The issues that upset the Tea Kettle movement — debt and bloated government — are actually symptoms of our real problem, not causes. They are symptoms of a country in a state of incremental decline and losing its competitive edge, because our politics has become just another form of sports entertainment, our Congress a forum for legalized bribery and our main lawmaking institutions divided by toxic partisanship to the point of paralysis.
The important Tea Party movement, which stretches from centrist Republicans to independents right through to centrist Democrats, understands this at a gut level and is looking for a leader with three characteristics. First, a patriot: a leader who is more interested in fighting for his country than his party. Second, a leader who persuades Americans that he or she actually has a plan not just to cut taxes or pump stimulus, but to do something much larger — to make America successful, thriving and respected again. And third, someone with the ability to lead in the face of uncertainty and not simply whine about how tough things are — a leader who believes his job is not to read the polls but to change the polls.
Democratic Pollster Stan Greenberg told me that when he does focus groups today this is what he hears: “People think the country is in trouble and that countries like China have a strategy for success and we don’t. They will follow someone who convinces them that they have a plan to make America great again. That is what they want to hear. It cuts across Republicans and Democrats.”
I think that Tom Friedman is on the money here. I would like to add that a related problem that we have to solve is leadership in the media.
In a vain search for ratings and readers, the media has become obsessed with headlines and in a vain search for authority it has also been obsessed with "balance".
The result is that our complex problems have been reduced to slogans and polarization. Because no challenge is shown from its context and roots - no solution can be found. Often the truth is put in balance with the lie. For instance on immigration - no beheadings, total undocumented is 5% not a wave - crime is down - jobs are not taken away - all these are lies designed to make headlines by their perpetrators and swallowed by the an uncritical media a legitimate side of the debate.
Most of the media has no interest in helping us understand what is going on and drop a topic if it is no longer a headline. On their Olympian perch, they refuse to offer up a path for resolution but keep the wound open.
This approach plays into the political system that Tom talks about. The easy votes come from fear. Fear sells papers and gets viewers - so fear is what we get. So paralysis and decline is what we get.
Some of us have to do our best to do better in the media.
