The Real "Blame America First" Crowd: Tea Partiers and GOP! Can't the Country Do Anything Right?

Remember the "blame America first" crowd? Republicans tagged Democrats with this effective identity brand, and it stuck like Velcro. To the right, click on the picture to see who's blaming America in the reality based world.

I've always scratched my head when Republicans oddly accused of us liberals a wanting to change things for the better. Change is bad, criticism is unpatriotic. That also clung to the "blame America first" brand. But as usual with the Republican Party's disciplined rhetoric, reality is just the opposite. NY Times columnist Charles Blow has pretty much noticed the same thing with the clashing tea party movement and GOP:

Are these the desperate thrashings of a dying movement or the labor pains of a new one? My money is on the former. Anyone who says that this is the dawn of a new age of conservatism is engaging in wishful thinking on a delusional scale.

This is a limited, emotional reaction. It’s a response to the trauma that is the Great Recession, the uncertainty and creeping suspicion about the risks being taken in Washington, a visceral reaction to Obama and an overwhelming sense of powerlessness and loss.

Simply put, it’s about fear-fueled anger. But anger is not an idea. It’s not a plan. And it’s not a vision for the future. It is, however, the second stage of grief, right after denial and before bargaining.

The right has seen the enemy, and he is the future.

According to a Gallup report issued this week, Republicans were more than twice as likely as Democrats and a third more likely as independents to have a pessimistic outlook for the country over the next 20 years.

So what’s their battle plan … Moderation? A stab at modernity? A slate of innovative ideas? No, their plan is to purge the party’s moderates and march farther down the road to oblivion. Erick Erickson, the incendiary editor of the popular conservative blog RedState, appeared on “The Colbert Report” on Monday and said that “no one really knows what a Republican is anymore.”

One final point. Although the tea party movement is everything Blow mentioned above, it's a chilling thought to imagine the public slowly warming to the idea, and how that sheer anger and anti-government sentiment might radicalize our country and our place in the world.