Free Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now by Douglas Rushkoff Page A

newfound faith in our own gut sensibilities drives us to take matters into our own hands—in journalism and beyond. In a political world where ideological goals are replaced by terror and rage, it’s no wonder the first true political movement to emerge out of present shock would be the Tea Party. This is the politics of PTSD, inspired by a no-nonsense brand of libertarianism espoused by Texas congressman Ron Paul. Taking its name from the Boston Tea Party of 1773, when American colonists dumped British tea into the harbor in a tax revolt, today’s Tea Party movement shares the antiauthoritarian impulse of its namesake and then expresses it as a distrust of government in all forms. While the Tea Party may have originated as an antitax movement, it has been characterized over time more by a disdain for consensus and an almost deliberate effort to remain ignorant of facts that may contradict its oversimplified goals.
    Tea Partiers, such as Michele Bachmann, either misunderstood or intentionally misrepresented the concept of a debt ceiling as a vote to authorize additional spending (when it is actually a vote to pay what has already been spent). The solution to the seemingly perpetual debt crisis? Shut down government. Healthcare system too complicated? End it. (Except, of course, for Medicare, which doesn’t count.) Russia and China are evil, Arabs are scary, Mexicans are taking Americans’ jobs, and climate change is a hoax. As Columbia University historian Mark Lilla has chronicled, the combination of amplified self-confidence and fear of elites is a dangerous one. In his view, the Tea Partiers “have two classic American traits that have grown much more pronounced in recent decades: blanket distrust of institutions and an astonishing—and unwarranted—confidence in the self. They are apocalyptic pessimists about public life and childlike optimists swaddled in self-esteem when it comes to their own powers.” 27
    If the Tea Party is to be disparaged for anything, it is not for being too conservative, too right wing, or too libertarian, but simply too immature, quick-triggered, and impatient for final answers. Traumatized by the collapse of the narratives that used to organize reality and armed with what appears to be access to direct democracy, its members ache for harsh, quick fixes to age-old problems—something they can really
feel
—as if fomenting a painful apocalypse would be better than enduring the numbing present.
    More intellectually grounded conservatives and GOP regulars fear the Tea Party more than they fear Democrats, for they understand that this knee-jerk race to results undermines the very foundation and justification for representative democracy. As former George W. Bush speechwriter David Frum laments:
    A political movement that never took governing seriously was exploited by a succession of political entrepreneurs uninterested in governing—but all too interested in merchandising. Much as viewers tune in to
American Idol
to laugh at the inept, borderline dysfunctional early auditions, these tea-party champions provide a ghoulish type of news entertainment each time they reveal that they know nothing about public affairs and have never attempted to learn. But Cain’s gaffe on Libya or Perry’s brain freeze on the Department of Energy are not only indicators of bad leadership. They are indicators of a crisis of followership. The tea party never demanded knowledge or concern for governance, and so of course it never got them. 28
    Representative democracy has a hard enough time justifying itself in a digitally connected world where representation no longer means sending someone on a three-day carriage ride to the capital. Having cynically embraced the Tea Party as a means to an end, Republicans now face erosion of party integrity from within. Meanwhile, as if aware of the role that the twenty-four-hour news cycle played in having generated this phenomenon, CNN partners with the Tea Party to arrange