Tea Party members are descended not from the American Revolution but the French Revolution. Recent surveys show that an awful lot of Tea Party members have never had anything to do with government. It’s great that they’re getting involved, but it’s also very clear that the revolution they want focuses on tearing down institutions, rather than making them fair and equitable. This is not what the American revolutionaries did. They abolished taxation without representation — they did not abolish taxes.
My cynicism about the competence of government in 21st-century America has recently led several people to encourage me to join a Tea Party. After all, don’t I want another American Revolution?
I won’t do it. Because while the Tea Parties might say they’re inspired by the American Revolution, they smell like the French Revolution.
It’s easy to get the two confused — at first. After all, the American and French revolutions occurred right after each other, were inspired by many of the same thinkers, and even involved some of the same people. The American Revolution motivated the French, and many American patriots supported the French Revolution … up to a point. Then the support stopped.
Because things turned out very differently for them. While the American Revolution led to a democratic republic that has lasted to the present time, the French Revolution led to the Reign of Terror, mass executions, mob rule and then a militant emperor. About 20 years later, they were back to a monarchy.
What happened? How did two peas in a pod grow into such different plants?
In her remarkable book “Sister Revolutions: French lightning and American light,” Susan Dunn offers many explanations. The most important is that the American revolutionaries were already experienced in government, and they supported it. The American Revolution’s leaders were seasoned city and state representatives, understood how government worked, and (perhaps most importantly) knew that it is an imperfect system where compromise is often the best outcome. They understood that it is therefore vitally important not to demonize your neighbor just because he votes against you.
The leaders of the French Revolution, on the other hand, were government outsiders. They’d never had the chance to govern anything. This lack of experience made them as suspicious of laws and institutions as they were of compromise. They believed that if government is leading to imperfect results it must be purified … and if that doesn’t work then it must be purified again. Eventually, they thought, a pure enough government will inevitably make the right decisions and the people will unify behind them.
One of these mindsets leads to a stable and prosperous democratic republic, the other to a Reign of Terror. Which sounds more like the Tea Parties today?
Indeed, recent surveys show that an awful lot of Tea Party members have never had anything to do with government. It’s great that they’re getting involved, but it’s also very clear that the revolution they want focuses on tearing down institutions, rather than making them fair and equitable. This is not what the American revolutionaries did. They abolished taxation without representation — they did not abolish taxes.
The most frightening thing about the revolution in the air is that it certainly could happen here. In his masterful book “From Dawn To Decadence,” Jacques Barzun (an American historian with a French name) points out just how close the French came to having a constitutional monarchy instead of a bloody revolution. If the monarchy had been a little smarter; if the mob had been a little less rabid; if France hadn’t been at war with Austria; if the monarchy hadn’t been broke … . France then was as close as America is now to reforming itself. Which means we are as close to guillotines as they were.
Government is messy — that’s a historical inevitability. Government should be streamlined, made efficient, and turned toward justice and fairness like a car turned down a one-way street. But government is complicated because it has to be. Because life without this messy system of rules and regulations and compromises is nasty, brutish and short. Any revolution that has stopped compromising is an enemy of the people.
Until they have experience sustaining something, rather than just calling for the heads of those in power, the Tea Parties have learned nothing from the American Revolution. They are not its descendants. Instead, they are the children of revolutionary France.
Benjamin Wachs writes for Messenger Post Media’s print and online editions. Read his work at www.TheWachsGallery.com.
The opinions in this column are those of the writer and not necessarily those of the newspaper.