What exactly is the "tea party"?

[werepossum]

I find that to be a dubious goal. Libertarian social policies are more and more popular the younger you go, but libertarian economic policies are more and more unpopular. Seems like a tough way to really change the conversation.

It is perhaps possible that young people hate social conservatism more than they hate economic conservatism, and so dropping the social while retaining the economic may lead to some gains, but it still seems like a tough road.

Hey, at least someone is trying to steer the GOP in a new direction.

But is the Tea Party truly dropping the social conservatism while retaining economic conservatism? Seems to me that the GOP has been brilliant in co-opting the Tea Party, so that now it is merely a largish number of small groups vying for personal political power and emphasizing the social conservatism every bit as much as the economic conservatism, and largely within the larger GOP. At the same time, seems like the Libertarian Party/libertarian movement is moving toward emphasizing deregulation of business over individual liberty, although that may be due to more money being available for those who want less business regulation. And I think it's at least arguable that those who did not show up to vote for Romney were the social conservatives. Romney's campaign certainly seemed more intent on shoring up his social conservatism than on displaying his previous fiscal restraint/social libertarianism.

If I am correct then we are in for some very difficult times, caught between a rock that wants a very large and powerful federal government with control over every facet of your life and a hard place which wants a slightly smaller federal government with veto power over any facet of your life with which it disagrees. Does not bode well for either personal liberty or fiscal responsibility.