This past week there was a protest in nearby Torrington that turned into a shouting match. On one side were anti-Obama protesters from various towns organized by an interest group called The Hartford Tea Party Patriots. On the other side were pro-Obama supporters, mainly from Torrington, that formed in reaction to the organized protest. The Tea Party’s web site reveals a cross between “free market libertarian” and patriotic interest group. To the extent that they are against a Democratic administration in a time of crisis they are like my Dad, but they depart radically from that point.
My rock-rib Republican father never voted for FDR. He did not like FDR’s strong-armed tactics to get what he thought what the country needed. Yet he begrudgingly conceded that FDR did some good for the country by getting people back to work. Most people who went through the Depression, Republican or Democrat, thought FDR did some good for people with his policies. Now we hear a lot of strident criticism, some with valid points. Foreign war, not the New Deal, put an end to the Depression. Foreign wars have a history of boosting our economy. Yet if the public who actually went through the Depression, including Republicans, felt that New Deal policies helped their actual living experiences, what kind of arrogant SOBs are we to look back and tell them they were delusional?
Had FDR existed in the current moment Republicans would not be providing even begrudging support; think tanks and interest groups would make sure of that (along with Fox News). People gasped when Rush Limbaugh declared he hoped Obama failed, but that is the sincere wish of all think tanks and interest groups with opposing ideologies to the current administration. For every ideological interest group, conservative or liberal, the actual experiences of our communities do not matter as much as validating their fixed ideologies.
Thus you get a special interest group like The Hartford Tea Party Patriots stirring up trouble in a community like Torrington. If Torrington feels Obama’s policies have been bad for that community, fine, let them go beyond mere protest. The town of Washington showed their displeasure with Bush II by voting to impeach him; that makes a “tea party” gathering organized by an outside special interest group look lame in comparison.
The problem we face now with special interest groups go beyond invading communities. The problem goes beyond the misinformation they provide to promote fixed beliefs. Our country faces a total breakdown in civility and discourse as special interest groups, including the special interest groups known as political parties, escalate their tactics to impose fixed dogma, even at the expense of community experiences.
Tags: Interest Groups, Middle Class Politics, Political Misinformation
