I thought about it for a little while because it was an innovative argument, but I quickly concluded that Ross Douthat’s latest column is the rankest bullshit. It’s true that there are unorthodox opinions that are being floated by some of the Tea Partiers…ideas that might in some cases attract progressive interest. Whether it’s opposition to an interventionist foreign policy and a willingness to cut defense spending, or it’s skepticism about the NSA and domestic surveillance, or it’s opposition to crop subsidies and other forms of corporate welfare, or it’s a willingness to relax our drug laws and consider prison reforms, there are areas of possible cooperation between progressives and the more libertarian members of the Tea Party. But I haven’t seen even an iota of progress in any of those areas because the Tea Party republicans who might forge bipartisan coalitions to make revolutionary change are not actually interested in legislating. No one is more guilty of dropping this ball than Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky.
Because the Tea Partiers aren’t even trying to do anything constructive, their few good ideas are basically worthless and do nothing to balance out their extremism.
