How Many Attended the Tea Parties?
Back in April there was a lot of debate about how many people actually attended the April 15 “tea parties” to oppose President Obama’s tax and spending programs. Pajamas Media, an enthusiastic backer of the protests, offered an estimate upwards of 400,000.
Nate Silver of the FiveThirtyEight blog, a more skeptical observer, diligently compiled what he considered “nonpartisan and credible” estimates — mostly from mainstream media or police sources — and came up with a detailed sum of about 311,000. Not bad for widely dispersed events, most with no big-name speakers or celebrities, not hyped by the major media (though certainly hyped by some of the conservative media).
But I’ve recently stumbled across reports of two tea parties that didn’t make Silver’s list. In a long profile of a councilwoman who supported Obama in Greenwood, South Carolina, the Washington Post reports on her encountering 200 people at a tea party in Greenwood. And the latest compilation of newspaper clippings from the Mackinac Center includes an April 16 article from the Midland (Michigan) Daily News about a tea party there that attracted 500 people. So who knows how many other farflung events didn’t get included in Silver’s comprehensive list?
Andrew Samwick of Dartmouth complained that the tea parties — and maybe even libertarians — weren’t clearly focused on the problem of spending. As I said in a comment there, I think that’s an unfair charge:
Here’s how one major news outlet reported them:
Nationwide ‘tea party’ protests blast spending – CNN.com (http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/04/15/tea.parties/ )
ABCNews.com said “Anti-Tax ‘Tea Parties’ Protest President Obama’s Tax and Spending Policies.” USA Today wrote, “What started out as a handful of people blogging about their anger over federal spending — the bailouts, the $787 billion stimulus package and Obama’s budget — has grown into scores of so-called tea parties across the country.”It’s hard to put specific cuts, especially COLAs and the like, on protest signs; but I think it’s fair to say that the tea-party crowds were complaining about excessive spending and “generational theft.”
The Tea Parties
There hasn’t been much here on the Cato blog about the Tea Parties this week, so I thought I should write a bit about them.
A number of sources report around 750 individual events across the country, from small towns to big cities. Hundreds of thousands of people attended.
Many if not the vast majority of these people do not go to protests or even political rallies. My parents, who sent along the pictures below of the large rally in Cincinnati, do not do big crowds or political events. Neither do many of their friends. But they were there.
The general tenor and talk were non-partisan — people are angry at both political parties for many of the same reasons: spending, growth of government, and the ever-expanding reach of federal involvement in every aspect of our lives.
It’s not just the first months of the Obama presidency that produced this reaction among normal citizens who have never before come out for political protests. The frustration on display has been building for years under Republican control. The last sad gasp of the Bush administration bailouts and the explosion of previously inconceivable spending under a Democrat-controlled government have simply pushed many common citizens well past passivity.
It’s not about party. It’s about freedom and responsibility.
These Tea Parties won’t change anything, but they are an ominous sign for our political class and a heartening one for the future. Citizens are drawing strength and encouragement from the events that could translate into voting and political action that brings real change, not just a doubling-down on failed policy.
Hope springs eternal . . .
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