For the Tea Party to continue its growth going forward, it needs to remain focused on a few core issues: limited government, fiscal responsibility, Federalism, Founding Fathers and nothing more. These issues represent the political ‘center of mass’ for the American people (not to be confused with moderates, independents and reaching across the isle). Without a strong functioning economy, the rest of the issues facing our nation- Defense, Health care, Environment, Foreign Policy, Immigration etc. are strictly academic.
The Tea Party core issues reflect the values of the next wave of Americans that are fast approaching their mid 40′s and are ready to assume political leadership of our nation for the next 20 years. Via Uncommon Knowledge October 31st, 1997:
Welcome to Uncommon Knowledge. I’m Peter Robinson. Generation X, the 54 million Americans born between 1965 and 1978. It’s a generation that’s known neither war nor depression and that has attitudes fundamentally different from any generation that’s gone before. One of those attitudes- suspicion of government. Consider social security. Franklin Roosevelt enacted social security in 1935 and fifty years later, Ronald Reagan promised young Americans that social security still would be functioning when they retired. Generation X isn’t buying. In fact, in a recent poll- and this is true- nearly twice as many Generation Xers believed in the existence of UFO’s- piloted perhaps by cousins of my little magenta friend here- than believed that social security will still be sending out checks by the time they retire
Obviously, not all people in this, or any age group are Conservatives. But, many within this age group are Conservative with a large number being fiscal Conservatives. Furthermore, fiscal Conservatism is reflected in the Tea Party ideals of limited government (suspicion of government) and fiscal responsibility (social security will be gone) have been at the center of Generation X’s political identity going back to the mid 1990′s.
