Adventures in Misdirected Anger

The tea party protests that are taking place today are one of the more bizarre political events that I've witnessed. Misdirected anger is a staple of American politics, but these protests are almost clinical examples of that sad phenomenon. Protests, even when conducted peacefully and constructively, are a way of channeling anger over something. In this case, though, the source of that anger is rather difficult to pinpoint. There seems to be three elements to it: 1) anger over the prospect of higher taxes, 2) anger over the level of proposed government spending, and 3) the general inchoate anger of those who lost an election and feel powerless.

With respect to the first source of anger, simple ignorance is clearly a major factor. In his limited time in office, Obama has cut taxes for most Americans. And America already has the lowest tax rates of any major industrialized country. Moreover, the only tax increases currently on the table would be unlikely to apply to any of these teabaggers. I find it hard to believe that the prospect of marginal tax rates on top income earners returning to what they were in the 90s is enough to spark mass protests. So if these protests really are about taxation, then the protesters are confused and/or dumb.

In fairness to the teabaggers, though, I suspect that the real gripe is not about taxes per se but about perceived out of control spending (and the related fear that taxes will have to go up at some point down the road to pay back the debt). This is a legitimate concern, one that's shared by everyone. But the anger over it is still horribly misdirected. First, where were these teabaggers when the last President squandered a major budget surplus on tax cuts for the wealthy and an ill-advised war? Second, while I understand the apprehension about spending billions of borrowed dollars on stimulus and bailouts, surely even the teabaggers understand that this money is being spent in the hopes of averting economic catastrophe. Whether or not you believe that it's being spent effectively is a separate debate, but surely we can all concede that these are emergency measures, not routine appropriations. So again I ask? What's with the anger?

If someone lights your house on fire and someone else comes along and tries to put the fire out, however ineffectively, isn't your anger better directed at the person who started the fire? Surely even the teabaggers on some level understand that the Obama administration did not cause the current economic crisis (and if they don't, then we're back to confused and/or dumb). Sometimes cleaning up after a disaster is expensive. That sucks. But your anger is always better directed at the people who caused the disaster, not those striving in good faith to clean up the mess.

The fact that the ire of these protesters is so clearly directed at President Obama and the Democratic Party, after many, many years of Republican rule led us to this point, is strong evidence that what these protests are really about is losing. The Boston Tea Party was carried out by people who felt that they had no say in shaping the rules that governed their lives. In that sense, the current crop of teabaggers share something in common with them. The difference, of course, is that the original teabaggers had no say because a foreign government controlled them from afar. In this case, the teabaggers have no say because their chosen leaders ran this country into the ground and got voted out of office en masse. It sucks to feel powerless, but when the reason you feel powerless is because the majority of people in the country no longer share your views, that's just called democracy.