While the Democrats are generally honest about their intention to tax and spend, the Republicans scream up and down the land about getting government off our backs. Of course once in the driver’s seat they do pretty much the same things as the other party, and usually for the same reasons. Reps and Dems both increase the costs of business as well as government, by fighting sexism and racism, paying for expanding entitlements, and rewarding the party base at public expense. The Reps add to these bloated costs another expense, launching wars in the name of spreading democracy and combating Islamofascism. The Dems are not as devoted to this nutty project but run up their own deficits by lavishing favors on minorities and by pampering public sector unions. The choice between these evils is so painful that I usually spare myself the misery of voting for either.

Moreover, the parties themselves don”€™t really rule. In our administered form of democracy, judges and administrators control our lives far more. What party representatives do is give a certain general direction to what goes on, while helping themselves to the spoils of successful electoral campaigns. Most Americans deal a lot more with the Internal Revenue Service than they do with their Republican or Democratic representatives; and for those who want to jerk around the public or settle scores with their enemies, holding a high administrative post in DC is worth a lot more than being the congressman-woman from Podunk. As I said before, if we had only one leeching party instead of two, we wouldn”€™t be paying through the nose for the honor of being a “€œtwo-party democracy.”€

Yes, I know about the Tea Party insurgency and that this unexpected development is giving heartburn to Karl Rove, Charles Krauthammer and the rest of the GOP-Neocon establishment, including Rich Lowry at the intellectually defunct NR. While I don”€™t doubt that such anti-big government candidates mean well, most of their voters are not against the welfare state but simply in favor of those programs they”€™re now getting, particularly Medicare and Social Security, which they think the Dems are endangering with excessive government spending. Moreover, once Christine O”€™Donnell and other Tea partiers get to Washington, assuming they win, the usual crew will be on hand to meet them.  This includes the neocon
press and foundations and the kind of schleps I saw on TV.

The question is not whether or not Tea Party candidates once in DC will succumb to these takeover artists. It is rather how long it will take for this to happen. If Stalin once famously asked in considering the relative power of the Holy See how many divisions the Pope has, the unavoidable question for us is how many TV channels and newspapers we control. The answer is (alas) zilch. This is one reason that I suspect the Tea Partiers will not be changing our politics-as-usual”€”or making a dent in our two-party oligarchy. We”€™re in no position to influence these newcomers effectively or to take on the GOP-neocon establishment.  But if a few billion dollars suddenly fell into our laps, all bets would be off. Then some of us might even get invited on to the Today show, with the empty, ill-fitting suits I saw there a few mornings ago.