A recent press release in the New York Times—no wait, it wasn't a press release, it was a news article—advertises the establishment of a new movement that is supposed to be a rival to the pro-free-market, anti-big-government tea parties. In a twist that is actually somewhat clever, it is called the "coffee party."
The new Coffee Party group plans a National Coffee Party Kick-Off Day on March 13, supposedly with "hundreds" of events across the country. Will this be anywhere as big as the tea party movement? Will it have anything like the same political impact?
I doubt it, because the coffee they're serving up is pretty weak stuff.
What exactly does the Coffee Party stand for? If you can manage to sit through this annoying YouTube video by Coffee Party founder Annabel Park—she's a very typical product of the left, a 41-year-old woman who still looks and sounds like a naïve college student—you find out that it stands for a whole set of empty Democratic Party talking points. Ms. Park is in favor of "cooperation" and "moving toward solutions" and against "obstructionism and extreme political tactics." Whenever someone begins by talking about the process of government while avoiding saying anything about the substance, you know you're in trouble. The attitude is: I don't want to have to debate the basic issues, I just want everyone to go along with me.
This is part of the left's general state of ideological denial. They cannot admit that there are any real, substantive ideas behind the tea party movement, partly because they can't answer those ideas, and partly because they don't want to admit that they have no ideas of their own—at least, none they dare to admit openly. Thus, we get the usual anti-intellectual dismissals of opposition from the right. The current "obstructionism," according to Ms. Park, is "fear-based," including one fear in particular: people are "nervous about changes in their neighborhoods and in the demographics of this country." In other words, the tea party movement is all just about whitey being afraid of uppity blacks. It's the tired old racism smear trotted out once again, as if it were still 1964. Except that back then, as I recall, the segregationists were all Democrats.
As for the real issue at stake here—the size and proper function of government—this is all that Ms. Park has to say: "If you don't believe the government has any role [in 'addressing' unnamed 'problems'], then yeah, you should join the tea party." OK then, guess I will. But that's not quite all she has to say. She concludes with exactly the kind of high-handed condescension that is turning the public against President Obama. He keeps telling us that "the time for talking is over" and then proceeds to lecture us for another hour, which means that he really thinks that the time for us to talk is over. Same for Ms. Park. "We need [Congress] to get to work, instead of fighting. And we need people to get out of the way."
Yes, sirree, there's the voice of a genuine "grassroots" movement: the people should get out of the way.
It turns out, by the way, that the similarity to President Obama or to the Democratic Party talking points is no coincidence. What the New York Times failed to tell us is that Park used to produce videos for the Obama campaign.
The Coffee Party website carries on in much the same vein. Its mission statement reads:
The Coffee Party Movement gives voice to Americans who want to see cooperation in government. We recognize that the federal government is not the enemy of the people, but the expression of our collective will, and that we must participate in the democratic process in order to address the challenges that we face as Americans. As voters and grassroots volunteers, we will support leaders who work toward positive solutions, and hold accountable those who obstruct them.
Again, this is a collection of the same old platitudes, except that we can discern the outlines of one actual idea: the idea of the government as an "expression of our collective will." It is the philosophy of collectivism that is poking through. The idea is that the government is entitled to use force against the individual and take away his liberty, because the government represents the "will of the collective"—and the individual must always be subordinated to the collective.
But this is such an ugly idea with such an ugly history—it is the ideological foundation of modern tyranny—that its own adherents don't have the nerve to really state it openly. So they dress it up in all of that fluff about "cooperation" and "positive solutions" and "participating" in order to "address challenges" about—well, about something, I guess. They don't dare tell us what they really mean.
You can see the ideological cost they have to pay for this evasion. The New York Times article says that the purpose for the Coffee Party meetings is that "people can gather to decide which issues they want to take on." And "Ms. Park said that while the Coffee Party—and certainly the name—was formed in reaction to the Tea Party, the two agree on some things, like a desire for fiscal responsibility and a frustration with Congress."
So the Coffee Party is based on an evil ideology, mitigated by its sheer inability or unwillingness to articulate that ideology. The fact is that the Coffee Party has to be ideologically unfocused, because the only way it could get into focus is by clearly stating its collectivist principles—at which point it would give up any chance of gaining the support of the American common man.
The fundamental ideological disadvantage of the Coffee Party is that its collectivist ideology is a foreign importation that is briefly imbibed by some young people as college students. But its impact famously tends to fade as these youths leave the monoculture of academia and gain the life-experience that refutes the theories of their professors. Those who remain on the left tend to be the 40-something naïfs like Ms. Park and Mr. Obama—people who have carefully resisted any element of worldliness and maturity that might cloud the certainty of their youthful faith.
If that is the basic disadvantage of the Coffee Party, you can see the enormous ideological advantage enjoyed by the tea parties.
A reader recently asked me about a "national tea party statement" that he had been asked to sign, and which he partly disagreed with. I responded by pointing out that there all sorts of people jockeying to appoint themselves as the "national leaders" of this movement, when they are really just jumping on the bandwagon and pretending to be the driver. It reminded me of the left's idea of looking for a small handful of "national tea party leaders" whom they could target and discredit. I was about to point out that the tea party movement has no national leader, no national platform, and no national statement, which I thought was a shame because the movement could use a good "statement" that would focus its supporters on a few simple core issues.
Then I realized that we already have such a statement. There already is a universally accepted national tea party statement and a national tea party platform. We've had them for a long time. The national tea party statement is called the Declaration of Independence, and the national tea party platform is the Constitution of the United States. And come to think of it, I can name six or seven national tea party leaders—revered figures who command the movement's loyalties. Their names are among those signed at the bottom of our national tea party statement and our national tea party platform. They are John Hancock, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, James Madison.
Of course, we do need modern-day intellectual leaders, and we definitely need further study of the philosophical foundations of liberty. Many people in the tea party movement are already seeking out these ideas, with varying results. But it is a testament to the achievement of our Founding Fathers that the universal principles they cited as the basis for their revolution are so powerful that they still form the basis for the defense of American liberty.
In another country, a movement like the tea parties might be merely a blind rebellion of resentment, without ideological foundation or focus. But not here. And the tea party movement cannot go far wrong if it sticks to the original tea party mission statement:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.
Notice that this tea party statement is far more substantive and radical than anything the Coffee Party organizers have had the courage to state. The ideas of the Founding Fathers are still pretty strong coffee. Yet in a fascinating irony, this radical statement of principles is also far more likely to gain the approval of the American people, because America is the home soil of these ideas about liberty.
The tea party movement that began in 2009 is a deep expression of the American character—because the American character was shaped by the tea party movement that began in 1773.
Robert Tracinski writes daily commentary at TIADaily.com. He is the editor of "The Intellectual Activist (TIA)" and contributor to "The Freedom Fighter's Journal."
The new Coffee Party group plans a National Coffee Party Kick-Off Day on March 13, supposedly with "hundreds" of events across the country. Will this be anywhere as big as the tea party movement? Will it have anything like the same political impact?
I doubt it, because the coffee they're serving up is pretty weak stuff.
What exactly does the Coffee Party stand for? If you can manage to sit through this annoying YouTube video by Coffee Party founder Annabel Park—she's a very typical product of the left, a 41-year-old woman who still looks and sounds like a naïve college student—you find out that it stands for a whole set of empty Democratic Party talking points. Ms. Park is in favor of "cooperation" and "moving toward solutions" and against "obstructionism and extreme political tactics." Whenever someone begins by talking about the process of government while avoiding saying anything about the substance, you know you're in trouble. The attitude is: I don't want to have to debate the basic issues, I just want everyone to go along with me.
This is part of the left's general state of ideological denial. They cannot admit that there are any real, substantive ideas behind the tea party movement, partly because they can't answer those ideas, and partly because they don't want to admit that they have no ideas of their own—at least, none they dare to admit openly. Thus, we get the usual anti-intellectual dismissals of opposition from the right. The current "obstructionism," according to Ms. Park, is "fear-based," including one fear in particular: people are "nervous about changes in their neighborhoods and in the demographics of this country." In other words, the tea party movement is all just about whitey being afraid of uppity blacks. It's the tired old racism smear trotted out once again, as if it were still 1964. Except that back then, as I recall, the segregationists were all Democrats.
As for the real issue at stake here—the size and proper function of government—this is all that Ms. Park has to say: "If you don't believe the government has any role [in 'addressing' unnamed 'problems'], then yeah, you should join the tea party." OK then, guess I will. But that's not quite all she has to say. She concludes with exactly the kind of high-handed condescension that is turning the public against President Obama. He keeps telling us that "the time for talking is over" and then proceeds to lecture us for another hour, which means that he really thinks that the time for us to talk is over. Same for Ms. Park. "We need [Congress] to get to work, instead of fighting. And we need people to get out of the way."
Yes, sirree, there's the voice of a genuine "grassroots" movement: the people should get out of the way.
It turns out, by the way, that the similarity to President Obama or to the Democratic Party talking points is no coincidence. What the New York Times failed to tell us is that Park used to produce videos for the Obama campaign.
The Coffee Party website carries on in much the same vein. Its mission statement reads:
The Coffee Party Movement gives voice to Americans who want to see cooperation in government. We recognize that the federal government is not the enemy of the people, but the expression of our collective will, and that we must participate in the democratic process in order to address the challenges that we face as Americans. As voters and grassroots volunteers, we will support leaders who work toward positive solutions, and hold accountable those who obstruct them.
Again, this is a collection of the same old platitudes, except that we can discern the outlines of one actual idea: the idea of the government as an "expression of our collective will." It is the philosophy of collectivism that is poking through. The idea is that the government is entitled to use force against the individual and take away his liberty, because the government represents the "will of the collective"—and the individual must always be subordinated to the collective.
But this is such an ugly idea with such an ugly history—it is the ideological foundation of modern tyranny—that its own adherents don't have the nerve to really state it openly. So they dress it up in all of that fluff about "cooperation" and "positive solutions" and "participating" in order to "address challenges" about—well, about something, I guess. They don't dare tell us what they really mean.
You can see the ideological cost they have to pay for this evasion. The New York Times article says that the purpose for the Coffee Party meetings is that "people can gather to decide which issues they want to take on." And "Ms. Park said that while the Coffee Party—and certainly the name—was formed in reaction to the Tea Party, the two agree on some things, like a desire for fiscal responsibility and a frustration with Congress."
So the Coffee Party is based on an evil ideology, mitigated by its sheer inability or unwillingness to articulate that ideology. The fact is that the Coffee Party has to be ideologically unfocused, because the only way it could get into focus is by clearly stating its collectivist principles—at which point it would give up any chance of gaining the support of the American common man.
The fundamental ideological disadvantage of the Coffee Party is that its collectivist ideology is a foreign importation that is briefly imbibed by some young people as college students. But its impact famously tends to fade as these youths leave the monoculture of academia and gain the life-experience that refutes the theories of their professors. Those who remain on the left tend to be the 40-something naïfs like Ms. Park and Mr. Obama—people who have carefully resisted any element of worldliness and maturity that might cloud the certainty of their youthful faith.
If that is the basic disadvantage of the Coffee Party, you can see the enormous ideological advantage enjoyed by the tea parties.
A reader recently asked me about a "national tea party statement" that he had been asked to sign, and which he partly disagreed with. I responded by pointing out that there all sorts of people jockeying to appoint themselves as the "national leaders" of this movement, when they are really just jumping on the bandwagon and pretending to be the driver. It reminded me of the left's idea of looking for a small handful of "national tea party leaders" whom they could target and discredit. I was about to point out that the tea party movement has no national leader, no national platform, and no national statement, which I thought was a shame because the movement could use a good "statement" that would focus its supporters on a few simple core issues.
Then I realized that we already have such a statement. There already is a universally accepted national tea party statement and a national tea party platform. We've had them for a long time. The national tea party statement is called the Declaration of Independence, and the national tea party platform is the Constitution of the United States. And come to think of it, I can name six or seven national tea party leaders—revered figures who command the movement's loyalties. Their names are among those signed at the bottom of our national tea party statement and our national tea party platform. They are John Hancock, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, James Madison.
Of course, we do need modern-day intellectual leaders, and we definitely need further study of the philosophical foundations of liberty. Many people in the tea party movement are already seeking out these ideas, with varying results. But it is a testament to the achievement of our Founding Fathers that the universal principles they cited as the basis for their revolution are so powerful that they still form the basis for the defense of American liberty.
In another country, a movement like the tea parties might be merely a blind rebellion of resentment, without ideological foundation or focus. But not here. And the tea party movement cannot go far wrong if it sticks to the original tea party mission statement:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.
Notice that this tea party statement is far more substantive and radical than anything the Coffee Party organizers have had the courage to state. The ideas of the Founding Fathers are still pretty strong coffee. Yet in a fascinating irony, this radical statement of principles is also far more likely to gain the approval of the American people, because America is the home soil of these ideas about liberty.
The tea party movement that began in 2009 is a deep expression of the American character—because the American character was shaped by the tea party movement that began in 1773.
Robert Tracinski writes daily commentary at TIADaily.com. He is the editor of "The Intellectual Activist (TIA)" and contributor to "The Freedom Fighter's Journal."
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