For months the big headlines were about the impasse in Congress created by the Tea Party over raising the debt ceiling for this country. While not thoroughly routine, raising the debt ceiling has been performed dozens of times by Congress with little fanfare. Congress raised the debt ceiling, the story was placed in papers below the fold, and not much was made of the event.
The Tea Party radically changed this. They turned the event into a crisis. And they did so purposely. By holding the government hostage, this band of right wing ideologues succeeded in the ultimate political blackmail. No compromises were made with Democrats, who favored closing tax loopholes and raising some taxes. In the “deal,” cuts were made to government spending, with no increase to revenue.
The term brinksmanship was used on occasion to describe the wrangling in Washington, but brinksmanship describes a situation in which all sides have a great deal to lose in pushing a very hard bargain. That is not the case here. As a default may have brought about a financial crisis—forcing ever-greater cuts to government spending, including the programs of Social Security, Medicare, and environmental protections, which is the primary goal of the Tea Party—many of the Tea Party wanted to see a government default.
By being the hostage takers, the Tea Party were able to control the agenda and achieve a great deal of what they wanted, but they may not have been fully successful in controlling the larger debate on debt, taxes and spending. A majority of Americans believe that raising taxes on the rich is necessary to close the gap on the deficit, and most Americans continue to support SSI, Medicare, and governmental environmental programs.
But the Tea Party was quite successful in perhaps another way. It is a common dictum that in any debate, those who are allowed to define the terms of the debate win the debate. What needs to be added to this truism is that by creating a debate, by forcing your opponent to debate you on a subject of your choosing, other matters are left by the mental wayside.
We commonly accept distractions in our entertainments. Magicians know that their craft of illusion is about hiding cards up sleeves and unseen wires pulling at trap doors. But their craft of the sleight of hand is also about distraction. The flourishing hand, the pretty assistant in an outfit that reveals a lot of skin, draw our eyes away from the magician’s manipulation of reality, giving us a surprise when we see the rabbit pop out of a hat or a bouquet of flowers appearing out of thin air.
As a fabricated crisis, the debt ceiling issue served as a similar distraction. While the Tea Party ensured that our attention was grabbed by headlines of John Boehner walking out of a meeting with the President and news anchors counting down the days till our impending default, other issues, important issues that should be at the fore of our public discussions, were pushed from news sites and left out of the public consciousness.
Many thousands of us remain unemployed, yet during the debt ceiling crisis news of the unemployed amounted to no more than the evening news giving us latest percentages of those out of work or the number of new unemployment claims. Unlike the debt ceiling, global warming presents a real and pending crisis, requiring that we act now to reduce the emissions of greenhouse gasses. This issue was drowned out like so many polar bears amid the din of the debt crisis. The debt crisis was a weapon of mass distraction, with the Tea Party’s desired collateral damage to our public discourse. Expect more of these thrill-a-minute sideshows from the far right of the GOP and expect some version of “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain,” whenever the public tries to steer our discourse back to important matters.
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