NOTE. This was formerly called " Why You Can't Reason With the Tea Party" The title has changed. Nothing else has.
There was a 19th century British historian named Henry Sumner Maine. He is famous for stating that law and society devolved from "status to contract". What this means is that in the ancient world you were bound by status. If you were born a slave, you stayed a slave. If you were born in royalty you stayed in royalty. This was true even if the slave was a genius and the prince a dullard. Now, according to Maine, you are defined by your "contracts" which are your relationships with other people. You are free agents ,free to associate with people of your own choosing, make your own deals and can rise above your birth station. Nobody would deny the basic truth of this. Of course, there is plenty of room for argument how these relationships should be regulated. How people interact with each other in the material world, and how they should, has come to be called "economics".
This brings us to the Tea Party and other white conservatives, and liberals frustration with them. Why do they always vote against their economic interests? Indeed, "what is the matter with Kansas" as Thomas Frank famously said? The reason is that liberals are thinking contract (economics) and the conservatives are thinking status (race). Its a waste of time to talk economic logic to people terrified of losing their once privileged status.
White baby boomers are old enough to remember the day that white American males literally ruled the world. A world that they were almost guaranteed a comfortable place if they just showed up and didn't screw up. Baby Boomers were kids during this Superpower America which lasted from the end of World War to about 1973. And princes and princesses they were. Mom stayed home and suppressed any ambitions she might have had because it was her DUTY to take care of these kids. Dad worked so hard and never saw the kids that it was his DUTY to provide for. And when these kids grew up, a job was waiting for the boys and a husband was waiting to take care of the girls. Tea Partiers often say they "want their country back". OF COURSE they do! They grew up social royalty and had it yanked from them. In short, they lost their status.
What happened? Other people started questioning white male automatic status and around 1973, this started to reach critical mass. Blacks refused to accept their third rate status. So did women. Mom started thinking about herself instead of neatly packing Snoopy lunchboxes. Japan and other countries started to challenge American industrial hegemony. Arabs wondered why they had to sell their oil cheap. Finally, worse of all, Corporate America decided that they did not have to provide the boomers a good living anymore. Why should we provide them a good wage when other people would work so much cheaper. Plant closings. Outsizing. Downsizing. Rightsizing. Goodbye plentiful jobs. Finally, they had to compete with these Others for the remaining jobs. A Kingdom destroyed coldly with stunning speed. Can you really blame Boomer males for being angry? Hell, I'm a white male baby boomer and they destroyed my automatic status too. Have they really made a better world by destroying the American middle class? Yes, blacks and other minorities are more equal. But a lot, if not most, the movement have been the white middle class' downward mobility.
No, I don't blame the Tea Party for being angry. I do blame them very much for their response to their plight. I blame them very much for desperately clinging to their lost master race status. I blame them for being suckered by pols that exploit their racial fears while stealing them blind. I blame them to listening to churchmen that tell them that God made them special and that they should be immune to the world's pressures. I blame them for listening to evil (but cunning) people like Sarah Palin for pushing an "American Exceptionalism" that has nothing to do with achievement. For listening to politicians who lead them on to believing the age of white privilege is coming back if they just carry enough guns and bay insults at Obama. For not acting on the fact that it is the white corporate CEO in a business suit that is destroying the middle class and not black welfare mommas or illegal aliens.
Is there hope for us? After all United We Stand, Divided We Fall. After all, Tea Partiers are not in love with Wall Street, crooked banks, Too Big To Fail, and having their job shipped to China. However progress made in common cause is often wiped out by 15 minutes of Fox News paranoia and racial code words. Can we ever unite for the common good? Despite all of the hateful rhetoric, I dare to dream. Our Status as fellow human beings demands it.
