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if it turns out that the tea party gets cut loose by the republican and para-republican (rove, koch bros, norquist et al) operatives for tactical reasons----and there are scenarios that seem plausible in which this would not happen
(for example, if they remain useful for the american crossroads set as a cadre of bodies that can be mobilized and sent home again around certain issues. this is a traditional mode of asserting power. given the unbelievably favorable coverage reactionary politics get in the american corporate press, it could be effective as a way of pressuring the republican party apparatus, should rove et al feel as outside of things as they did under michael steele)
then we'll see what the tea party is made of. my sense of it is that it started as a small populist-to-neofascist movement that was quickly co-opted and covered in astroturf by the rove squad, which used it as an instrument in a faction fight directed against the unacceptably non-ideological steele....
so my sense is that the tea party's been remade/remodelled since its meager beginnings and is now an astroturf movement.
if that's the case, and these people get marginalized, the tea party should fall apart.
what'd be interesting would be for the tea party to develop an autonomous organizational core that'd enable it to threaten a split in the right.
but that's because the only thing i wish for conservatism in america is disintegration.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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