"This was a great documentary when Oldham exposes the corporate backing of the Tea Party, yay! But then he talks about AGW and state run health care, boo! Now it sucks! I liked it when he said what I liked, but then I didn't like when he said what I didn't like!"

This guy is a goof, and this is hardly a credible source for anything. Are there Tea Party groups which accept corporate money? Sure. That's not what I asked you. Again, show me where it is Tea Party policy to continue subsidies and tax loopholes when even the non-Tea Party Paul Ryan is for cutting or ending these things, or admit that you are talking through your hat.

I'd really expect better then that from you. 

Afterall, the majority of economists are more in agreement with the tea party then the "east coast intellectuals."

Even most Kesnyian's don't agree with the oldschool definition of Kensyianism people try and push now a days.

Heck, you yourself pointed out the flaws on why you thought an Kensyian system would never work.

Not caring about funding more stuff when even the world bank is saying "Uh you guys are in trouble" is fairly reasonable.

Since the World Bank traditionally has been in the Western Power's pockets.

What Democrats SHOULD be doing.  Is proposing cuts in things they don't like.  Rather then ignoring reality and complaining about the republicans want to cut and pretending a tax cut on the rich would even dent anything.

The actual Tea Party message has been consistant.  "We need government cuts" they've even supported Democrats who agreed with that statement.

You can't really call them anti-intellectual until the democrats pick a plan that cuts more or the same more efficiently and they reject it.

Espiecally when most economists agree with them!

I would actually question what is truly credible nowadays. News Corp isn't, CBS isn't, even Cspan isn't. They are all biased, one way crap. Only sources of information that actually have some credibility are the small blogs and groups that do research and discuss real news.

Yes, some people are realizing we can't exactly afford the 76 trillion dollars in promised debt we have. Sadly there are many politicians that speak about ending it, but have their back pockets full of corporate corruption. Of course, these same people are also failing to prevent or even question the current massive bubble that is building, the college bubble aka tuition bubble. Probably a good way of preventing or reducing it would be burning the basic FIFO style of management colleges, schools, and universities tend to have over their employees.

Economics is a different matter, and one where the answer is harder to latch onto because of too many vested interests that'll drag the whole market down if something happens that they don't like (but that in itself might not be that damaging), but that's not what i was addressing in this case.

I'm not making this up, either. Palin herself spelled out a resentment for east-coast intellectuals in no uncertain terms, and then you have these clearly ideology-driven points of conjecture on cuts, and people who think we can solve the budget problem by "cutting foreign aid" (when foreign aid is so miniscule as to be a non-starter)

Cut the EPA, because environmentalism is hooey, cut planned parenthood because all they do is abortions, cut health-care because the uninsured won't impose more of a burden on the system if they're completely uninsured, no-sir

Austerity is a fine economic idea, but no-one actually wants to do it right (which is higher taxes and less spending, each party unwilling to do both), and instead the Tea Party ideas have been hijacked by anti-intellectual and psuedo-intellectual rhetoric that's just a new coat of paint on the same Republican ideas. It's the old conservative docket, just with the cavalier attitude towards war dropped off (which i'll grant is a positive at first, but they tend to be more isolationist on that front than is wise). The numbers back this up in that the Ryan budget would get us to more or less the same place financially in 40 years as the Obama one (assuming that fiscally unreliable democracy as it always does wouldn't just chart their own paths in those 40 years), just with the burden in those 40 years being shouldered by those who can least afford to carry it, rather than those who most can

That's where you make your mistake.  Your attributing Palin and Ryan as leaders of the Tea-party... when they aren't.

A lot of Tea-party leaders are anti-palin.  She's mostly just used as an attraction to gather people to come.  Since their attempt to be bipartisan failed when no democrats crossed over due to the Democratic and Republican dual effort to paint them as racists and lunatics.

It's this way with every new political movement... or new anything really.

You need name recognition so you let in people who aren't full on when it comes to your ideas.

I mean heck, the newest Tea Party star is actually Donald Trump.

If the Tea Party somehow surives 5-10 more years, you'll see those people begin to fal; away.

There aren't enough tea party senators to do ANYTHING, and they are more or less just going with the side who's options least suck to them... and are still complaining about those plans.

I think you're right there.

However bad the reality of the world gets, we still have the ability to rebel and turn against our overlords without fear of punishment.

What we lack is the desire to do any such thing. We are happy in our consumerist society. Those of us who aren't grumble a bit, get looked at funnily by other people, and then group together. It's pretty much exactly Brave New World, but without the soma (interestingly, Huxley said we would need Soma to become like the society he predicted).

Political leadership is relative. I mean Gandhi wasn't the leader of the Indian National Congress, but his ideas influenced the composition of the group. The ones out there making the noise for the group are going to attract the people, who in turn shape discourse. If Trump and all his "birther," nonsense is the frontman for the group, then they're going to attract more birthers, or people like that Southern California Republican operative who got caught circulating that picture of Obama superimposed as the child of chimps (which shares the same root as the birther paranoia, it's racism at heart)

You could be right, but i think you're seeing the Tea Party as a Libertarian vehicle, whereas i'm seeing it as a Republican capitalization on voter angst

Really? Don't people take all kinds of things like Valium these days?

Legalized Marijuana.

Marijuana is not legal, and yet we see the Huxley effect.

It's interesting that governments don't try to legalise it. Perhaps that means that, rather than being sinister and evil, they're just incompetent, but that ruins a perfectly good conspiracy theory.