Good things about the Tea Party.

[Crackpot]

I occurs to me that the emergence of the Tea party may not have been all bad. It occurs to me that there have been two social changes over the past few years that may not be a direct effect of tea party policies may have been bolstered by the direct bucking of standard boilerplate platform of one (if not both) of the political parties.

In short I think that the sea change in the views on same sex marriage and the recent softening of views on our draconian drug laws have come from a mass questioning of party orthodoxy.

Thoughts, comments, other possible examples?

[rubato]

I occurs to me that the emergence of the Tea party may not have been all bad. It occurs to me that there have been two social changes over the past few years that may not be a direct effect of tea party policies may have been bolstered by the direct bucking of standard boilerplate platform of one (if not both) of the political parties.

In short I think that the sea change in the views on same sex marriage and the recent softening of views on our draconian drug laws have come from a mass questioning of party orthodoxy.

Thoughts, comments, other possible examples?

Neither of those changes were in any way related to the tea party.

yrs,
rubato

[Crackpot]

Yeah the great change in views among those on the right had absolutely nothing to do with the shakeup of the republican establishment.

[Lord Jim]

I don't think I agree with that analysis CP...

In the case of gay marriage, as I've said before I think a large factor was more than a decade of pretty much relentless advocacy for it by the news media. There was never even the slightest pretense of simply reporting on developments relating to the issue; it was POV journalism on a massive and sustained level.

In the case of the relaxing of drug laws, a large factor has been economic; states and localities simply could no longer afford to warehouse large numbers of folks for petty drug crimes, so another approach had to be found.

Of course one huge contributing cause for the shift on both of these issues has been demographic. Polls even of Republicans in the 18-29 year old demographic finds much stronger acceptance of gay marriage than polls of older groups, and the same is true of issues like legalizing marijuana use.

[Crackpot]

I'm not saying that they invented or even backed these changes only that they created the environment for these changes to take hold. Face it the war on drugs has been a failure for over 20 years and it was less than a decade ago that republicans were passing anti gay marriage laws. I also don't see it as an accident that these both fall under the umbrella of "libertarian" views.

[Lord Jim]

To the extent that the Tea Party got a lot of libertarian oriented people active in politics, (and also showing up at the polls) you may have a point. But no Tea Party organization that I'm aware of made either of those issues something that they actively pursued as an organization.

So any impact would really have been indirect.

[Crackpot]

The question I'm asking is why now? what suddenly changed to make these things which were given as being one way for so long (regardless of what people personally thought about them) suddenly change?

[Crackpot]

The answer there seems to me that the tea party provided the impetus for these changes

[Joe Guy]

Could it be that gays & potheads from the 60's are now a part of the establishment and the majority (Baby Boomers)?

[Lord Jim]

The question I'm asking is why now?

Well CP, I suggested a couple of explanations for that in my first response.

I really don't think you can point to any one factor; I think it's a function of several things converging over the same time period.

[Scooter]

In the case of gay marriage, as I've said before I think a large factor was more than a decade of pretty much relentless advocacy for it by the news media. There was never even the slightest pretense of simply reporting on developments relating to the issue; it was POV journalism on a massive and sustained level.

Oh please, there hasn't been a news story published about same-sex marriage that didn't contain at least one comment from someone at the Family Research Council or the American Family Association or the Roman Catholic Church or the nutbar wing of the Republican Party saying that same-sex couples seeking marriage equality were attempting to destroy the institution of marriage, and that legalized same-sex marriage signalled the death knell for human civilization.

I think Crackpot is correct in this respect - SSM opponents, many of the extreme version of whom associated themselves with the Tea Party, peddled their doomsday scenarios about SSM for so long, against all evidence to the contrary as legal SSM became more common both in the U.S. and around the world, that mainstream Americans could no longer put any credence in their ridiculous claims and saw no reason to continue opposing legalizing SSM.

[Scooter]

Exhibit A:

Legalizing same-sex marriage will be “the destruction of our republic,” and Will & Grace started us down this path, says former U.S. senator and onetime presidential aspirant Rick Santorum.

Santorum made the remarks at the recent Midwest Republican Leadership Conference in Kansas City, Mo. He said that even with the sexual revolution of the 1960s, no one considered expanding the definition of marriage beyond male-female unions until Will & Grace came along with its sympathetic portrayals of gay men and their straight female friends. (Actually, same-sex couples have been seeking marriage rights since at least the 1970s, long before the sitcom’s premiere in 1998.) Due to the influence of that show and subsequent pop-culture phenomena, “the needle started to move,” he said.

He said young people are reluctant to speak out against marriage equality because they “have been beaten up” by those who consider such resistance an act of hate. He also predicted that Christian opposition to marriage equality will soon be suppressed as hate speech. “I don’t think the Supreme Court is going to tolerate and give tax-exempt status to haters,” he said.

While some are calling on Republicans to embrace marriage equality, Santorum said, “For the Republican Party to even contemplate going along with this is the destruction of our republic.” Watch video of his comments below, courtesy of Right Wing Watch.

He sounds every bit like Jerry Falwell nattering on about Tinky Winky. And who the fuck other than the lunatic fringe is going to believe anymore that SSM is going to mean the destruction of the republic?

If you don't like the fact that SSM is steadily becoming legal across the country, you can blame, not some fictitious pro-SSM slant in the news media, but this man and others of his ilk for allowing their rhetoric to become a parody of itself.

[Sue U]

Same-sex marriage is the natural result of the gay liberation movement, which for practical purposes began with Stonewall in 1969. It is a cultural change that has been well over 45 years in the making, but I think its greatest impetus may have been disco. Seriously.

By 1973 or so, the best DJs and dance mixes were all at gay nightclubs, and they were attracting a sizeable straight crowd as well. After all, a good party is a good party. With the de-closeting and desegregation of nightlife and pop culture (hello Village People), the straight and gay worlds mixed more openly and more comfortably. Glam brought gender-bending to macho rock-n-roll culture. Straights became less fearful, and it was finally okay to acknowledge that Uncle Larry was fabulous and that your big sister drove a Subaru.

I think the AIDS epidemic through the 1980s, for all its horrors, did more than anything to awaken the political activism of the gay community on a broad scale; LGBT would and could no longer remain invisible. And once society at large recognized that our gay brothers and sisters are in fact our brothers and sisters, it became impossible to deny them the human rights that everyone else takes for granted.

[rubato]

The most important driver for social change in the status of homosexuals was the "coming out" movement championed by Harvey Milk and others. That one thing forced people around the country to let go of their former hatred and ignorance of homosexuality. The fact that their neighbors, media figures they admired, brothers, sisters, and cousins, coworkers, firefighters, police, &c were homosexual made them re-think the evil prejudice they were raised with. It created a slow but sure tidal wave of social change from within.


It is insanely stupid to credit the "Tea Party" with any of it.

yrs,
rubato

[Crackpot]

Aside from the near complete evaporation of an effective opposition.

[Gob]

The tea party confirmed f or us foreigners what US politics was really like.









Fucking totally loopy.

[Crackpot]

Tell that to the BNP

[Gob]

If you think the BNP has 1/1,000,000,000,000 of the influence in Brit politics that the tea party has in US politics, then you are as mad as they are!

[rubato]

Aside from the near complete evaporation of an effective opposition.

The Republican opposition remained as it always was.


yrs,
rubato

[Lord Jim]

some fictitious pro-SSM slant in the news media

Well I'm sorry, but when you move past the anecdotal to the aggregate, there's absolutely nothing "fictitious" about it...

The news media coverage of gay marriage has been overwhelmingly positive :

Pew: Media coverage favors gay marriage

By TAL KOPAN | 6/17/13 6:09 AM EDT

News outlets’ coverage of gay marriage tended to be significantly more favorable than unfavorable, according to a new survey Monday.

Stories focusing on support for same-sex marriage were five times more frequent than those focused on opposition, the analysis conducted by the Pew Research Center found.

Of the stories Pew focused on, 47 percent concentrated on supportive viewpoints, while 9 percent concentrated on opposition. Forty-four percent of stories were neutral or presented a balance of opinions.

(PHOTOS: 25 gay-rights milestones)

On Twitter, the split was more even, Pew found. An analysis of tweets found 31 percent were supportive, 28 percent were opposed and 42 percent were neutral, a split more in line with public opinion, Pew said. A recent Pew poll found the public split 51 percent in favor of same-sex marriage to 42 percent against.

While the stronger showing of support was seen across the 58 news outlets Pew analyzed, the range varied outlet to outlet. On cable news, Pew found 64 percent of MSNBC stories were supportive, to 30 percent mixed and 6 percent opposing. Fox News’s coverage was 29 percent supportive, 63 percent mixed and 8 percent against. CNN aired 39 percent favorable stories, with 57 percent neutral and 4 percent opposed.

Pew analyzed nearly 500 stories from more than 50 sources from March 18, the week before the Supreme Court heard arguments in the gay marriage case, to May 12. POLITICO was one of the websites Pew included in its analysis.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/06/g ... z2iUnxtjhy

Pew Research is certainly no right-wing outfit, and this only covers a short period earlier this year...This has been going on for years...

The SC rulings on the California Gay Marriage law and the DOMA were not covered as objective news events by most of the mainstream media; they were treated way the home town news media treats a Super Bowl victory for the local team.


You can argue that's good thing, but it is a fact. (I'd say it was certainly appropriate for them to take a celebratory approach, since they had played such an important role in creating the public support that made those victories possible)