democrat). This means that the Coffee party is not popular movement with a broad demographic base, but rather, like the Tea parties, is drawn from the ideological outsides - the far left in this case, rather than the far right.

-That the railing against "oligarchs" and "moneyed interests" is another way to mis-identify elitism and tie it to ideological foundations. This means that the Coffee party, just like the Tea parties, is not a populist movement either, but an ideological one trying to claim legitimacy for being populist.

-That the "new" head seems to be determined to make the same polarizing, demonizing, angry rhetoric mistakes that I see the Tea party making.

-That the result of all this is a further polarizing of the political landscape, making the task of centrists like myself and Alaric (who is a leetle bit to the right of my centrism, though he seems to think I'm somewhere to the left of Lenin) more difficult.

*sigh* Looks like I'll need to get the rust off my helmet, and find the rest of my armor.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

*nod* It seems to me the Coffee party defines itself almost entirely by being against the Tea party, and not actually really for much of anything.

-That the result of all this is a further polarizing of the political landscape, making the task of centrists like myself and Alaric (who is a leetle bit to the right of my centrism, though he seems to think I'm somewhere to the left of Lenin) more difficult.

Oh, come on. Lenin? Absurd. Now Trotsky, maybe ... ;)


(Actually, I must confess that a few times lately I've probably mentally conflated your position with that of other people I know and occasionally correspond with. No names mentioned, and quite unintentional on my part.)