Tea! I don't know what's wrong with the Tea Party!
Tea! They're conservative with a big fat C.
Why can't they be like we are? Why can't they only see?
What's the deal with the Tea Par-ty?

Everybody has a pet theory about the Tea Party. The Wall Street Journal thinks they're on to something that liberals are too effete to discern.

Why Liberals Don't Get the Tea Party Movement

Having learned next to nothing in the intervening 16 months about one of the most spectacular grass-roots political movements in American history, fellow Times columnist Frank Rich denied in August of this year that the tea party movement is "spontaneous and leaderless," insisting instead that it is the instrument of billionaire brothers David and Charles Koch.
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To be sure, the tea party sports its share of clowns, kooks and creeps. And some of its favored candidates and loudest voices have made embarrassing statements and embraced reckless policies. This, however, does not distinguish the tea party movement from the competition.

Born in response to President Obama's self-declared desire to fundamentally change America, the tea party movement has made its central goals abundantly clear. Activists and the sizeable swath of voters who sympathize with them want to reduce the massively ballooning national debt, cut runaway federal spending, keep taxes in check, reinvigorate the economy, and block the expansion of the state into citizens' lives.

In other words, the tea party movement is inspired above all by a commitment to limited government. And that does distinguish it from the competition.

But the WSJ chooses to overlook that the Tea Party movement was born from conservative dissatisfaction with the government bailouts of Wall Street, Big Banks and GM by the Bush-led Republican Congress as well as the Obama-led Democratic Congress. As per Wikipedia, "The protests were partially in response to several Federal laws: the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, and a series of health care reform bills." By conservatives, I mean folk that are actually careful with money, that seriously take few risks, etc., as opposed to neocons that borrow-and-spend, rush into foreign wars, and give only lip service to conservatism. And while some Tea Partiers may have been outside the Republican Party for a few weeks, the movement seems on course to being reabsorbed into the GOP.

Other people see the Tea Party as confused and frightened people that are not stupid, but only want to hear what they want to hear: That it is once again Morning in America.

What Should a President Do?

[T]he current economic situation is so drastically different from all previous downturns, no matter how deep, and the scale is global with regional variations difficult to explain, people do already sense that there is something fundamentally wrong. They can't put their fingers on what it is, though the talking heads and Tea Partiers are pointing fingers at various scapegoats that sound plausible on the surface. They can't verbalize what they sense beyond repeating the sound bites they hear. But they do sense that there is something deeper and more sinister than just something like the banksters' faults. How could they not. Even so, once the truth is revealed, they will, no doubt, revile it. They will deny it. They will kill the messenger.

Shouts Banish Doubts

Two years ago, faith in free-market capitalism was badly shaken  when the international banking system nearly collapsed. To many, a sober re-evaluation of the government’s regulatory role seemed an inevitable response.

Instead, today’s political discourse is largely driven by the Tea Party movement, which is impassioned and vocal in its defense of unfettered free-market capitalism.

But some research suggests that passion often disguises uncertainty.

In both this and a second experiment, “individuals induced to feel doubt about their beliefs exerted more effort toward advocating beliefs,” the researchers write. A third study, which looked at Mac and PC users, found the doubtful also “expressed a greater likelihood to attempt to persuade other people of their beliefs.”

This helps explain why political rhetoric has ratcheted up during a time of rapid societal change. In a logic-driven world, the shattering of long-held assumptions such as “the U.S. will never be attacked on its home soil” or “the value of my house will never decrease” would lead to a thoughtful period of reflection and re-evaluation. In our world, it leads one to actively advocate one’s pre-existing beliefs all the more passionately.

So, in contrast with conventional wisdom, the Tea Partiers may not be true believers so much as they are people who have had their confidence in the system shaken. To overcome any distressing doubts, they have reaffirmed their convictions by loudly attempting to persuade others.

In his Big Lie post, David Seaton asserts that the Tea Party was created by Murdoch and the Kochs. I think the Tea Party sprung up among some genuine conservative and libertarians, and some people who like to think of themselves as genuine, who felt ignored by both parties, and who then were quickly manipulated by Murdoch and the Kochs. But in either case, they are here, and they are voting the Republicans even farther to the right.

But given the current state of the world, no one can offer them much more than promises.