Gallup, WaPo And GOP Moderati Happy To Spread “Tea Party In Decline” Myth

So much meaningless fluff here, it’s like journalistic cotton candy that they forgot to flavor.

Those of us involved in the Tea Party movement from the beginning are quite used to attempts by media and GOP hacks to marginalize its significance. There’s good money in being a water carrier for the status quo and uppity citizens availing themselves of Constitutional rights to affect change get the establishment types so sweaty you can smell the fear from across the ideological expanse. 

I was made aware of this poll by some tweets by my usual suspect friends on the more status quo side of things this morning. They are generally predisposed to perma-snark where the Tea Party movement is concerned. You’ve probably run across them yourselves: they’re the kinds of GOPers who still talk about Sarah Palin quitting her job rather than discussing (and being outraged by) the media character assassination that led to it. 

You know, just like the Democrats. 

They also are under the impression that the movement really hasn’t had any electoral victories to hang its hat on, as if 2010 never happened. Instead, they focus on the races where the Tea Party candidate lost, screaming “Christine O’Donnell!” over and over, all the while sitting high atop Mt. Suck and its base of failed Romney and McCain dollars, most of which were spent on, and by, them.

As the ascension of Ted Cruz continues much to the chagrin of the MSM and GOP dinosaurs, we can probably expect a lot more “Tea Party death throes!” reporting from the hive mind narrative shapers. This has always been an interesting meltdown to observe, as there is absolutely no middle ground whatsoever in the reporting. The Tea Party movement is either dead or in decline and not affecting anything or it is large and in charge

Back to the poll. 

Republicans are not openly against the tea party — just 7 percent say they oppose the movement — but more than half decline to take a side.

Overall support for the tea party is also on the downswing, with 22 percent of all Americans saying they affiliate with the movement. That’s down from a high of 32 percent in 2010 and from 26 percent in early 2012. Slightly more — 27 percent — say they oppose the tea party, while 51 percent have no opinion.

While the tea party label isn’t as big a force in American politics, polling has suggested that its ideals — particularly its anti-establishment attitude, including toward the national GOP — remain as strong as ever.

The poll asks about support for the “Tea Party movement”, which is both the best way of phrasing it and the reason that much of what follows in the article doesn’t mean much. 

As a genuine political movement, a good number of the original Tea Party groups have dug in and begun doing the mundane and thankless work of politics, none of which is really newsworthy. As such, it’s not really in the forefront of the minds of non-activist voters. This can make them either detached and likely to say they don’t “affiliate” with it or susceptible to the MSM drumbeat about the movement being dead.  

Many of these groups that have morphed into nuts and bolts activist organizations don’t have the words “tea party” in their names, by the way, which also creates the notion of a movement in decline. I have been all over the United States meeting these people in the last few years. They are doing fantastic work, some of them are even doing it from within the ranks of local GOP offices that they’ve taken over but, trust me, they are Tea Party to the core. 

So it isn’t unusual that mainstream GOP voters would be less likely to identify with a movement that they hear nothing but negative things about on the occasions that they hear anything at all. That however, is very different from “disassociating themselves” from the movement, which is what this article claims in the beginning. 

And while it makes for good storytelling, comparing the evolved manifestation of the movement to the 2010 juggernaut isn’t very valid, it’s somewhat akin to measuring all Saturday Night Live casts against the 1975-76 group. You use the once in a lifetime lightning in a bottle as the catalyst for the future, not the metric by which all success going forward is measured. 

Honestly, as one involved in the Tea Party trenches every day, I haven’t experienced any flagging enthusiasm from the faithful. Sure, I keep seeing the Moderati and the press versions of our despondency, demise and defeatist litmus tests being talked about all the time. 

And then I go back to work in reality.