Founders Needed: Seattle Tea-Party Lukewarm in 2010

I was prepared for many things but underwhelmed was not one of them. When it comes to Thursday’s events in Seattle the short word would be “tepid;” the long, “anticlimactic.” Sadly, there’s no way around that impression of Tax Day 2020's Tea Party in Seattle. In numbers, I’d estimate the crowd at, generously, two-thirds of the crowd last year at the same event in the same place. That alone would not have mattered so much if the program itself had had any spark to it, but it did not.

Seattle Tea Party, 2009

Seattle Tea Party, 2010

I don’t know what the feeling was at other Tea Party events across the nation today. This was the only one that I could attend and I deliberately avoided reading about the others. I hope they were more inspiring that this assembly. Admittedly a small, contained stone canyon in the heart of downtown Seattle is a tough venue, but "never let a good crisis go to waste."

What is clear is that if other Tax-Day rallies were only the equal of the Seattle assembly the Tea Party needs to either get serious about being a voice and a rally point or just drift away. To quote the American Communist martyr Joe Hill, "Don't mourn. Organize."

There’s a great deal of “don’t follow leaders, watch the Founding Fathers” being bandied about, and while that feels good to say there’s no valid political party that can long endure without leaders, manifestos and much more. Resisting definition has been what the Tea Party has been about for over a year. That's got to change. You have to say what you stand for very, very simply. Even the Anarchist Party of the 19th and early 20th century knew that. Of course their primary claim to fame was igniting the World War I, so they're not the precise model to emulate.

In the beginning it's not enough for a Party to find itself in “the times that try men’s souls.” A Party, to thrive and grow, must continually find a way “to inspire men’s souls.” What the Tea Party Movement needs if it is to endure as a force in American politics are five (5) things that are (in Seattle at least) in very short supply. These five things are:

1) Leaders: Sarah Palin can’t do it all. She doesn’t want to and it would be a waste of her as a resource if she were to take up that role. The Tea Party needs professional leaders and organizers on a local, state, and national level. I think it can develop them and it must, but it will take time and a dependable funding stream.

2) Speakers: By speakers I mean those that have the necessary rhetorical skills and insight to, through words spoken, move and inspire the listeners to loftier goals than “we are taxed too much and are about to be taxed more.” We are and we will, but a succession of people at the podium whose message is primarily money does not stir the blood and cause the heart and soul to rise. It is that rise that people are really looking for, not just a chance to vent.

It is not bragging to say I have some modest speaking skills. I do. Given ten minutes to prepare remarks I could have delivered a better speech today than those I heard. Time and again today I was listening closely to the speakers and found their remarks were either formulaic or rambling. If people are going to speak for the people they not only need to have a story, but also get some media training -- or at least learn the orator's rule of three. At Gettysberg Lincoln wrote an address. It was brief and it had pith and perfect pitch. Study it. Once more, Sarah Palin cannot do it all – but she’s a great mode for contemporary pith and pitch. Imitate but do not duplicate. Speaking and speeches are not often found in the same person. Locally, find your speakers and, if they are weak on content, put them together with your writers.

3) **Slogans: Political positions that cannot fit on a bumper sticker are not powerful enough. That sounds facile and it is, but it is also true. What was Obama’s mantra? Right. That was it. What was McCain’s mantra? You have no idea. Neither do I. The Tea Party, inchoate as it is, has to settle on a sheaf of core ideas expressed in a concise manner and repeat, repeat, rinse, and repeat. Endlessly coming up with clever signs is good at the beginning, but it doesn’t make for a campaign. This is a massive post-industrial, proto-information age society and homespun, interesting at the beginning, quickly becomes only quaint. Professional propaganda will be needed. Keeping it true propaganda will be the challenge.

3) Stars: Sarah Palin can't... (see above). And Andrew Breitbart's dance card is also full. We need more known names to show up and lend support. By stars I mean local and/or national celebrities or, at the very least, people who can play a guitar and sing into a microphone at a rally. Just speeches and brief appearances by local pols and organizers do not raise the heart rate. If your Party can't raise the collective heart rate, it can't win. (And while we’re at it let’s get some sound techs on the job so that amplification actually works. Loud is not always lucid. Whenever possible, eschew amplification. It creates intimacy and commands attention. It's also novel.)

4) Songs: We need them and, as noted above, people who can sing them and do. If one is going to have a revolution you have 1) be ready to do revolting things (in all senses of that old phrase from Jerry Rubin) and 2) be entertaining. Especially on Tax Day when people are looking for boosts and not bitches. Types of songs? Folk works. Classic rock works better. Warm up music. Rocking music in the middle. Anthems at the end. Agitprop and comedy routines would be nice but not completley necessary. After welcoming remarks, sing the Star Spangled Banner. Always. It's hard but it unifies.

5) Timing and Location: When you have a rally is as important as where you have a rally. Next year I would hope the movement is mature enough to realize that a party composed of people who primarily pay taxes and work doesn’t get maximum turnout on the afternoon of a weekday at the end of a week when tax payers are already feeling tired. Nor should that meeting be called for a concrete island in the center of a downtown in which parking is always problematic. Weekends and parks work much better. Toss in a few picnic tables and it gets even better.

All of this is, of course, just Student Radical Rally 101 from the ‘60s. Worked then and the Left has been perfecting it since. To paraphrase Abbie Hoffman, “Steal this look.”

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A few photos from the scene and a short section of slogans...

Sign Time: Someone should be collecting these for an exhibit.

Counter-Demonstration: This year we had one. A small one. One that did not so much represent "the other side" as "the far side."

The very far side.

Provocateur as an advertisement of what he was against. This guy would be right at home in a Breaking Bad meth-lab.

Long ago issues with Fathers of all kinds.

Even the advocates of alternative, green transportation lurked around the fringes.

**The Rule of Slogans: Short is good. Shorter is better. They're fun to make and cheap to print at Kinkos. Here, for worse and better, is the fruit of 15 minutes worth of free-association:

LIBERTY

CHANGE UP

OUT OF MANY ONE

PATRIOTS COME OUT

ONE NATION UNDER GOD

LIFE LIBERTY HAPPINESS

THE CONSTITUTION LIVES

BE BOLD. BE AN AMERICAN.

LIBERTY EQUALITY JUSTICE

IF THEY'RE IN, THEY'RE OUT

CONGRESS SHALL MAKE NO LAW

ALL ARE EQUAL. NONE ARE SPECIAL.

IF THEY TAKE MY LIBERTY YOURS IS NEXT

KNOW YOUR RIGHTS FROM THEIR WRONGS

ALL SHOULD PAY SOME. SOME SHOULD NOT PAY ALL.

Let a thousand slogans bloom. The right ones will stick. You won't know what those are until they stick.

Posted by Vanderleun at April 16, 2010 3:25 AM