Tea Party vs. politics

Despite being far less established than our political opponents, the diverse coalition that identify as Tea Party is taking the brunt of the political attacks from the crooks and thieves masquerading as our politician representatives. These coordinated attacks are brutal, ubiquitous, and consistent — and, for the first time, working.

If our movement is to survive we must both understand how the coordinated campaign against us is being waged and also take measures to effectively counter the false narrative being created about us.

For those of us who have been around from the beginning, we’ve grown accustomed to being attacked. Many have tried to paint the Tea Party as extremists, astroturf, and even racists. Over and over again these attacks failed and the Tea Party dominated electorally in 2010.

But over time, these attacks were refined and tested. They are now appearing in more places and starting to have more effect. Political consultants call this “poisoning the well.”

The political elites, grasping to maintain their power, know that our message on fiscal and budgetary matters resonates with the American people. The crooked cronies and their puppets know that when if the attention of the country would was focused on the reckless raising the debt ceiling without spending cuts, the unencumbered Tea Party movement would be the big winner — and the corrupt pigs suckling on the taxpayer teat would be the big losers.

As for our opposition, the President used incredibly violent rhetoric, accusing the Tea Party of holding the nation and economy hostage. That message was parroted ad nauseam across the usual channels as well as some not so usual channels. Rolling Stone ran two political articles mercilessly echoing nearly every attack that’s every been leveled at the Tea Party during the most critical week of debate. In an issue with a Walking Dead star on the cover, the magazine went so far as to suggest that it was media malpractice to give a platform to Tea Party arguments.

The Tea Party is a decentralized movement, void of official party infrastructure and leadership, yet, in those first few years the messaging was remarkably consistent. At rallies, in print, and in the media the message was simple: limited government, personal responsibility, and fiscal sanity. No matter what kind of argument the mainstream media tried to drag us into, we refused to delve into more controversial topics.

As the movement matured, we were forced to refresh our message and the consistency that once existed was lost. The movement now has major players with organized internal audiences and groups that raise tens of millions annually. An unfortunate byproduct of this organizational and financial success has been the breakdown of message cohesion. With millions in the bank and powerful PR divisions, groups increasingly are working to make their messaging unique so as to differentiate themselves from other groups that they view as competition for attention and donors.

Having a powerful and consistent message is the only way to counter these mounting attacks small-government Tea Partiers face. It will be many years before we can come anywhere close to achieving equal media airtime, and so on the occasions when one of us does break through, we must offer a simple message that clearly states our objectives.

We don’t have the luxury of repeating ourselves to the broader public that our opponents do.

In the last debt ceiling fight, everyone was able to stick to “don’t raise the limit without addressing the underlying spending problem” and then offer their own solutions. This time, we got tangled up by having the Obamacare fight and the debt ceiling fight at the same time.

If we want to win again, we must once again find a simple and reasonable message that resonates with regular people.

Dustin Stockton is the co-founder of the Western Representation PAC. As an early participant in the Tea Party movement he traveled the country speaking and campaigning against bloated government. He is the author of “Community Organizer: A Tea Party Story.”

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