A recent Belmont Club post discusses Ben McCarthy’s New Yorker article on the rise of the Tea Party movement, and finds that McCarthy thinks it is just another of the many cultural movements that have taken place in American history – that it’s just one of those things. But it isn’t just one of those things. The country has never been in such perilous economic condition before, with over 30 trillion dollars in debt facing our children and grandchildren, and the Congress and the Executive, of both parties, committed to distributing more and more of the wealth we no longer have to more and more outstretched palms. No, the Tea Party movement is not just one of those things. The Tea Party movement is composed of ordinary patriotic, tax-paying citizens who are frightened at the direction the country is taking, and are determined to reverse that course and reintroduce the forgotten concept of sanity. 

It was just one of those things

Just one of those crazy flings

One of those yells that now and then brings

Just one of those things

It was just one of those nights

Just one of those fabulous flights

A trip to jejune

On gossamer wings

Just one of those things

If we thought a bit of the end of it

When we started bagging the tea

We’d have been aware that this whole affair

Would result in setting us free

So goodbye Barack and amen

Here’s hoping you’re never again

You’ve been great fun

But you’ve been just one of those things