Tea Parties and Conspiracy Theories
by T.L. James | 9:10 am, June 26, 2010 | Comments Off
An interesting summary by Daniel Foster at NRO of a Matthew Continetti article in the Weekly Standard on Glenn Beck and the resurgence of Bircherism:
This cuts right to the core of Continetti’s thesis in that piece — that the as-yet amorphous Tea Party movement must lead with free-markets and small-government, not conspiracy theories and doom-saying. As I’ve said above, both Beck and I happen to think that conservatives like Continetti are too kind to the post-New Deal order, but whether one sees that order as the well-intentioned but fatally flawed American project, or as the fruits of an Illuminati conspiracy, is surely important to the future of the Tea Party — and the discourse. [emphasis added]
Indeed. Nothing, apart from (real and not manufactured) manifestations of racism will do more to discredit and marginalize the Tea Party movement than focusing on crackpot conspiracy theories.
The path to success for the Tea Party movement is not hard to see. It merely needs to stick to calls for small government, free markets, and individual rights, and to approach these issues with a persuasive positive message. I won’t say it’s “as simple as that”, because that in itself entails a lot of hard work, but it is really that straightforward. There is nothing to be gained, and much to be lost, by tacking on unnecessary and unrelated side-shows of political paranoia which obscure the real issues and their potential solutions.
Tags: conspiracy > glenn beck > john birch society > kooks > matthew continetti > paranoia > ron paul > Tea Party Movement
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