July 6th, 2009:

via Cornyn Booed, Called Traitor And “The Problem” At Tea Party Protest (VIDEO).

This deserves a second look because I think it is remarkable that the crowd booed Republican Senator John Cornyn even though he stated that he was against “what he considers wasteful spending and unprecedented government growth”.

This Independence Day weekend marked the second incarnation of the fabled Tea Party movement, protesting the government’s growing involvement in economic matters. And, just like the first go-around, the July 4 protests saw an elected Republican official, undoubtedly hoping to harness some of that the popular unrest, taking the stage to a chorus of boos.

This time the recipient of the unforgiving welcome was Sen. John Cornyn. The crowd yelled at Cornyn, called him a traitor and shouted that he was “the problem” when he took the stage in Austin.

There are a couple of dynamic factors at play here that needs highlighting. The first dynamic is the attendees, the protesters. This is the rabid, Sarah Palin, “kill Obama” crowd we saw during the campaign that not only is against taxes, but anything else the Democratic Party supports – like civil rights, better wages, and health care for all. To them all this means is the perception that they will incurr tax increases that they cannot bear. In reality, the tax increases that they are adamantly against do not exist unless they earn over $250,000 per year.

They have fallen prey to the frame tax burden. This frame strikes a deep emotional chord with the working class now more than ever because of the mess the Bush administration made of the economy and left for Obama – a mess they blame on Obama. They protest what they perceive to be Obama’s swelling of government but fail to acknowledge that Bush grew government more than any Democrat, or any President ever. The frame tax burden gets their emotions all in a knot without them having a firm understanding of why it does. They lash out at Obama from many different directions with no focus; one person protests Obama’s socialism, and another protests the stimulus, which once it is compared to the costs of Bush’s first tax cuts, $1.8 Trillion over 10 years, the stimulus doesn’t seem so expensive.

They lash out at taxes that are really quite reasonable considering the top tax rate now is only 35%, versus 50% under Ronald Reagan. They enjoy the things that taxes pay for without realizing that they need them, things like maintenance on the traffic lights and salaried police that help control crowd movement and maintain safety at the tea bag party, and the cutting of the grass at the park where the protests take place. The dismissal of the good things about taxes, that taxes pay for the things we use everyday, should serve as proof the the frame tax burden is a very deep frame.

Senator John Cornyn, R-TX

The second dynamic factor here is the speaker, John Cornyn. The organizers booked Cornyn to speak thinking that the crowd would love him because he is another George Bush, I suppose. Although he assailed recent actions in Washington, he was booed anyway proving once again that the tax burden frame is resonating with the Sarah Palin lovers, never mind that the Democrats were saying much the same thing about Bush years ago. Protesting government spending is nothing new. Fiscal restraint was never on Bush’s radar, but they never booed Bush because he picked and chose his audience very carefully. That is the class that Cornyn skipped.

Members of the crowd called him a traitor for voting for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). So what were the organizers thinking? It seems that a better speaker for this hate-filled bunch may have been a libertarian like Ron Paul. Cornyn had trepidations about the crowd’s reactions. It turns out that his fears were justified.

From the Austin American-Statesman newspaper:

Cornyn, a Republican elected to his second Senate term last year, said before today’s gathering that he wasn’t sure what kind of reception he’d field.

“I don’t yet know exactly what it’s going to be like,” Cornyn said Wednesday.

He said he’d agreed to “come and talk about my belief that local government including state government is closest to the people and more likely to be responsive to their needs. And we’ll see how it goes.

“What do you think?” he asked a reporter. “You think it’s going to be OK? I’m waiting to see.”

“I didn’t want to come some place that I wasn’t wanted.”

If a “tax cut-and-spend” Republican is afraid of his own constituents, then something is very wrong with the Republican Party.

As a side note, I found a video of the tea bag parties that grabbed my attention. The video is from YouTube, but it was aired and produced by RT News. I had never heard of RT News before so I did some digging around and after a few minutes I found out the particulars.

This is their coverage of the tea bag parties around the U.S. on July 4th. It is not the best quality video, so bear with it for a few minutes.

RT News is a 24/7 English language news service from Moscow, Russia and accounts for the FOX-like bias.