by Dick Armey
They have also read the Constitution of the United States, something many members of Congress probably cannot claim to have done. FreedomWorks for many years has distributed free copies of The Law by French free market economist Frédéric Bastiat to activists wanting to learn more about the intellectual underpinning of a free society. We also distribute Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged and other works by free market economists.
Cato executive vice president David Boaz, one of Lindsey’s colleagues, points out that sales of books like Atlas Shrugged have skyrocketed recently. “It seems that Greenspan, Bernanke, Fannie, Freddie30, Barney Frank, Bush, Paulson, Geithner, and Obama all created the objective conditions for an Atlas Shrugged sales bump,” he wrote. The Economist, also cited by Boaz, makes a similar argument about Rand’s new readership. “Whenever governments intervene in the market, in short, readers rush to buy Rand’s book. Why? The reason is explained by the name of a recently formed group on Facebook, the world’s biggest social networking site: ‘Read the news today? It’s like Atlas Shrugged is happening in real life.’ ”
The same is true of F. A. Hayek’s Road to Serfdom, the Nobel laureate’s short book warning about the perils of government-planned societies. The definitive edition of this book reached the number one spot on Amazon.com’s sales rankings after Glenn Beck discussed the economist on his popular Fox News show.
These, of course, are not new books. Reading them, on the other hand, is a whole new generation of eyeballs. What has also changed is the addition of a few new classics to the activists’ education. For instance, Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals—the original protester’s handbook from the 1960s—has found a surprising readership among tens of thousands of Tea Partiers. This transition may provide some insight into the political establishment’s unease with the Tea Party movement. It is a movement devoted to change, not simple academic debate. The Tea Party movement understands the tenets of the philosophy of freedom and is working to change the political landscape so those principles can be put into practice.
Rather than cause for alarm, this newfound activism should be welcomed and embraced by the traditional Right. In many ways the important intellectual arguments have been won by small-government conservatives. There are few big questions that remain unanswered by scholars. The dangers of excessive taxation, the threat posed by an activist monetary authority, and the importance of institutions and incentives for politicians and bureaucrats have all been examined by generations of scholars, and there are many who continue to examine these issues today. This body of work has created the basis for a political framework for a new limited-government movement.
But in the great debates over the expansion of the state in the twentieth century, these ideas were often ignored as politicians expanded the reach of the state and imposed new burdens on the taxpayer. From Roosevelt’s New Deal through the creation of the Great Society by Lyndon Johnson, critics were vocal and insightful in the assessment of the potential threats to liberty. Even the recent health care debate saw its share of thoughtful and rigorous analysis by free market critics. Yet in most cases, the state expands and liberty contracts.
THE POLITICAL ECONOMY
THE TEA PARTY MOVEMENT adds a welcome addition to the fundamental debate over the size and scope of government: grassroots activists armed with the intellectual arguments they need to make a difference in political debates, not just scholarly discussions. What is happening is a dramatic increase in the physical infrastructure and on-the-ground personal politicking that can turn ideas into action. The new generation of limited-government advocates has its share of scholars, and the Internet provides an even wider audience for good ideas. But unlike earlier generations, the new generation has the muscle to make things happen in the political arena.
While standing for the right ideas and values is vitally important, it is naive to think that politicians will do the right thing simply because a proposed policy will benefit the general citizenry, creating the conditions for economic opportunity and individual prosperity for all. That’s simply not how things work. If there was doubt about the proposition before, today it is painfully obvious that politicians in power often act in their own self-interest at the expense of the “public interest.”
The “currency” that drives the political marketplace is fundamentally different from the private economy. In the private economy, it is enough to have a good idea, identify a new product, develop it, and sell it to an identified (or created) customer base. In the market, entrepreneurship and competition determine outcomes. Returns and values matter and are ultimately determined by individuals making choices.
In the political economy, good ideas, philosophical values, and economic efficiency have little to do with how public policy decisions are actually made. The biggest error made by advocates of government planning, from Marx to Keynes to Obama, is the assumption that bureaucrats and elected officials possess both the detailed knowledge and right motives to be able to solve the economic problems of a nation. While microeconomics correctly assumes that individuals act in their own self-interest, every macroeconomic proposal for government intervention implicitly assumes that public officials act in the public interest, somehow suppressing their individual interests to the greater interests of society.
In reality, public choices are driven by the interests of those making the choices—the politicians who draft, promote, and vote on legislation; and the special interests that work to influence the political decision-making process. Politics is driven by the need to solicit new voters to the polls. Power (to tax, spend, and regulate) is used to consolidate those votes, and to buy more votes at the margin. The policy agendas of both parties are driven by this pursuit of votes and power.
As a result, those who do take the time to show up and actively participate in the policymaking process have a great deal of influence on the decisions that are made. Typically, this means that individuals looking for special treatment from government or a spending provision earmarked in an appropriations bill can dominate the policy conversation. They show up with an intensity that drives the legislative debate, because they stand to profit from the effort. While it is good public policy to limit the growth of government, the general public has little incentive to do much about it. Few dedicate the time and energy required to actively participate in the political process at a level that could influence the decisions of their representatives in government. For the average Americans, the costs of participating (knowing what is going on, showing up at town hall meetings, organizing like-minded citizens, and even voting) is much higher than the potential benefits.
Economists call this phenomenon “concentrated benefits and dispersed costs.” You probably know it as “business as usual.”
Given the way the world actually works, the only way to take power and money out of Washington is to create a powerful constituency demanding less. Government always goes to those who show up. The ideas of liberty need the political power that can be produced by an organized group of Americans committed to our values, trained in effective mobilization skills, and organized to drive policy at the local, state, and federal levels.
The Left figured this out a long time ago. Theirs is not an idea-based movement; instead, they focus on organization and power. As Saul Alinsky teaches, “change comes from power31, and power comes from organization. In order to act, people must get together.”
Today, the Tea Party has the power to change America for the better.
Many Democrats now sense this, and worry that they and the spokes in their political machine have gone too far in their aggressively hostile treatment of these concerned citizens. Headed into the 2010 midterm elections, some Democratic strategists have finally realized that the insults and smears and attacks targeting active, voting grassroots citizens is a very bad political strategy: “After a year in which Democrats have vilified the ‘tea party’32 as an artificial grassroots uprising, as racist, and as potentially violent, several top Democratic consulta
nts are saying that their own party would be wise to tone down its reactions to the small-government movement,” National Journal reported on April 24, 2010. “There was some misjudgment at the very beginning of the process,” former Clinton pollster Stan Greenberg admitted, in a dramatic understatement of the obvious.
Hank Sheinkopf, a Democratic political consultant33 in New York City, echoes Greenberg’s call for cooler responses to Tea Party demonstrations and demands. “If not in 2010, it could be 2012 when we pay the price for their anger. . . . The attacks on them as ‘tea baggers’ and racists will inflame them and make the Democrats appear more elitist than they are.”
Even President Obama now seems to acknowledge this when he calls for “a basic level of civility in our public debate.” In a May 1, 2010, commencement address he said, “These arguments we’re having over government and health care and war and taxes are serious arguments. They should arouse people’s passions, and it’s important for everyone to join in the debate, with all the rigor that a free people require. But we cannot expect to solve our problems if all we do is tear each other down. You can disagree with a certain policy without demonizing the person who espouses it. You can question someone’s views and their judgment without questioning their motives or their patriotism.”
Perhaps they are all reacting to consistent trends in public opinion polling, most notably by Rasmussen, that showed that despite the onslaught of attacks and smears from the Left, far more Americans identified with the views of the “Tea Party” (48 percent)34 than did with the views of President Obama (44 percent). Obamacare, which the rank and file of the Democratic legislative caucus had been promised would grow in popularity once people understood it, continues to lose public support. A strong majority want to see it repealed wholesale.
The promise of the Tea Party movement is its combination of the power of grassroots organization with the good ideas of freedom. The millions of patriotic citizens who are rising up—against a federal government that is spending too much and taking over too many things better left to free enterprise—will indeed take over the Republican Party and then the Congress. And then we will take America back from The Man, the term the New Left used to refer to the political establishment.
And that is why the status quo is lashing out.
Chapter 6
Achieving Critical Mass
WE’LL NEVER MAKE IT from here,” said FreedomWorks press secretary Adam Brandon. On the morning of September 12, 2009, a slow-moving mass of people filled Pennsylvania Avenue from end to end, stretching as far as the eye could see. Police and parks department officials hurried past, walkie-talkies buzzing, unloading barriers and directing traffic. People from every state in the union, many of them marching with family and friends, filed down the street cheering and waving signs.
Already running late, we had hoped to quickly make our way to the stage to greet protesters and fire up the crowd. But this was more than a crowd—it was a sea of people who had flooded Freedom Plaza and the surrounding downtown area, and was splashing through side streets to fill every available space between us and the suddenly distant microphones. If we made it there at all, we would be late. Momentarily speechless, we glanced at each other in awestruck wonder. It was real. It was happening. And we were in the middle of it.
MARCHING INTO HISTORY
SEPTEMBER 12, 2009, WAS a watershed moment for the Tea Party movement. Until that day, the pulse of the movement had been largely sustained through blogs, e-mails, phone calls, and any other tool that could connect activists in disparate locations. Tea Partiers, after all, tended to hold down full-time jobs and care for families. They were active in their home cities and counties but not known for crossing state lines or gathering en masse. Very few observers outside of FreedomWorks would have believed that a gathering on this scale was possible . . . and there were many times we doubted it ourselves. The seeds of the march began long before anyone secured a permit or sent out an invitation. It began by encouraging activists to believe that anything was possible.
One of the books that is required reading at FreedomWorks is A Force More Powerful: A Century of Nonviolent Conflict, by Peter Ackerman and Jack DuVall, a study of the history and tactics of the most successful nonviolent social change movements of the twentieth century. By far the most compelling chapter, one that we often distribute to activists during grassroots training sessions, describes the efforts of the brave civil rights activists who started pushing back against Jim Crow laws in the late 1950s. Intellectually, most opinion leaders and politicians in the 1950s and 1960s understood that government-sanctioned segregation and racial discrimination violated the promise of the Declaration of Independence. But real change did not happen until Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and others took to the streets and mobilized tens of thousands of activist citizens to do the same.
Years of struggle by a relatively small group of fearless activists culminated with the March on Washington in 1963. This peaceful mass action was an iconic event that galvanized public opinion to push past the status quo of government-sanctioned discrimination against black Americans. The efforts of those first few souls who courageously sat in peaceful protest created seismic change and the needed momentum to move toward Dr. King’s dream of a color-blind society.
By early 2009 we began wondering if could we do something similar in defense of individual liberty. We were talking about gathering thousands of protesters, maybe tens of thousands, in D.C. in a mass show of grassroots force. But was it even possible? We had never tried to pull off such a monumental task. We had only discussed this as a goal. Was it time to act? Could we do it? Opinions at FreedomWorks were divided and a healthy debate ensued.
It was now or never. If we didn’t find a way to bring the voices of citizens together to put a stop to the crazed expansion of government being planned by Obama, Pelosi, and Reid, it would be very difficult to turn things around down the road. Somewhere there is a tipping point where burdensome government, dependency, unfunded liabilities, and oppressive tax rates institutionalize economic decline. Nations stagnate and die this way. Just look at some of the former economic powerhouses of “old” Europe.
IF WE BUILD IT, WILL THEY COME?
NOW COMMITTED TO THE idea, we applied for the necessary permits to secure the September 12 date. We’ve often been asked why we selected that date. There were several reasons. First, we knew that we needed at least five months to plan such a massive event and that it would take a lot of time, money, media exposure, and word of mouth to drive attendance.
Second, we expected important legislation dealing with healthcare to be on the Senate floor in September. One of our members suggested September 12 because of his participation with the Glenn Beck–inspired 9/12 project.
Our first meetings with the National Park Service and Capitol Police were a bit tense. We didn’t know what to expect or how they would respond to the idea. But as we went through the process we found them to be very helpful and easy to work with. The officials guided us through the red tape, answered our questions, and kept us on sound legal footing; they deserve a lot of thanks for making the event what is was.
But permitting was the least of our problems. We didn’t have the money to fund such a big project. We didn’t know how to organize an event on this scale. The march would test our staff and volunteers to the limit and require a great deal of learning on the job—with very little margin for error. But even if we found the money and navigated all the red tape, we still needed to get people to show up.
We didn’t know it then, but that turned out to be the easiest part, because every participant shared the workload. The thousands of leaders who had risen up from their couches and kitchen tables over the previous weeks and months were building local networks that would be the heart and soul of the march.
They were finding one another online, meeting at rallies, and organizing via Facebook and Twitter and through other peer-to-peer networking tools that allowed these once isolated citizen pat
riots to join forces and work together. This decentralization of power and knowledge—tens of thousands of points of light for individual liberty—is the foundation for an organizational and philosophical revolution that would change the national debate in a profound, positive way.
A COALITION OF THE WORKING
BRENDAN, AT FREEDOMWORKS, ALONG with Jenny Beth Martin of Tea Party Patriots and Darla Dawald of ResistNet, served as national coordinators of the Taxpayer March on Washington. Andrew Moylan of the National Taxpayers Union, a key ally in the battle against the TARP bailout, was a de facto fourth coordinator and a standout guy who was most interested in just getting the job done. FreedomWorks proceeded to assemble a large coalition of partner groups, creating a broad net of anyone who agreed on the basic principles of the movement: (1) a belief in individual freedom, fiscal restraint, and respect for our Constitution’s limits on government power; (2) we wanted a working coalition, one that understood the need to organize and take to the streets in defense of liberty. These groups took seriously the founders’ mandate of eternal vigilance. Newly formed local Tea Party groups, Glenn Beck–inspired 9/12 groups, and other local activist taxpayer groups made up the core of our coalition. They were joined by a number of national groups, including the Institute for Liberty, Tea Party Express, Smart Girl Politics, Let Freedom Ring, Campaign for Liberty, Free Republic, Leadership Institute, Ayn Rand Center, and dozens of others.
We decided early on to forgo any big-name speakers, in part because we didn’t have the money. But we also wanted the event to reflect the ethos of the Tea Party, the leaderless nature of this spontaneous order. So the emphasis was on the local leaders, the people who traditionally would not take to the stage and speak at the podium, but labor anonymously, in the background, to fill the town hall meetings, to organize church picnics, to make community events or local political fund-raisers successful. They never get the credit. Well, this would be their day, their movement, their chance to speak to the Washington political establishment, the national media, and the American people. This also made the day special, introducing a new group of leaders to America.