David Brooks, writing recently in an editorial for the New York Times titled “The Tea Party Moment,” had this to say about public sentiment since Barack Obama’s 2008 election:
“Sixty-one percent of Americans believe their country is in decline, according to the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey. Only 27 percent feel confident that their children’s generation will be better off than they are. Second, Americans have lost faith in their institutions. During the great moments of social reform, at least 60 percent of Americans trusted government to do the right thing most of the time. Now, only a quarter have that kind of trust. The country is evenly divided about President Barack Obama, but state governments are in disrepute, and confidence in Congress is at withering lows. As Frank Newport of the Gallup organization noted in his year-end wrap-up, ‘Americans have less faith in their elected representatives than ever before.’”
This should be music to anarchists’ ears. We have a tremendous window of opportunity right now to spread our philosophy of true free markets and zero political government, to counter the minarchist (small government, constitutional government) aims of a large segment of the American population. Of late, the majority of this movement have been labelled “Tea Partiers,” and Brooks narrows this down further:
“The tea party movement is a large, fractious confederation of Americans who are defined by what they are against. They are against the concentrated power of the educated class. They believe big government, big business, big media, and the affluent professionals are merging to form self-serving oligarchy – with bloated government, unsustainable deficits, high taxes, and intrusive regulation.”
This is fertile ground indeed for anarchist re-education. True, some Tea Partiers are undoubtedly already zero government advocates. Our job is now to tip the scales, and demonstrate to the Free State Project (bad name, great movement) folks, the Alex Jones Infowarriors, the constitutionalist and patriot group people, the gun rights community, etc., that voting for smaller government is both a bad and unworkable idea. That engaging in the political process at all is counterproductive. That non-violent non-cooperation with the State will lead to its permanent dissolution when practiced by enough people on a big enough scale. That’s our mission, and it’s a big one. A serious one. But given the current climate, it can be done.
Brooks goes on to make this observation:
“The Obama administration is premised on the conviction that pragmatic federal leaders with professional expertise should have the power to implement programs to solve the country’s problems. Many Americans do not have faith in that sort of centralized expertise or in the political class generally.”
Those many Americans are where anarchists need to take aim, without relent. I am confident we have the public’s overall mood on our side. Let’s seize the initiative and watch government’s popularity fall even further. Let’s foment as much distrust and non-support for the leviathan as is necessary to tip the scales and beyond. As with other precipitous moments in history, the time for radical change is now. Let’s not let that be mitigated back into any political process. The time for Anarchy is now, and always has been. Let’s make 2010 the beginning of a grand renaissance, a revolution of thought and action.
