The rise of the Tea Party gives us a lesson in necessary nihilism

On January 20, 2009, Barack Obama took office as the 44th President of the Unites States of America. His campaign to sit in the most powerful seat in the world captured the world’s attention. From Buenos Aires to Tokyo, the world was glued to its TV screens, as this vibrant black man came from the outside lane to first become the Democratic candidate, beating once shoo-in Hillary Clinton, and then trounce an ageing John McCain to win the most coveted prize.

His books became the standard of a generation looking to cast off the shackles of archaic political systems; his words gave succour to those living on the fringes hoping to one day cross the divide between the haves and have-nots; his smile warmed hearts, even those hardened by exposure to politics’ moribund facade. The world was finally a better place. It was the Age of Obama.

How things have changed.
After the “shellacking” the Democrats received in the US mid-term elections, that facade has got more cracks in it that Captain Ahab’s face. No longer does the American public, including a large portion of the youth that voted him into office, consider Obama the political messiah for a tired people. Now, he’s just another walker in the hallways of the Washington power factory; trampled over by a filibustering opposition.

But apart from Obama and his fading star, there’s something more interesting, and important going on in America, and its message will ring across the water. When the Tea Party began what has now become its value-driven crusade, it was seen by large sections of the liberal elite as an abomination; to many others it was an eccentric twist in America’s rich and often haphazard political tale.

In a speech to the National Convention in 1794, Robespierre said: “Terror is nothing other than justice, prompt, severe, inflexible; it is therefore an emanation of virtue; it is not so much a special principle as it is a consequence of the general principle of democracy applied to our country’s most urgent needs.”
Now a large portion of Tea Partiers may have no idea who Robespierre is, even fewer will care. But Robespierre’s hand in the French Revolution was heavy with indignation at the royal house of Louis XVI; appalled by its excess; stunned by its indifference to the people’s needs and wants. The Tea Partiers have more in common with the 18th century French than they know.

Their quest to return America to its core values of work, family and god have brought them into the political limelight. Led they may be by a seemingly harebrained Sara Palin, but it is Palin’s persona that has given power to their wave. Gaffes and all, she has done what Obama could never sustain, keep in touch with the people of the land.

The nihilistic core of the Tea Party is one that has nourished revolutions, both bloody and intellectual, forcenturies. It is in this nihilism that true freedom is born. The ability to topple governments that don’t meet the basic requirements of the people is our birthright. But to do so we must be ready to rebel, both physically and mentally.

Unfortunately nihilism, like anarchy, has fallen out of favour in a world that consistently associates them with falling profits. But big corporations have always been nihilistic…governments have quaked when face-to-face with Big Tobacco, Big Pharma, Big
Oil, etc. They elected Reagan and Thatcher, they demolished the 21st political knight in Obama, they consistently control whom we elect right here in India.

For those who thought the Tea Party was a flash in the pan, the reality of this burgeoning third wheel in US politics is frightening. But it shouldn’t be. Love it or hate it, the Tea Party, baiting rhetoric aside, is a symbol that not only is democracy alive and well in America, but so is the people’s movement.

The US is in an enviable position. The last two years have seen two rivers run to the Mall in Washington. One carried a president, the other those that would curtail his power. Both are necessary, and both equally powerful.

Whichever one prevails, the real winners are Americans, for now that the floodgates are open and the waters of dissent flow freely, who knows, this time the people might emerge victorious.