Kathianne
02-08-2010, 03:32 AM
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/OpEd-Contributor/Glenn-Reynolds-Tea-Party-Nashville-was-Americas-Third-Great-Awakening--83762647.html
Glenn Reynolds: Nashville Shows Tea Party Is America's Third Great Awakening
By: Glenn Harlan Reynolds
Examiner Contributor
February 7, 2010
I attended this past weekend’s National Tea Party Convention in Nashville, Tennessee, and I came away feeling that I had seen something important. The Tea Party movement is part of something bigger: America’s Third Great Awakening.
America’s prior Great Awakenings, in the 18th and 19th Centuries, were religious in nature. Unimpressed with self-serving, ossified, and often corrupt religious institutions, Americans responded with a bottom-up reassertion of faith, and independence.
This time, it’s different. It’s not America’s churches and seminaries that are in trouble: It’s America’s politicians and parties. They’ve grown corrupt, venal, and out-of-touch with the values, and the people, that they’re supposed to represent. So the people, once again, are reasserting themselves....
This seemed to resonate with what I heard from conference attendees. Over and over again, I heard from Tea Party Activists that they were planning to take over their local Republican (and, sometimes Democratic) party apparatus starting at the precinct level and shake things up.
The sense was that party politics have been run for the benefit of the party insiders and hangers-on, not for the benefit of constituents and ideals. And most of the conference, in fact, was addressed to doing something about that, not to worship of Sarah Palin, with sessions on organizing, media skills, and the like....
In less than a year, the Tea Party movement has gone from a few spontaneous protests against Obama’s stimulus bill to a nationwide phenomenon rating major media coverage, with several political scalps
on its belt. And these inexpert activists are getting better with practice at what they do, with a lot of room on the learning curve ahead.
It’s fun to put on a protest rally for the first time and have it work out, but it’s even more fun to elect -- or defeat -- a candidate. Or, as Tea Party activists are beginning to do, to run for office yourself.
Over the next couple of years, these multitudes of virgin political operatives are going to acquire considerably more experience and self-assurance, which means they’re probably going to become considerably more effective, too. Politics may not be the same when they’re done.
Glenn Reynolds: Nashville Shows Tea Party Is America's Third Great Awakening
By: Glenn Harlan Reynolds
Examiner Contributor
February 7, 2010
I attended this past weekend’s National Tea Party Convention in Nashville, Tennessee, and I came away feeling that I had seen something important. The Tea Party movement is part of something bigger: America’s Third Great Awakening.
America’s prior Great Awakenings, in the 18th and 19th Centuries, were religious in nature. Unimpressed with self-serving, ossified, and often corrupt religious institutions, Americans responded with a bottom-up reassertion of faith, and independence.
This time, it’s different. It’s not America’s churches and seminaries that are in trouble: It’s America’s politicians and parties. They’ve grown corrupt, venal, and out-of-touch with the values, and the people, that they’re supposed to represent. So the people, once again, are reasserting themselves....
This seemed to resonate with what I heard from conference attendees. Over and over again, I heard from Tea Party Activists that they were planning to take over their local Republican (and, sometimes Democratic) party apparatus starting at the precinct level and shake things up.
The sense was that party politics have been run for the benefit of the party insiders and hangers-on, not for the benefit of constituents and ideals. And most of the conference, in fact, was addressed to doing something about that, not to worship of Sarah Palin, with sessions on organizing, media skills, and the like....
In less than a year, the Tea Party movement has gone from a few spontaneous protests against Obama’s stimulus bill to a nationwide phenomenon rating major media coverage, with several political scalps
on its belt. And these inexpert activists are getting better with practice at what they do, with a lot of room on the learning curve ahead.
It’s fun to put on a protest rally for the first time and have it work out, but it’s even more fun to elect -- or defeat -- a candidate. Or, as Tea Party activists are beginning to do, to run for office yourself.
Over the next couple of years, these multitudes of virgin political operatives are going to acquire considerably more experience and self-assurance, which means they’re probably going to become considerably more effective, too. Politics may not be the same when they’re done.