On Patience:

Staying The Course As The Generations Shift

Contributed by Cultural Limits – The Constitution Club

A recent Robert Costa column in National Review featured an interview with A.J. Spiker, the Republican State Chairman in Iowa. Spiker’s history as part of the Ron Paul presidential campaign is outlined in the piece, but it is a quote toward the end of the article that is most interesting.

“This is more of a generational shift,” he says. “There is a group that wants to see the party advance, and there is a group that wants to see principles advance, and the latter is where the party is moving.”

Could it be?  Is dislike of the TEA Party among Republicans as simple as a “generational shift” or gap?

That concept is more than a little real right now in business and office work.  Those of us who either grew up with or came of age with technology, are quite comfortable with it and regularly have to coach the older guard through changes and quirks of new programs, devices and software.  Tech is not a new and foreign language to us.  Marketing and public relations practices have changed, as well.  It’s no longer necessary to have stories placed and buy advertising to get attention.  Now, we create our own content and publicize it ourselves.  That’s one concept the older guard in my world still doesn’t quite understand.

By the same token, we who were in high school and younger when Ronald Reagan was president and in the early years of Rush Limbaugh – when the Conservative Chronicle and National Review were some of the few compilations of right-leaning writing – grew up with the very ideals and principles currently being articulated by TEA Party candidates and office-holders.  Plain and simply, we are comfortable with saying out loud that individual liberty, lower tax rates and property rights, as well as intact, traditional families and faiths, made this a great nation and to be a great nation we must stick to that with a legal framework.  It was the message we internalized in our formation years as we all went through our idealist phases.  Not all that different from the peaceniks of the generation before who were influenced by Vietnam, actually.

Our Republican elders, as it were, came up in a different era, when what was to become the American political right was not organized, let alone in any sort of control despite the specter of communism as an enemy.  (To be honest, conservatism was on life support.)  The spiral into full on progressivism might have been slowed with a republican presidency or control of a single body of Congress, but it was continually advanced all the same.  Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon, after all, were president when The Projects and the EPA were founded respectively.

(Yes.  Republicans were in power when some of the most destructive, conservatively speaking, government entities came into being.  Subject for another post at another time.)

In that light, the old guard is accustomed to negotiation and compromise without burning bridges and destroying friendships.  That is the modus operandi of being collegial.  It is a practice and culture that many of the TEA Party bent not only has no time for, but does not understand, just like the idea of the “cocktail party” culture.

Well, unfortunately, as of now, that is the way things are done in Washington.  It is a world that requires a spine of steel to withstand compromise and not be wooed to betrayal of principles.  And yet, the larger Washington culture cannot be ignored because the representatives from the states and the heads of the cabinet departments might change, but the members of the media, the lobbyists, the staffs in all the various departments and agencies don’t.  (I have a feeling the bartenders don’t either.)

That part of Washington is entrenched, and it takes quite a bit of time to build contacts, trust, and rapport – working relationships – with all the people who are part of the larger system to be effective.  There is also a pretty steep learning curve on what is actually beyond the headlines.  The details may be different, but that process is the same for any professional stepping into a new job.  So is the idea that one must put in their time or dues before being promoted or chosen for special assignments.  When new, fresh faces come in and just expect to change things – or do it differently and better – without gaining the trust and support of those who were holding down the fort before, resentment builds.  (And whatever you do in work life, don’t make the old guard look bad in front of their superiors.  Been there, done that.  Marked with an X.)

If Spiker’s notion that this is a generational shift is correct, then that is what we are seeing played out before us.  Every indicator out there, including Ulsterman’s “White House Insider” statements, says that the awakened giant of The TEA Party scared the $#!& out of the political party establishments.  Why?  Because all the dues the people now at the top paid to inch their way up there has terriers rather than retrievers nipping at their heels.  And the TEA Party has the backing of a sizable percentage of the populace who are no longer going to fester in silence.

All that carefully crafted messaging, dues paying, timed served and maneuvering shot to hell.  No wonder they don’t like us.

Of course, that’s not all there is to it.  Organizing and publicizing rallies is the beginning.  As conservatives seem to be business owners and private enterprise sorts, the ins and outs of non-profit advocacy and being politically savvy is not in the usual skill set.  Fortunately, TEA Partiers tend to be at the higher end of the bell curve and learn pretty quickly.  Until the last month, when the IRS scandal started to come out, conservatives did not quite realize that there was a larger scale targeting happening other than media suppression.  Now that we know, the gloves are off and the movement toward principle is re-energized.  There’s that law of unintended consequences again.

(When the notion was pushed that TEA was fading on its own, due to demoralizing losses (which were probably engineered), the natural evolution was grudgingly accepted.  Sort of.)

There’s still a lot to learn and a long way to go to have the sort of impact we TEA sympathizers on the fruited plain of flyover country would like to have.  Plain and simply, dues have to be paid.  Relationships need to be built. And the old guard who have been at this for decades need to be sold on the principles.  They are not going to give up.  They’ve worked too long and hard to get where they are to simply walk away or give in.  The more open-minded among our elders will at least listen.  Especially now.  With all luck, some of them can at least be friends if not allies.

If we stay the course on principles, along with voting for the lesser of evils when necessary, eventually, conservative values will reach the national stage more fully.  Many state houses are more closely under the influence, but Washington is another matter.  It’s going to take time.

Be patient and stay the course.  That’s how the other side got us in this mess.

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