Shocking news out of Washington today: The Tea Party is losing badly, according to tea party kook?Michele Bachmann and her Tea Party comrades Louis Gohmert, and Steve King. Who knew? At least that was the sentiment of members of the Tea Party Caucus and what few faithful followers they have after a failed pep talk with Glenn Beck.
Michele Bachmann, the former Tea Party Caucus chair, and Steve King and Louie Gohmert, both Congressmen thought to be possible future caucus chairmen, all appeared on Glenn Beck’s show to lobby against comprehensive immigration reform. All of them, especially Michele Bachmann, took the opportunity to shovel manure about comprehensive immigration reform being akin to letting Satan swim across the Rio Grande. As the discussion went on, it turned more and more pessimistic, with Bachmann quoting the exit poll from the 2012 election where Latinos voted for President Barack Obama by a margin of 71-27. The conversation continued with the typical conservative banter: Glenn Beck called progressivism a ?disease? and told his congressional groupies that their fight should be focused on the eradication of that disease, to which Bachmann responded that somehow, people just weren’t buying that argument.
There were moments where Bachmann was a little more optimistic about the Tea Party’s chances, insisting the bill could be killed. This second wind of optimism, however, quickly collapsed, leaving a now desperate and defeated Michele Bachmann admitting that conservatives in Congress are ?losing badly.? She then made a desperate and not entirely coherent plea to Beck’s faithful viewers?all three of them?to flood the offices of their congresspeople with letters demanding that immigration reform not be passed.
Meanwhile Louie Gohmert?and keep in mind, this gentleman could be the next Tea Party caucus chair, pushed back against this idea that conservatives and the Republican Party are losing badly simply because there is no mathematical way for them to win another presidential election ever in their current state. He cited polls showing increasing distrust in government and argued that, as in previous elections, this distrust is key to the Tea Party’s survival.
Watch the video from Glenn Beck’s own TV network here:
This is part of a larger examination of mine on picking the next chair of the Tea Party Caucus. Hopefully they’ll disintegrate before that, but in case they don’t I’ll continue writing on the subject. Read my first post here.