An Open Letter to the Tea Partiers

Dear Tea Partiers,

I am writing you today not as your progressive political opponent but as your fellow American.

There is but one America, and we are going to share it, whether we like the idea or not. We will be doing that single America a terrible disservice if we refuse to engage with each other.

I will not patronize you by pretending our political philosophies are not often in diametrical opposition, but I will pay you the compliment of taking you seriously. Too many on the left, myself included, have treated you dismissively for too long. But you refuse to be dismissed; you’re still here.

I do not disagree with everything you stand for. The Tea Party wants a safe, secure America. So do I. Cautious government and tamed deficits are Tea Party goals. I share them. While I cannot support “papers please” laws, I understand the fears that produce them, and I am mindful that America is an immigrant nation, not a colonized one.

But I believe you have made a terrible mistake; you’ve cast your lot with the Republican Party and only the Republican Party. You think the GOP is your champion. Think again.

You are being used. The GOP is going to ride you hard, all the way to Capitol Hill, and put you up wet. And when you try to collect on their winning ticket, all you’ll get is lip service.

If you think the GOP takes you seriously, and considers you more than a handy lever back into power, take a look at the last populist bill of goods they sold the country.

In 1994, Newt Gingrich’s “Contract for America” was going to change Washington forever. All we needed to do was elect a Republican congress. And so we did.

It didn’t work then and it won’t work now. That populist stuff isn’t designed to “work.” It’s designed to sell.

There’s an old saying among poker players. If you look around the table and you don’t know who the pigeon is, it’s you.

You, my fellow Americans, my Tea Partier brothers and sisters, are being sold.

You are the people, but your champions don’t represent the people. They represent themselves.

Oh, they’ll come to your conventions and speak—for a fee—and they’ll pass out the funny hats. They’ll make strong, vaguely racist denunciations of illegal immigration, while Conseulla watches the kids at the summer cottage in Nags Head. And then they’ll tell their buddies at Tyson Foods they didn’t really mean it.

The politicians you elect with your outrage will pay you all the respect Sarah Palin paid the citizens of Alaska. Your anger is their oxygen. And what they’re going to do to you will leave you breathless.

But there is a better way. Work with both parties. If you don’t, if you put all your hopes in the GOP, trust me, you’re going to get used. But if you work with both parties, if neither the Democrats or Republicans can take you for granted, you won’t be.

You are disgusted by our soaring deficits, you are sure it’s just a matter of time until the IRS breaks into the kid’s bedroom and confiscates Missy’s piggy bank.

But the deficit isn’t political, it’s structural. We could cut everything besides Medicare, Medicaid, the Military and Social Security to zero, not a dime for anything else, and we’d still be facing record, crippling deficits in the not too distant future.

Those deficits weren’t created only by Democrats. The accumulated national debt hadn’t reached a trillion dollars when Ronald Reagan became president; by the time he left it was nearly three trillion. Under Bill Clinton it grew about another twenty percent, under George Bush 43, it doubled.

I’m not saying the deficit was caused by Republicans, I’m only saying that the national debt is an equal opportunity employer.

The deficit won’t be tamed by only one party, it’ll take both, working together. National security cannot be achieved by one party, it takes both, working together. Every single thing you want cannot be achieved by merely one party. It will take both, working together.

If you want the Tea Party so succeed, to have a real voice in American politics, strong enough to make actual American policy, that should be your message. Work together.

If you do that, maybe you can make a difference. If you don’t, your anger will be used and your trust abused until you’re frustrated clear out of your anger into defeated apathy.

Go ahead, hold the president’s feet to the fire. The progressives do it all the time. But remember he is your president, not some alien being with fire-breath, horns and a copy of Mao’s Little Red Book where his Bible should be.

You’re angry. We’re angry. An underemployed nation involved in two wars, a foreclosure crisis, and betrayals from the Gulf of Mexico to Wall Street, has every reason to be angry.

But anger is bad politics. Anger can make you stupid. And anger leads to hate.

Try looking on the other side of that anger. Love. You love your country, try loving your countrymen. Give them your passion, your arguments, your ideas. But spare them your hate. It’s not worthy of you. And it’s bad for America.