I kick off this brief analysis of the coming US presidential election by citing a well-known screenwriter.
Aaron Sorkin's view of the Tea Party
Aaron Sorkin is an Academy and Emmy award winning American screenwriter, producer, and playwright, whose works include A Few Good Men, The American President, The West Wing, Sports Night, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, Charlie Wilson's War, The Social Network, Moneyball and The Newsroom. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Sorkin
Sorkin, in a recent episode of The Newsroom, describes the US's Tea Party as the American Taliban. The Tea Party has become the major driver of the 2012 Republican platform on which Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are running for the White House this November 6. Sorkin enumerates the Tea Party's principles and positions:
- Ideological purity,
- Compromise as weakness,
- A fundamental belief in scriptural literalism,
- Denying science,
- Unmoved by facts,
- Undeterred by new information,
- A hostile fear of progress,
- A demonization of education,
- A need to control women's bodies,
- Severe xenophobia,
- Tribal mentality,
- Intolerance of dissent, and
- Pathological hatred of US government.
My own research and analysis
In my opinion, Sorkin is spot on. I came to the US from Egypt decades ago. As a US citizen who has worked his butt off to understand what the United States means as a nation to/for every human living in it, I completely agree with his analysis of the Tea Party, the American Taliban.
We all are passionate about our visions, principles and ideals. However, my passion includes all, including those who hold Tea Party views, while their passion excludes of me, and many, many like me. One has only to look at the composition of people at Romney/Ryan campaign rallies, and at the Republican National Convention this week.
The Tea Party, the Romney/Ryan ticket, conservatives, right-wingers, will always find it difficult to truly stand for progress, mainly because progress means affording minorities more and better opportunities, equality with regard to legislation and overall more equitable share of the proverbial pie. The Tea Party, the Romney/Ryan ticket, conservatives, right-wingers will highly unlikely see such progress as a win-win, much more likely as a lose-win with them losing ground with every step along the way.
The Tea Party, the Romney/Ryan ticket, love to say that they want to take America back:
- take it back from who?
- Back to what?
- Back to where?
The Tea Party, the Romney/Ryan ticket are mad at the Obama administration's policies and strategies, that is absolutely understandable, they are the opposition. But:
- Where were they when our hard-earned democracy was sidestepped to put George Bush in the White House via a Supreme Court decision back in 2000?
- Where were they when the Bush/Cheney administration:
- started two wars,
- illegally invaded Iraq, and
- gave over $1 trillion tax breaks to the 1%, all of which got us in this current national debt crisis?
- Where were they when due to Bush's trade and outsourcing policies, more than 6 million jobs were shipped overseas during the worst 8 years of job creation in several decades?
- Where were they when lack of oversight and regulations from the Bush Administration caused US Citizens to lose 12 trillion dollars in investments, retirement, and home values?
- Where were they when the number of people without health coverage ballooned to tens of millions?
The Tea Party, the Romney/Ryan ticket would better serve the nation if they were to redirect their efforts away from:
- Trampling the disadvantaged. Not everyone is born to a US Senator or a millionaire father, or even have a chance at a decent living standard or an education.
- Achieving less tax payments for the millionaires/billionaires.
- Discussions of Christian values, the focus on which excludes the many other religions as well as non-believers, all with equally solid values.
- Diluting hard-earned women’s rights.
- Believing that they are holier than thou.
- Rapidly becoming irrelevant when it comes to what the US means a nation for all of its people.
- Believing that the National Rifle Association (NRA) is the only entity in the US that understands the Second Amendment.
- Believing that the Citizens United Decision works for democracy.
- Considering the working class and the elderly to be less than they in any respect about any aspect of their lives.
- Getting in the way of gay rights; it is inevitable that gays will achieve equal rights, it is only a matter of time, history will be the judge.
- Ignoring the fact that Democrats exist in higher numbers than Republicans, and that it would be more useful to learn the art of compromise.
Hussein
© Dr Hussein A Amin 2011
-- hussein.amin45@gmail.com
