Contrary to mainstream media reports, the Tea Party movement has caught the imagination of a large body of the US. Reporters routinely underreport the attendance at these rallies, perhaps because they cannot believe that Tea Partiers are far more relevant and vibrant than their familiar subjects – peace protestors, anti- traders, and environmentalists. The big question is whether the Tea Party movement will become a permanent political force or a flash in the pan. Will the Tea Parties be coopted by canny politicians and die off or will they become the new dominant political party in the US? Will the Tea Party be another Reform Party or will it be the next Republican Party?
More often than dissolving, parties reform along new lines of division in times of distress. The GOP was reformed by Sen. Goldwater and Pres. Reagan into a Christian – conservative alliance, away from Sen. P. Bush – V.P. Rockefeller milquetoast party irrelevance. The Dems were reformed into a union – minority – leftist alliance after the implosion of the Dems’ policies of Black oppression in the South (although segregationist Democrat Senators like Thurmond and Byrd changed with the times). By contrast, for a party to completely collapse, the Nation must be in an incurable crisis.
The latest incurable national crisis was the War Between the States in the 1860′s. In the decades leading up to the War, the dominant parties were the Democrats and the Whigs. Pres. Lincoln’s Democrat predecessors, Presidents Pierce and Buchanan were willing to compromise on the slavery issue, continuing the institution, but containing it. Republican Lincoln, not willing to compromise with the South, accelerated the secession movement touched off by his election by effectively outlawing the South’s commerce with England. Without trade with England, secession became the only way of maintaining the South’s slave based cotton economy. As the Union collapsed under the weight of this powerful division, it was not the largely pro-slavery Democrats that imploded, but the largely northern Whigs that paid the price. The Republicans stepped into the political void left by the Whig’s indifference to abolition and formed an abolitionist – northern industrialist alliance.
Sadly, the US faces another incurable national crisis. Even without Obamacare, the size of the US’s Government and its debt has become untenable. The US must pay nearly $50 trillion in real benefits to retirees over the next few decades, that in addition to about $12 trillion in nominal debt that must be serviced and refinanced. The US probably cannot manage this, as its entitlement obligations cannot be inflated away like nominal debt. As with Slavery 150 years ago, it is abundantly clear that something must change in a fundamental way. As the Dems were the party of slavery, they are now the party of excess spending, debt, and taxes. As the Whigs were complicit in slavery, the Republicans now give lip service to limited government, but they are actually complicit in the waste and corruption. If the Whig’s demise is an indication, the Tea Partiers’ anger will be expressed by the destruction of the Republican Party.
The Dems’ left wing base will not abandon their party because of outrage over Government spending, but the GOP’s base will dissolve if a new party is sincere about shrinking government. Ironic but true, Obama’s obscene excesses may trigger the end of the Republican Party. Of course the GOP is imperfect at best and hardly deserves any sympathy. If the Tea Party becomes a vessel of power for the cause of limited Constitution based government, nobody will miss the GOP’s sleazy legacy of back room dealing, pork, and creeping statism.
It may only be a few years of trillion dollar deficits before US treasury yields approach those of Greece, touching off a liquidity crisis like no other. With the Dem power base shrinking and the GOP without answers or resolve, the time could be right for a new political party. The new party could draw from libertarians lost in the two parties, minorities who have no policy attachment to the Dems, and a growing body of deficit hawks from both parties. The social conservative overlay of Reagan might dissolve and split along their other issue alignments. As in the election of 1860, it all could take place very quickly.
Political parties form in the power vacuum of major national crises. While ignoring the Tea Party may cause the Dems to lose a number of seats this November, the real threat is directed toward the GOP. If the GOP ignores or marginalizes the Tea Party, they may well be wiped off the political map. If the GOP wishes to survive, it needs to take its professed principles of limited Constitutional government and free market capitalism seriously for the first time in twenty years.