Who Has The Mandate?

Most of the Republicans who spoke on Wednesday about their recent victories in the House and the Senate, all insisted: The American people gave them a mandate. John Boehner was so moved by it, that he cried.

Pollsters, those who ask the questions and crunch the numbers, believed that the "whipping" would be greater. There's no denying the beating that Democrats took in the House--but, in the Senate, they survived. They weaker now, but they survived. There was a 10% likelihood that they wouldn't. Many pundits felt that the Senate, as well as the House, would fall to the Republicans. They were wrong. To be sure, Democrats received a spanking in the Senate but clearly not a whipping.

Their defeat is easily explained: Many Democrats who voted in the 2008 election sat out this time. This clearly made the difference. They were young, and they were mostly minority. You might reason then: It wasn't the Republicans or the Tea Party who defeated Obama and the Democrats, it was their base. It's hard to say that the low turn out for this group was all about the economy, and not about the inability of Democrats to pursue a progressive agenda, or change how the system works. In the days ahead, Republicans will characterize their victory as a referendum on Obama, on his agenda, and on Democrats generally.

Once again, I think pundits are misreading the tea leaves: They're insisting that Republicans will have to abandon their obstructionist tactics and actually do something. "Surely the Republicans will cooperate now. Surely they want a record on which to run in 2012." I admit: I didn't anticipate the American people falling for this tactic. But now, I'm beginning to take Republicans at their word, whether they're Tea Party Republicans are old-brand Republicans. Early on, these old-brands made clear their position: They said, unequivocally, that they wanted Obama to fail, and, to date, they're making good on their words. With their new congress, Republicans are now threatening the unthinkable, not to compromise, and to make Obama a one-term president.

If I wasn't a believer before, I am now. A true believer. Why should Republicans abandon what has been working for them? Rand Paul, Tea Party candidate, and now Senator-elect, has put Republicans on notice. In his victory speech, he said, essentially, the Tea Party will take no prisoners, and they won't surrender. One thing is clear: It's the Tea Party that feels it has a mandate from the people, and not the whole of the Republican Party. Rand Paul has thrown down the gauntlet. For the Republican establishment the message is unambiguous: The Tea Party is now in charge. It's Tea Time. You'll either do it our way, or we'll show you the highway.

What we have, then, is a prescription for gridlock. The Tea Party, to keep its promises, will have to do something to give the appearance of reducing the size of government. For one, they will attempt to repeal health-care reform, which will, of course, fail. For two, they will attempt to whittle away at the size of the Federal government. Some Tea Party folk have actually gone so far as to call for the abolishing of the Education Department and the EPA. Were this to pass, it would make the Koch brothers happy, as well as some other wanna-be polluters. Republicans may want this, too, but they're not under any pressure to deliver. Expect some infighting on these issues.

Here's my prediction: The Republican Party will soon be obsolete. It will be replaced by the Tea Party. The Tea Party will be the Republican Party on steroids--more intransigent, more conservative, more aggressive, and less likely to reach across the aisle, if at all. Already the Tea Party has made significant inroads--to be followed by one incursion after the other, until they've replaced the Republican establishment.

Before the curtains were drawn on the Democrats, Obama managed to pass two key pieces of legislation (health-care reform, and wall street reform). Mid-term elections, traditionally, present incumbent parties a real challenge to hold seats in either house, regardless of party. It explains one of the reasons for the much-criticized haste to pass legislation before the mid-term, and the reason Obama and the Democrats didn't tackle other major legislation, such as immigration reform (which wasn't popular anyway with the electorate), and is now, after the recent Republican victories, on indefinite hold.

I firmly believe that the reason that jobs weren't pursued with all the vigor that the president and the congress could muster was the perception that the financial sector needed rescuing first to avoid a depression. They may have believed, too, that the much-lauded stimulus bill (which economist agreed was too small) would accomplish that task--but job losses came faster than anticipated, and the stimulus managed only to keep the losses from becoming a tsunami, merely replacing jobs that were being lost, rather than creating new ones.

To make matters worse: Votes passed in the Democrat-majority House were in-boxed in the Senate--because, it was explained, the votes necessary for passage didn't exist. The Democrat caucus gave Democrats 60 votes to defeat filibusterers in the Senate, but "blue-dog democrats (Republicans in my book)," and moderates, may have kept many of these bills from going forward, especially with that nasty mid-term election on the horizon. As an aside: Blue Dogs were unseated in the recent race with a vengeance, twenty-four in all.

Here's a thought: Should progressives start their own movement within the Democrat Party to move it more to the Left? I say: Why not? The country can't be more polarized than it is now. This would be one way to exact change (to assure accountability, maintain transparency, and take the money out of politics) without armed conflict, that second-amendment remedy, once suggested by Tea Party candidate, now defeated, Sharron Angle.

Undeservedly, Obama and the Democrats were stand-ins on Tuesday for Bush and the Republicans. Democrats took the beating that should have gone to Republicans. You can say that the previous mid-term elections and Obama's rise to the presidency was payback for what the Republicans did during their tenure, but, in my view, it wasn't enough. I can recount several things, from the two wars in which we're stilled mired--not so much in Iraq as in Afghanistan--to the economic woes this country still faces, all having their genesis under Bush. So to see Republicans rewarded for their failings is the ultimate slap in the face to Democrats. It further crystallizes my belief that the electorate still doesn't get it.

Will Obama abandon his liberal agenda, move closer to the center, and lean Right? It's no secret that the country is more conservative than liberal, but this hasn't always translated into political capital for Republicans, who, this time around, garnered more of the independent votes than did Democrats.

Rush Limbaugh, the oracle of the Right, states it something like this: "Where is there room for any compromise with Marxism, or socialism, or liberalism? Where is there compromise with evil."

Bullying is in. Issuing threats is in. Hard-line resistance is in. Statesmanship is out. Compromise is out. Working together is out. The Democrats are in a brawl, a bar fight, and they still want to characterize it as a misunderstanding. They say: The Republicans down deep want to work with us. They just don't know it yet.

Unless Republicans are in power, they will hold this nation and its economy hostage. It's clear, at least to me, that what they're after is a one-party nation, where they control both houses of congress and the presidency in perpetuity. We have moved into an era of one-party politics, where the Republican opposition party is just that--in complete opposition to any efforts to reach across the aisle to advance legislation, unless it initiates the legislation, unless it shapes the legislation without interference or input from the opposing party.

If you doubt me, listen to their rhetoric: It's defiant, definite, and deliberate, the four "D's" of a destructive policy.

The Defacing of an American President

There's more than one way to deface the image of a president. It can be done with spray paint, with words, and thorough the use of an assortment of negative images.

It's not enough to do it once. To have a lasting impact, it's important that it's done, over time, again and again--the way that time, rain, and wind, together, can wear down almost any structure that stands in their way.

For our president, that wearing-down, destructive force of time, rain, and wind, has come in the form of the Tea Party Movement. Recently an organization has come to the president's defense--one other than MSNBC, and liberal radio personalities. In an uncharacteristic move, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), apparently fed up with the Tea Party's racist assaults upon this nation's first black president, has backed a resolution to "curb its enthusiasm:"

Tea Party members have used "racial epithets," have verbally abused black members of Congress and threatened them, and protesters have engaged in "explicitly racist behavior" and "displayed signs and posters intended to degrade people of color generally and President Barack Obama specifically," according to the proposed resolution.

"We're deeply concerned about elements that are trying to move the country back, trying to reverse progress that we've made," NAACP spokeswoman Leila McDowell told ABC News. "We are asking that the law-abiding members of the Tea Party repudiate those racist elements, that they recognize the historic and present racist elements that are within the Tea Party movement."

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, in coordination with 170 other groups, including labor unions, is planning a protest march in Washington, D.C., Oct. 2 as the next step in building momentum against the Tea Party.

The "One Nation" march is designed as an antithesis to the Tea Party, and it's about "pulling America together and back to work," McDowell said. More here

Now that the resolution has been adopted by those attending the NAACP's annual convention, it was not surprising that the Tea Party leadership, and other supporters, Fox News for one (no surprises there), are condemning the NAACP for their stance, and for calling for the Tea Party to repudiate those racist elements in its midst.

I applaud the NAACP for the resolution. Other groups should follow its example, and insist that the Tea Party distance itself from this kind of racist behavior by calling it out, and condemning it.

But that won't be happening, and here is why:

The wave of public acclaim that swept Obama into the White House had to be met with a force equal to, or greater than, lest he and Democrats for the next five national elections continue to ride high in the hearts and minds of the American people.

This offense to the Republican party, and conservatism, could not stand, and would not stand.

Liberalism was a bigger threat to the sanctity of the American Way, the Holy Grail of the U.S. Constitution, and the honored memory of our Sainted Forefathers who fashioned this document to govern the affairs of men--than al-Qaeda, the Iranians and their persistent effort to enrich uranium to build nuclear bombs with which to destroy us and Israel.

This threat wasn't lost on Rush Limbaugh. His was the first shot across the bow of Obama's freshly formed "regime," which was soon picked up in sundry incarnations:

"I want him to fail."

Sensing that the Republican party had played too nicey-nicey, allowing the liberal (now socialist) takeover of the presidency and the congress, the Tea Party Movement (more edgy, and more conservative than the mainstream) was given birth.

They in the movement had one goal: Topple Obama.

If he was seen as an icon (Shatter his image!). If he was a unifier (Brand him a racist!). If he galvanized a crowd with words alone (Call him the anti-Christ!).

For months now the destruction of a president and his party has been well under way, the assaults occurring daily--here a little, and there a little, a chipping here and a whittling there.

And the method has been sinister, a Machiavellian plot that Machiavelli himself would have endorsed, and would have been proud to call his own.

The opposition party resorted to several tactics, using a stratagem that would be the envy of Tricky Dick, were he alive, and will, over time, be inducted into the Hall of Fame of Dirty Tricks

The method was simplicity itself: The Tea Party Goers would, until the next national election, put all their collective energies toward the following: the radicalization, the Islamization, the socialismization, the Hitlerization, the blackenization, the racialization, the foreignization*, of Obama.

It didn't matter that, by associating Obama with Hitler and the holocaust, that it marginalized both--the horror that emerged as concentration camps, and the mass extermination of Jews, and the evil that was Hitler and the Nazi Party.

Predictions have it, from the White House Press Secretary himself, Robert Gibbs, that the Fall elections could result in a hand over of the keys to the U.S. House of Representatives to Republicans.

Although I, for one, am not certain of the outcome of the election for the House or the Senate come this Fall, I have never underestimated the power of bad press, and its destructive potential, especially when those who would wield it, wield it unscrupulously, and with deadly intentions.

A late but timely revision to this blog entry, thanks to "Blinders Off". If you watch only one You Tube video this week, this is it: "What if the Tea Party was Black"? Who says our young people aren't paying attention.


*Some words created just for this blog entry.

conTEAmptuous!

Newt Gingrich see an evolving role for the Tea Party, as the " militant wing" of the Republican Party.

He makes that observation with a certitude befitting the groups recent activities.

The dominance of the two party system almost certainly puts the Tea Party in the Republican camp, given their conservative bent, and their obvious distaste for everything Obama.

A recent poll confirms Newt's prescience regarding the group:

"The 18 percent of Americans who identify themselves as Tea Party supporters tend to be Republican, white, male, married and older than 45."

Also, according to the same poll, these white males aren't hayseeds, poverty-stricken, or likely to be, and neither are they grade-school dropouts.

"Tea Party supporters are wealthier and more well-educated than the general public, and are no more or less afraid of falling into a lower socioeconomic class...."

Assuming the accuracy of the poll, these aren't the typical malcontents, the usual suspects we might find protesting the size of government, or its overreaching ambitions to usurp state powers.

These aren't your "bitter" white men clinging to their "guns or religion." Obama captures this group with deft words, but is later skewered for it:

"You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them…And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not.

"And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

We have a new breed: These are "bigoted" white men, clinging to their 401(K)'s and the religion of non-governmental interference in free-market activities.

It doesn't matter that this selfsame market and its unscrupulous adherents nearly brought our economy to near collapse. What's important is that it remains "free".

And this is the mantra that emanates from this movement.

Liberals, with their misguided efforts to address society's deficiencies, and ills, are perpetrating the greatest crime, the unforgivable offense: They're depriving Americans of their constitutionally protected freedom.

The freedom to participate, or not to participate.

It doesn't matter that that freedom was a myth, almost from the inception of this Republic, Tea Partiers are intent on resurrecting that myth, and expanding the mythology.

They distance themselves from regular, run-of-the-mill Republicans by holding "more conservative views on a range of issues than Republicans generally. They are also more likely to describe themselves as 'very conservative' and President Obama as 'very liberal.'"

And Tea Partiers are "angry," more angry than their fellow conservatives:

"And while most Republicans say they are “dissatisfied” with Washington, Tea Party supporters are more likely to classify themselves as 'angry.'"

Given the movement's emphasis on a "smaller government," you wouldn't expect it to give thumbs up to Social Security and Medicare. Yet, it does.

Even more telling is the group seeming antipathy for the poor:

"Tea Party supporters’ fierce animosity toward Washington, and the president in particular, is rooted in deep pessimism about the direction of the country and the conviction that the policies of the Obama administration are disproportionately directed at helping the poor rather than the middle class or the rich."

I suppose Tea Partiers see Obama as some modern-day Robin Hood, who takes from the rich and gives to the poor.

Were that the case! For decades we've seen just the opposite: The rich get richer, and the poor, poorer.

Take a look at what has happened to our automotive industry, and the once proud City of Detroit, and why a bailout of General Motors (condemned by Tea Partiers) may have kept the city from becoming as bankrupt as the car manufacturer itself.

Investment bankers have rigged the game to favor themselves, even if it means the collapse of our economy in their pursuit of more and more wealth, and the means of maintaining that wealth, using "too big to fail" as their edge in the game, all but insuring their survival while their less-powerful competition falls by the wayside.

And the most telling aspect of the poll is this revelation:

"They are more likely than the general public, and Republicans, to say that too much has been made of the problems facing black people."

At the risk of painting this group with a broad brush, they have shown themselves to be ultra-conservative to the point of dismissing the poor, and the concerns of blacks, regardless of their merit.

The Tea Party folks are showing what may be the true face of America, a face that I'm all too familiar with.

How do we measure our greatness as a nation? Do we measure it by how many of our people have health care, or by the exceptional quality of our health care system; by the quality education extended to all, or by the state of our educational system for those who can afford it; by the number of people on welfare, or the number who don't require it at all; by the opportunities afforded to all regardless of social status, or race, or the number who are privileged with it from birth by virtue of color?

We're only as great as the number of us who have access to that greatness, the number of us who can rise as high as our talent, skills, and intellect will carry us, without, first, having to throw off the weight of social stigma, and racial inequalities.

Say it ain't so....

Say it ain't so, Joe! Joe the Plumber is back. You know, Samuel "Joe The Plumber" Wurzelbacher. I didn't miss him. So now that he's back, I'd like to not miss him again.

I'm guessing he's back because he'd like to expand his 15 minutes of fame. Joe knows he can restart the clock each time he reinvents himself.

This time he's doing it by trashing John McCain (That John McCain that gave Joe a political spotlight, and future paychecks.). Without McCain, he'd just be Joe the Plumber without a book deal, and not being invited to all the big political bashes. He's learned well. If you have nothing but being famous to sell, like Paris Hilton ("famous for being famous"), you have to keep the shelves well-stocked.

I believe, too, Joe is positioning himself to be a bigger player in the Tebagger Movement. And since John McCain is out of favor with the Republican Party, and the Teabaggers (They're supporting a candidate to run against him.), Joe's exploiting McCain just as McCain exploited him. Yet, he needs to tread softly with his criticisms of Sarah Palin: Sarah Palin appears to be, for the moment, a darling of the movement. And he can't speak too nicely of the president, even if he means it:

"Wurzelbacher also reportedly said that while he believes Obama's 'ideology' to be 'un-American,' he credits the president for being 'one of the more honest politicians.'"

He needs to stick with the following lines, or find himself fighting off the wolves of disfavor:

"I don't owe John McCain shit," he said, according to reporter Scott Detrow. "He really screwed my life up, is how I look at it."

"McCain was trying to use me. I happened to be the face of middle Americans. It was a ploy."

"Wurzelbacher says it's his duty to take advantage of the platform he's been given," Detrow wrote. "He wants to talk up the issues he cares about, and encourage the grassroots tea party movement."

Say it ain't so, Senator Evan Bayh! Why would Bayh announce his retirement from the Senate within days of a deadline looming for new candidates to file their intention, with requisite signatures? His retirement announcement makes it now 5 incumbent Democrats, and 6 incumbent Republicans looking for greener pastures, or to be put out to pasture. The number keeps changing from one site to another.

"Bayh is the fifth Democratic Senator not seeking re-election. He joins Sens. Chris Dodd (Conn.), Byron Dorgan (N.D.), Ted Kaufman (Del.) and Roland Burris (Ill.) on the sidelines. Six Republicans are retiring: Sens. Kit Bond (Mo.), George Lemieux (Fla.), Judd Gregg (N.H.), George Voinovich (Ohio), Sam Brownback (Kans.) and Jim Bunning (Ky.)"

Bayh give these reasons for his sudden announcement to retire:

"My decision was not motivated by political concern," he added. "Even in the current challenging environment, I am confident in my prospects for re-election."

"But running for the sake of winning an election, just to remain in public office, is not good enough," Bayh said. "And it has never been what motivates me. At this time I simply believe I can best contribute to society in another way: creating jobs by helping grow a business, helping guide an institution of higher learning or helping run a worthy charitable endeavor."

"Two weeks ago, the Senate voted down a bipartisan commission to deal with one of the greatest threats facing our nation: our exploding deficits and debt. The measure would have passed, but seven members who had endorsed the idea instead voted 'no' for short-term political reasons," he said. "Just last week, a major piece of legislation to create jobs -- the public's top priority -- fell apart amid complaints from both the left and right. All of this and much more has led me to believe that there are better ways to serve my fellow citizens, my beloved state4 and our nation than continued service in Congress."

Is Bayh leaving because he's a moderate feeling the squeeze from extremists on both the Left and the Right? He says Congress is dysfunctional, and blames both sides for contributing to this dysfunction. Is he doing this to blunt the criticism on both sides, and to pacify those voters that sent him to Washington?

Some have speculated that Bayh's positioning himself to run for governor of Indiana, perhaps for president in the future, or perhaps to change parties, and become a Republican. He, himself, hasn't ruled out becoming a lobbyist (Good God, all we need is another legislator turn lobbyist!).

I don't think he's looking to change his party. His actions are those of a man angry with his party. I'm not an insider, with insider knowledge of the Beltway, but Bayh's actions are consistent with someone who feels betrayed, and wishes to hit back. You don't leave your party, a party struggling for every vote possible to pass filibuster proof bills, in a lurch, deciding just days before a filing deadline that you're not going to run again, especially when you're a shoo-in, if you do.

Again, in politics, you can't take anything for granted. Not even the loyalty of members of your own party. Especially members of your own party. Perhaps in the days ahead, we'll learn if there's more to the Bayh story, or we'll learn that he left for the reasons he stated.

Say it ain't so, Harold Ford! Harold Ford has unabashedly declared himself a strong supporter of Wall Street. You could say that he's Wall Street's candidate for the Senate, as he will be working largely on their behalf, as a Senator from New York. This declaration comes at a time when the reputations of corporations--those from the financial and health insurance sectors, in particular--are in disrepute, and the recent Supreme Court decision on behalf of corporate free-speech rights, threatens the integrity of our democracy.

Ford also rolled out a couple of new ideas for dealing with the still-shaky economy. For the first time, he proposed cutting the payroll tax for all businesses for six months as a way to "put more money in people's pockets."

And in a proposal sure to play well on Wall Street - where Ford is taking a leave of absence from his job as vice chairman of Merrill Lynch - Ford said the federal corporate tax should be reduced to 25% from 35%.

The latter drew a biting response from Team Gillibrand.

"Harold Ford is clearly running as Wall Street's guy," said Gillibrand adviser Jefrey Pollock. "While Kirsten is working to cut taxes on small businesses that create jobs, Harold is advocating for more Bush economics - giveaways to big corporations with no strings attached."

Wall Street Corporations need an "inside guy" like they need regulatory reform to force them to play fairly within a "free-market" structure. Practically every senator in the Senate are their "inside guy." In 2008, health interest alone spent more than $478.5 million dollars to influence Congress.

Well, read it for yourself:

According to a study by The Center for Responsive Politics, special interests paid Washington lobbyists $3.2 billion in 2008—more than any other year on record. This was a 13.7 percent increase from 2007 (which broke the record by 7.7 percent over 2006).

The Center calculates that interest groups spent $17.4 million on lobbying for every day Congress was in session in 2008, or $32,523 per legislator per day. Center director Sheila Krumholz says, “The federal government is handing out billions of dollars by the day, and that translates into job security for lobbyists who can help companies and industries get a piece of the payout.”

Health interests spent more on Federal lobbying than any other economic sector. Their $478.5 million guaranteed the crown for the third year, with the finance, insurance, real estate sector a runner up, spending $453.5 million. The pharmaceutical/health products industry contributed $230.9 million, raising their last eleven-year total to over $1.6 billion. The second-biggest spender among industries in 2008 was electric utilities, which spent $156.7 million on lobbying, followed by insurance, which spent $153.2 million, and oil and gas, which paid lobbyists $133.2 million. Pro-Israel groups, food processing companies, and the oil and gas industry increased their lobbying expenditures the most (as a percentage) between 2007 and 2008.

Now, this was just for 2008. Can you imagine what the outlay was for 2009? If we the people aren't getting enough democracy, and not enough representation from those we send to Washington, it's because we stop governing, and stop protecting, our own interests when we send someone to Washington. Until we put an end to lobbying abuse, and wring the money out of the system, it will always be business as usual on the Hill. But will we? The Tea Party movement seems more interested in curtailing government spending, than in curtailing special interest spending, more interested in turning the clock back, than in taking their country back. We can never expect Washington to be fiscally responsible, as long as we allow special interests to call the shots.

Their interest doesn't always clash with that of the people, but who's going to step in when it does? The Courts? The people? Our Representatives? Anybody?

Say it ain't so!

It's My Tea Party and I'll Cry if I Want to!

This blog entry was inspired by Ernesto. He left a comment on the previous blog, and I responded, but decided at the last minute to turn the response into a blog entry, expanding it somewhat.

I won't quote him here, but sum up briefly the topic of discussion. He observed a malaise among voters, a political backlash of a sort that could translate into many voters staying away from the polls in 2010, as was the case in 1994 that ultimately swept Republicans into power in both houses of Congress.

I think that this is the gist of it. Correct me, if I've misspoken, Ernesto.

My response sought to examine why, at the moment, the country is looking backward for answers, rather than forward.

This is not a good trend, I wrote. If Democrats fail, I see a resurgence (let's say a hike) of those things that got us into this fix in the first place: laissezfaire economics, tax cuts for the rich, the continuation of a shadow financial system, and an expansion of our military presence around the world.

If they truly wish to restore our national economic clout among the world communities, these are the things that the Teabaggers, and Republicans, should be obsessed with destroying--those corporate forces that have hurt, and continue to hurt, our national preeminence--but that's not the case. Teabaggers, in particular, are obsessing over Obama and his suppose socialist agenda, and the federal government's big-spending appetite.

And that seems to be their primary concern. Yet, there may be other concerns hidden just below the surface. And that's what this blog entry will explore. The Teabagger movement may be a shill, smoke and mirrors, for something other than just interjecting fiscal responsibility into government.

Here's my thinking. If the Republicans can't find a way to co-opt the movement, the Teabaggers are poised to weaken the Republican party.

The Teabaggers are more a regressive movement than a conservative movement.

Their movement, as bogus as it is, stands to siphon off millions of voters, as it caters to this nation's biggest fear, in my estimation--whites becoming increasingly irrelevant as power brokers, and demographic bullies.

This could explain why some politicos are opposed to this year's census head count, and others are kissing up to the Teabaggers.

The Atlantic has published an excellent article examining this phenomenon. Under the title, "The End of White America?," the article probes the white resistance that might ensue from a shifting demographics that will see minorities in the majority, and the majority in the minority, encapsulated in this foreword:

"The Election of Barack Obama is just the most startling manifestation of a larger trend: the gradual erosion of “whiteness” as the touchstone of what it means to be American. If the end of white America is a cultural and demographic inevitability, what will the new mainstream look like—and how will white Americans fit into it? What will it mean to be white when whiteness is no longer the norm? And will a post-white America be less racially divided—or more so?"

Not all, obviously, feel threatened. Obama represents, not only the impending threat, but a coming to terms with this new American reality.

However, as the nation becomes more progressive in its outlook, less fearful of surrendering power to the minorities in its midst, and losing its European character, this reactionary trend will, in all likelihood, surface more and more, and voices will become more strident in declaring their disapproval.

Vanity Fair might be feeling the need to push back using it's March issue:

"Magazines have a tough time getting race right, but usually they manage to do a better job than Vanity Fair did in its March issue. The magazine, which is owned by glossy publishing house Conde Nast, recently delivered its annual Hollywood issue -- to howls of protest from around the blogosphere and the analog world.

"The problem: Of the nine supposedly up-and-coming starlets featured on the fold-out cover, not one is African-American, Asian or Hispanic. The average skin tone on display is as white as the new-fallen snow."

Is this more about some Americans resisting a losing of the America that gave them comfort, and power, including white privilege, and the economic advantage that goes along with that, than a government run by Democrats?

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

The movement may be muddled about its intent, but what does stand out is its anti-Washington fervor, and a return to the Constitution as a guide for moving forward. Lost in the discussion is the role of the Supreme Court in interpreting the intent and purpose of our most revered document.

Yet, when two of their main speakers are Sarah Palin, and Tom Tancredo, you can't help but become increasingly suspicious of the Tea Party Movement's true motives. Inviting these two, they may have let the cat out the bag on their eventual direction.

"Tancredo, as well as the organizers at their news conference [Tea Party Convention], trashed former presidential nominee John McCain -- as did many Tea Partiers here. Tancredo, a hardliner on immigration, vowed to do whatever he could -- if he could do anything -- for J.D. Hayworth, McCain’s conservative primary opponent this year. Skoda said a McCain win would have been “a disaster” for the country."

Here's what I posted, somewhat indelicately, on another blog:

What they [Teabaggers] should be decrying is this nation's corpocracy, corporations that have this nation by the balls, and are squeezing hard, and will squeeze harder now that the Supremes have given them a much needed vise with which to make us all cry uncle, and not just Uncle Sam.

Uncle Sam won't be able to help us. At least not right away, if at all, and perhaps only in a limited way. A nice rant, but it misses the mark, just as the Teabaggers are missing the mark, and, from all indications, missing on purpose.

It's the Democratic agenda which Teabaggers fear (or claim they fear) and not corporate hegemony. What I believe have them in a partial dither is this: The Democrats are focused, for a change, on improving the living conditions of the middleclass and the underclass, regardless of race. And I believe that that rankles their rank and file. What they should have learned over the years is this:

Racial tolerance doesn't weaken us, it makes us stronger, regardless of who's in the majority. Multiculturalism won't dilute democracy, or automatically pit one group against the other, if we remember that we're all one--of the same race, the same human family, but with some differences. Those differences--which certainly may be used to divide us--should not be suppressed, but embraced, and celebrated. And they shouldn't be used to ascribe to some an inferior standing and to others a superior one.

As technology brings us closer, we learn that neighbors and neighborhoods take on a whole new meaning, that teacher and student can be miles apart, and that we can talk at length with people clear on the other side of the world with the same ease with which we may have an across-the-fence conversation with our next-door neighbor.

Some will, undoubtedly, seek to use this advancing technology to sow seeds of distrust, and division, but it will all be in vain. It's hard to hate those whose humanity reaches out to you with the same familiarity we encounter when we interact with neighbors, friends, and family.