Tea Party and Alienation

Posted for Mel Bergheim, Alexandria VA

For what it's worth, my opinion is that the current economic collapse has mobilized a bunch of people who are suffering from a not-so-new malady: political and psychological alienation, a condition that is quantified by the number of people who don't vote.

The Tea Party movement is an oxymoron: alienated people, by definition, are not joiners, or at least not likely to be willing to subordinate their interests for the sake of the common good That leads me to predict that the Tea Parties are bound to splinter into atomized and warring factions. Hence, their influence will be expressed negatively -- they won't vote for rational candidates, hopefully at the expense of the GOP, as happened in New York's 23rd Congressional District. The danger is that they will be drawn to a demagogue -- e.g. Sarah Palin as Huey Long in drag. The posture of the Republican Party in Congress exemplifies how the negative platform plays out. Republicans on Capitol Hill are against everything Obama, but what are they for? An internally contradictory platform of smaller government, intact entitlement programs, lower taxes, a stronger military, and, miraculously, a balanced budget -- none of which can solve the real social, demographic, economic and environmental problems the nation faces. All the while, I believe, the widespread alienation, which is greatly exacerbated by economic distress, at bottom is fostered by: l.) The extreme physical mobility of the population, which has become separated from its traditional family and community roots, and 2) The depersonalization inherent in exposure to the electronic media. (The popularity of Facebook, Classmates and similar interactive platforms is attributable in significant part, I believe, to a reaction against the depersonalization and the separations generated by the mobility.)