A Very British Tea Party

Some onlookers have drawn parallels between Britain’s new Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn and Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders. Both are left wing (albeit to varying degrees), and both have white hair. Both look a bit scruffy, and both grace the iPhone screens of Buzzfeed and Huffington Post readers regularly. But the similarities end there. The rise of Corbyn in the United Kingdom and the rise of Sanders in the States share little similarity. Arguably the movement Jeremy Corbyn has created, despite vast ideological differences, is more Tea Party than Bernie in character.
The Tea Party was born from a belief that the Republican Party was not representing conservative principles and treats RINOs (Republicans In Name Only) as they’re affectionately called, with the same revile with which they treat the Obama administration. In fact, they arguably give members of their own party a harder time: attacking candidates like Eric Cantor in primary elections, sapping the resolve of congressional leaders like John Boehner, and even calling majority senate leader Mitch McConnell a “liar” on the floor of Congress. There’s relatively little the ultra-conservatives can do to the Obama Administration, but they certainly make life difficult for their own party.
Similarly, Jeremy Corbyn’s candidacy for Labour Leader was sustained by a belief that Labour had strayed from some concept of traditional “labour values.” Supporters announced Corbyn as the heir to the Prime Minister who founded the welfare state, Clement Attlee—a total fallacy of a comparison. Suddenly the achievements of the Blair/Brown government of 1997-2010 were not to be defended (as many in the party believed should have been the strategy immediately after its defeat in 2010) but instead should be condemned and distanced from future Labour policy. Out of nowhere, Corbyn’s record of having defied the party whip 428 times became a selling point, a sign of principled opposition (Corbynista speak for being obstinate). Corbyn’s resistance is reminiscent of the perpetual bragging match within the Tea Party over who can hate Washington the most.
Both movements arose from anti-establishment feeling directed at their own parties. Contrast this with Bernie Sanders, who channels anger towards income inequality and Republican policies, and who has actually pulled Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton to the left on several issues like trade. Far from opposing the Democratic establishment, he is becoming the new face of it.
Corbyn claims a huge mandate in the Labour Party, citing his almost 60 percent of the votes in the leadership election. However, commanding the support of hoards of people whose votes you have already secured does not translate into general electoral success. Enthusiasm should not be equated with popularity. ‘The Palin Effect’ was a phrase to describe the enthusiastic crowds drawn in 2008 by Tea Party veteran and then vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin; but the phenomenon did not translate to victory against Obama and Biden. There is a reason the Conservatives have been holding double-digit leads over Labour since the election in May, and it is not because of a lack of Labour enthusiasm for Corbyn. These two movements, Corbynista and Tea Party, mistake loud, committed activists for a winning coalition of voters.
Both groups are also united in another respect—their unelectability. Ben Bernanke summed it up best when he said that as a moderate Republican he has not abandoned the party, but “the party left me.” The radicalism and often terrifying disregard for facts of the Tea Party is unlikely to bring about a President Cruz. There is no inherent reason why the Republican Party is “dying” as some pundits have suggested, but when the Tea Party drags the GOP to the right on the emotive social issues that push away independents, they do not stand a chance in a national election. So too will there never be a Prime Minister Corbyn. The Conservative Party has done a spectacular job of defining the Labour leader as a danger to the country. But even independent of partisan spin, Corbyn is a man who aided and abetted terrorists, sees no problem in referring to Hamas as “friends,” has appointed a chief of communications who believes the Iraqi counter-insurgency killing American soldiers was a liberating force, and believes a Shadow Chancellor who said that IRA terrorists should be “honoured.” It is difficult to believe that Labour will be in government come 2020 with Corbyn and his radical positions at helm.
The Tea Party and Corbyn movements are also united in the ugly, aggressive, illogical, hate-filled rhetoric and behaviour of some of the activists involved in their movements. Tea Party supporters have often used racist attacks on President Obama, disputing his heritage and even going so far as to muddy the waters as to whether or not he is a Christian, a skepticism endorsed by presidential candidate Mike Huckabee. The level of bigotry espoused by some in the Tea Party is repugnant, but not as personally vindictive as some of Corbyn’s supporters. The recent Conservative Party Conference is an example. Corbynistas lined the streets on the way into the Conference shouting abuse such as “Tory Scum,” alleged threats of rape, and deeply anti-Semitic remarks. Considering that Corbyn ran on the theme of “a kinder politics,” his mild intervention of “cut out the abuse” does not seem sufficient.
This hateful tone is starkly different from that of Sanders. His supporters use the strapline “Feel the Bern,” not “Clinton Scum” or “Republican Scum.” Bernie Sanders is not unelectable: he has a message of campaign finance reform that politicians in both the GOP and Democratic Party are echoing. He is not standing on the periphery with people arguing that meat eaters should be treated like smokers (like Corbyn has), nor is he talking about imposing tithes on Americans (as Ben Carson sort of has, he thinks). While it may be tempting to think the United States’ and Britain’s most popular leftist politicians are fundamentally the same—that they are characteristic of some left wing resurgence in the Anglophone world—this view ignores many of the key characteristics of Corbyn’s politics. His ascendancy to prominence in British Politics looks more like Sarah Palin than Sanders.
Image source: Wikimedia // Global Justice Now