Europeans Should Take the Tea Party Seriously — and to Heart

As far as the U.S. midterm elections are concerned, one could almost write the copy for most German media commentators already. The tone would probably be that Republican successes were due to the nomination of a few lunatics who got elected because they were taken hostage by the tea party. Throw in a few clips of Sarah Palin or a young Christine O’Donnell, especially in their more shrill moments, and that’s how simple it is to manipulate viewers or readers.

But what these autocratic unofficial rulers don’t realize in their editorials — what they don’t want to admit — is that this election not only marks the beginning of the end for the media darling Barack Obama, as evidenced by the congressional losses, it also announces the onset of a new phenomenon that Europeans should take to heart and learn from.

New Expressions of the People’s Will

The tea party is the manifestation of a movement that limits the meaning of government and the politicians in it; a movement that is based on the sovereignty of the people. It is a new expression of the people’s will that can be neither usurped nor controlled by smug and colorless government functionaries.

The tea party has no central leader, just a few spokespersons and even they have no mandates. It lacks national organization and doesn’t aspire to become a political party. It arose out of protest, fueled by millions of volunteer hours and millions of small individual donations. It arose from a feeling of disenfranchisement by the political class, including the Republicans.

It doesn’t strive to become a political party; it strives instead to reconstruct the Republican Party by bringing it back to the roots of American philosophy. It wants less government and more personal responsibility, more freedom for the entrepreneurial spirit and less patronizing from ideologues and bureaucrats. From that standpoint, it might prove itself to be the vanguard of a new democratically conservative philosophy.

Unmasking Obama the Dazzler

What will be decisive in the short term is media disenchantment with Obama. Depending on those who emerge as Republican alternatives to Obama, this election could well be the beginning of the end of the “era of bedazzlement.”

The fact is, Obama was a dazzler. He was unable to keep the promises he made. Unemployment is higher than it has been in generations. A double-dip recession is at the doorstep. The dollar is seemingly in permanent decline. The wars against Islamists, pirates and terrorists don’t end. His helplessness in foreign policy and economic issues has made him America’s great procrastinator — in marked contrast to the determination he expresses in his diversionary speeches.

But the main reason for Obama’s downfall is the same one that explains the tea party victories: Like many European politicians, Obama sees government as a savior. That belief took away the votes of the many who lost their homes, their money and their future hopes when the economic crisis struck. Lehman Brothers went bankrupt six weeks before the 2008 elections and the aftershocks finished many people off.

Many Republicans were already disappointed that George W. Bush reacted with so much government intervention into the private sector. Obama, however, aggressively continued that policy with the result that he stirred up deep instincts among a people who were basically not interested in politics.

Americans Are Quick to Remedy Their Political Mistakes

A recent Gallup poll showed that only 20 percent of Americans see their salvation in government social programs; 42 percent, on the other hand, describe themselves as conservative critics of the government. The remaining 38 percent see themselves as somewhere between those two extremes. Despite his failure, Obama could still have a successful career in politics — but only in Europe, not in the United States.

Obama came to the surface on the waves of the economic crisis, helped by his rhetorical talent. But Americans are known for great flexibility. They’re privileged with being allowed to quickly correct their political mistakes. It’s not the same here in Europe. Local commentators will chalk Obama’s losses up to the fact that he raised expectations too high. But that’s only a small part of the truth; it’s the European part.

A movement like the tea party that renewed an existing popular party from the inside out is still seeking like minds. It may be because Americans have discovered a new balance between politics and state, between politics and culture, and between politics and religion.

The American Civic Religion as a Role Model?

Nearly 200 years ago, Alexis de Tocqueville described the American form of government as a religion with democratic features. The Americans combine the notions of religion and liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them conceive of one without the other,” the famous Frenchman wrote. And he also saw the connection, one might even say the interdependency of the two: “I was never more convinced than I am today that only freedom and religion working together can be successful in pulling mankind out of the morass into which democracy casts them if one of these two supports is taken away.”

If freedom lacks religion, it ends in uniformity and arbitrariness. If religion lacks freedom, it ends in dictatorship. Tocqueville had a natural understanding, so to speak, of the American way of life. This momentum culminates in a maxim: Personal freedom is the basis of life, supported and protected by responsibility to God. Europeans will find this maxim difficult to accept; therefore, it will also be difficult to explain the reasons for Obama’s defeat to them.