Yesterday, I would have thought it would be hard for someone to write a more ludicrously, over-the-top article demonizing the Tea Party than Joe Nocera’s oped “Tea Party’s War on America.” I should have known that Maureen Dowd would make a pretty good run at it.
In her piece, Washington Chain Saw Massacre, she compares the Tea Party to horror movie villains, torturing that metaphor for nearly 900 painful words. It seems that all the Left has left is name calling.
Among the most contrived grievances that Dowd, Nocera, and the many others who want to paint the Right as some evil force, whether it’s terrorists or mass murders, is the idea that the policies that they are pushing represent some radical change from America as we know it. Dowd exemplifies the absurd rhetoric coming from the Left:
Most of the audience staggered away from this slasher flick still shuddering. We continue to be paranoid, gripped by fear of the unknown, shocked by our own helplessness, stunned by how swiftly one world can turn into a darker one where everything can seem familiar yet foreign.
Could this possibly be a reference to efforts to trim a couple trillion away from the growth of spending that’s planned for the next decade? Those spending cuts that barely kick in for the next two years?
Many Americans do feel helpless and that the land of opportunity they grew up in is vanishing, but that’s because of the rotten economy, which has left millions jobless and millions more worrying that their jobs will be next. The drumbeat of bad economic news is truly disturbing, as is the inability of our elected officials, not just in Washington but throughout the country, to seem to step up to make real changes in how we do business. People aren’t terrified at the idea that Congress might trim spending levels back to the dark days of 2008 (if only). No. They are worried that Washington is going to let us stumble on toward a Greek-style debt crisis, which would potentially be an unprecedented calamity to the world economy.
Yes, Dowd, Nocera and those on the Left think that growing government would be better. If we just jack taxes up enough to keep pace with the rip-roaring rate of spending growth, we’d be okay. Most Americans don’t agree, and that’s why a majority in 2010 sent Representatives to Washington who pledge to cut Washington spending and return power to the people. And, shockingly enough, some of those Representatives are actually trying to make good on that promise.
The Left seems increasingly desperate to tar those who believe in limited government as villains that threaten America. They are going to have a tough time doing it, because the Americans they are trying to convince are the same Americans who backed the Tea Party candidates and want to roll back government spending. And we know that far from zombies or bloodthirsty vampires, those advancing the cause of limited government believe that it will bring back the economy and the once might American jobs machine back to life.