NCPOL: What Tea Party? | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's note: Brant Clifton recite the eulogy for the Tea Party in his "bare knuckles" Conservative online publication known as The Daily Haymaker.

    I participated in the big 9/12/09 march on Washington that is credited with being the coming-out party for The Tea Party movement. As my friends and I walked amid the hundreds of thousands of fed-up citizens, a friend of mine commented: "This is wonderful. Let's hope this is more than a flash-in-the-pan. Let's hope this thing can grow, prosper and flourish."

    Well, here we are — nearly five years later. The Revolution of 2010 installed a House majority and closed the gap in the Senate. The GOP majority in the US House has forsaken repealing ObamaCare for "fixing" it. They promised to attack the debt when they took over in 2011, but have been part and parcel to increasing the debt ceiling on multiple occasions.

    Amnesty is coming. Renee Ellmers has been trumpeting it loudly and denouncing anyone opposed to it as an idiot. It was done in 1986, and check out what it's done to California. Since 1992, Republicans have pretty much been wiped out of power there and the economy has been decimated. The state has the look — and feel — of a Central American banana republic. These people in DC are going to finish the job – doing for the country what they did to California.

    In Raleigh, the conservative revolution has presented itself as budget-cutters and belt-tighteners while actually exploding state spending. They've balked at significantly reducing the gas tax — one of the highest in the nation — and are getting ready to saddle us all with toll roads.

    It's going to get better at the NCGOP convention. Delegates there will be presented with a new-and-improved party platform that omits repealing ObamaCare, waters down opposition to amnesty, and deletes all references to toll roads.

    It's been said government goes to whoever shows up a the polls. Turnout was abysmal on Tuesday. Prior to Tuesday, if you went by word on the street, you would have been convinced that Thom Tillis and Renee Ellmers were dead meat. Tuesday proved that it's one thing to gripe about politicians, but it's another to show up at the polls and do something about it. Much of what came to the polls on Tuesday were the low-info voters who remembered the names repeated to them during commercial breaks for The View and Wheel of Fortune.

    I encountered LIVs who honestly thought Tuesday's choice was between Clay Aiken and Thom Tillis. I saw one woman at my polling place insist loudly that she was a "registered independent" even though the registration documents showed her as "registered Republican." One home-schooling mama in our area was a ringleader in the Tillis campaign MAINLY because Speaker Thom was nice to her children when they visited the legislative building a few years back.

    The mushroom treatment administered by the establishment worked like a charm.

    A lot of people were swayed by the constant big-lie spin that Thom Tillis was the only one who could beat Kay Hagan. (The polls showed Tillis leading the GOP primary field, but losing to Hagan in the general election.) It's clear there is a desire to see her go. Just like with ACC basketball, everyone wants to be on the "winner's" bandwagon. When Duke has a good year, EVERYBODY is a Duke fan. (Speaking of hopping on the bandwagon — Erick Erickson of RedState once called Thom Tillis "terrible." Today, he's beating the bushes for people to donate money to Thom. Judson Phillips of Tea Party Nation also endorsed Tillis. Tillis is owned and managed by Karl Rove — who pledged to CRUSH The Tea Party.)

    In 2009, we were demanding freedom. In 2014, we've got a Republican party offering us slightly more efficient management of the welfare state. Election Day is over — for now. DC and Karl Rove and Eric Cantor have pretty well — with the exception of the Walter Jones race — picked our congressional delegation for us.

    While activists continue to jockey for influence within the Tea Party movement and shovel out fundraising letters to the "rubes," the establishment has been devoting time, cash and energy to fortifying their positions and defining down the grassroots as nuts and kooks.

    Those "nasty ads" will go away and be replaced with happier detergent and department store ads. The Ruling Class will keep picking your pockets for their own self-preservation. And 2009-2010 and 1776 will keep fading away into little more than distant memories – footnotes in American history textbooks.
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