The Tea Party is Nothing New

Much is being made of Rand Paul's victory in the Kentucky Republican Senate primary. Paul loudly credits the Tea Party for his success

I'm sorry to say that I really don't see what's so "new" or "different" about the Tea Party. Sure, the Tea Party may power Rand Paul - a political newcomer - to the Senate. But grassroots insurgencies have landed plenty of unlikely people in high political office for decades. There's nothing that unique about the Tea Party. It's just the latest hysterical, right-wing counter-reaction to center-left government in D.C. Plenty of political newcomers wound up in high office in 1994 and 1966, for example, both years that were characterized by a right-wing backlash to liberal governance.

Rick Perlstein's Nixonland illustrated how the same kind of trends powered the Republican resurgence in the late 1960s, which was far stronger both electorally and culturally, than the present Tea Party. Perlstein himself made the comparison explicit when he commented on a NYTimes forum a month ago:

Watching the rise of the Tea Party movement has been a frustration to me, and not just because it is ugly and seeks to traduce so many of the values I hold dear.

Even worse has been the overwhelming historical myopia. As the Times’s new poll numbers amply confirm — especially the ones establishing that the Tea Partiers are overwhelming Republican or right-of-Republican — they are the same angry, ill-informed, overwhelmingly white, crypto-corporate paranoiacs that accompany every ascendancy of liberalism within U.S. government.

“When was the last time you saw such a spontaneous eruption of conservative grass-roots anger, coast to coast?” asked the professional conservative L. Brent Bozell III recently. The answer, of course, is: in 1993. And 1977. And 1961. And so on.

For a movement that the U.S. has seen time and time again, it's odd that people seem to treat it like something new.

Has the Deepwater Spill Killed Climate Change Legislation?

Where does the Deepwater spill leave climate change legislation?

Before 210,000 gallons of oil a day were engulfing the Gulf Coast, recall that just a month ago, President Obama announced support for a dramatic expansion of offshore drilling. Though it was derided by environmentalists as a premature concession to Republicans, the president's defenders argued it was necessary to win climate legislation the support of wavering conservative Democrats in the Senate.

In the wake of the spill, birds and turtles may not be the only things dead in the water. At a press conference yesterday, Sens. Bill Nelson (D-FL), Robert Menendez (D-NJ), and Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) all pledged to oppose any expansion of offshore drilling, with Nelson threatening to filibuster if it were to be included. The Senate climate bill, is now unlikely to include any offshore drilling.

If anything, the tragedy in the Gulf argues strongly for a serious focus on renewable energy, as well as carbon caps, which would not only reduce carbon emissions but would increase energy efficiency. And yet, the irony is that by killing support for expanded drilling, the Deepwater spill, may well be dooming the overall climate bill. Without the support of Republicans and conservative Democrats, no climate bill is going to pass.

Can the Senate get 60 votes for a climate bill without offshore drilling? Perhaps if the Senate were a sane institution. I'm not holding my breath.

More on this from Brad Plumer and Ezra Klein.