Suggestion to the Left: Don’t Make the Same Mistake that the Tea Party Did (Guest Post)

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In the fall of 2013 the subject of Syria and President Obama’s handling of the situation, or lack thereof, was a news item, and there was an interesting side story that slipped under the radar. The Conservasphere had some fun pointing out the hypocrisy of all of the anti-Bush anti-war celebrities who were so righteously against military action against Saddam Hussein but were now silent over the US potentially taking action against Assad (or now ISIS – see how MSNBC is now the war hawk network). It was a fun diversion poking at some leftist elites, and there were actually a handful who stayed true to their principles and voiced disagreement with the president on this issue. Ed Asner in particular had some very interesting comments. The Hollywood Reporter’s Paul Bond spoke with Asner, who had this to say about the futility of their opposition:

Also, said Asner, unsuccessful efforts to prevent war in Iraq led to complacency among left-wing activists.

“We had a million people in the streets, for Christ’s sake, protesting Iraq, which was about as illegal as you could find. Did it matter? Is George Bush being tried in the high courts of justice?” asks Asner. “We’ve been so God-damned stung in this country by false wars, repeatedly, that, how can you believe in any just war with the history we have had?”

In fairness to the lefties, whatever action Obama may have chosen to take would have been nowhere near the scale of the invasion of Iraq. Then again, the 2003  invasion of Iraq was simply an extension of a policy that Bush inherited, but blaming your predecessor for the woes of your current job would have been rather un-presidential, something that thankfully we are well past today.

And I’ll give Asner and former M*A*S*H actor Mike Ferrell (who was also interviewed in that post) credit for sticking to their guns. But I’d like to give some friendly advice to all of the lefties who are keeping quiet because your guy is in the White House – the time to speak up is now. One criticism of the Tea Party that I think is a fair one is that we didn’t come out in numbers to protest a president’s horrible Fiscal Policy until Obama came into office. Granted, there were circumstances. Outside of the DC Beltway most conservatives were pretty unhappy with how Bush and the Republicans were running up our debt. From my own experience there wasn’t much to do in 2008 with the focus on the election and not the outgoing president, and prior to that I remember defending Dubya’s positions from lefty attacks over Iraq or that terrible economy we had during the Bush 43 presidency (Remember when adding only billions in debt per year, having 2.3% annual GDP growth and 5.5% average unemployment were signs of a horrible economy?) from the Michael Moore wing that dominated the Democrats’ thinking during those years. But at the end of the day, I can tell you that there isn’t a Tea Partier who doesn’t wish that we had spoken up sooner – a lot sooner. You think that we don’t wish that we hadn’t taken to the streets and melted phone lines when Trent Lott and Bush thought that the public’s checkbook was the formula to buying a permanent majority? Yeah, we’d like to have that one back. My point is that if you want to see a change to policy, you’re going to have a better chance when your party is the one pulling the strings, not when you’re the unwanted rabble who isn’t going to vote for them anyway.

But it also brings up the uncomfortable observation of how the left has been so uncurious about President Obama’s inability to lead and their unflinching ability to make excuses for his failures. Obamacare is tanking? It’s those mean Republicans’ fault for making the public dislike losing their coverage and having to pay higher premiums! Bad economy? It’s businesses’ fault, it’s the global economy’s fault, or when all else fails, failure of the current president for anything can be the fault of George Bush. Instead, maybe if you took a closer look at his policies and why they’re poorly thought out (Obamacare), have a historic track record of failure (Keynesian economic stimulus) or are just plain bad ideas (Czars, EPA looking to restrict carbon dioxide – you know, that stuff that plants breathe, using the IRS as a personal Goon Squad, etc), you’d realize that maybe the reason that Obama’s presidency has been a disaster is because Obama is a terrible president. More importantly, if the next time a Republican is president if you want to ever be taken seriously on issues like fiscal responsibility, economic growth, government corruption, etc. you really need to start speaking up now.


Image appears via The People’s Cube

But that’s not why I wrote this post. What got my attention was this follow up comment by Asner,

“A lot of people don’t want to feel anti-black by being opposed to Obama,”

Whoah.

That sounds as dumb as saying you won’t punish your 10 year old kid for dumping a can of paint in the middle of the kitchen floor lest you appear to be anti-child. Forget stupidity for a moment; remarks like this show how truly bigoted the left in this country truly is.

Although George W. Bush will never be remembered as one of our nation’s great orators, he did produce one beautiful quote, referring to “the soft bigotry of low expectations“. He was referring to the problem of failing schools, and pointed a seemingly gentle jab at leftists. Unfortunately this remark never became a rallying cry for everybody outside of the radical left as it should have. When you get down to it, Dubya’s remark was a crushing indictment, calling out the racism of the leftists who think that individuals should be held to lower standards based on their skin color. Prior to the 2012 election I wrote a post showing how many of the people who were planning to vote for Obama in 2012 might have been racist, and more recently how leftist racism’s failure to honestly evaluate the president and give him serious feedback is why he has not grown in office.

But to suggest, as Ed Asner did, that failing to oppose the president no matter how wrong his policies is in itself just plain wrong. And failing to criticize him when he deserves to be simply because of his skin color is just plain racist. Thank you Ed Asner, for finally coming clean about the racism of the Hollywood elite. This would be a great story in the news – if only there were journalists like Lou Grant around today…

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Cross posted from Brother Bob’s Blog

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Could you please tell me what point in time do you mark the beginning of the Tea Party as a movement? From, what I understand it started with Rick Santelli’s remarks on CNBC in Feb. 2009, meaning your article has a glaring error in its premise.

From what I recall, prior to 2009, most Americans opposed the GM and bank bailouts and conservatives within the Republican party blocked Bush’s attempts to bail out GM and the banks. They also blocked Bush’s attempts at working with the Democrats on amnesty for illegals. Santelli’s comments were the “rant heard ’round the world” that sparked the Tea Party movement which included many independents and traditional Democrats.

We can’t, the left is not comprised of the brain dead of our population.

@This+one: The left is the brain dead of the total population. What other explanation is there for a vote for Obama… much less two?

@Brother Bob: It is a fact that Bush spent wildly. However, the tax cuts and the expanding economy was actually bringing deficits DOWN… before the liberal brain-child Community Reinvestment Act cratered the economy.

@Brother Bob: So, a combination of spending cuts, lower taxes and economic growth does the trick. However, I would not be opposed to a specific war tax to cover those costs, for they will be with us for a while.