The Tea Party, The GOP, And Workers

I was perusing RealClearPolitics.com recently and came across Jimmy Hoffa's recent "declaration of war on Republicans." There are serious problems with his statement, but probably not the ones you think.

Yes, his statement promotes incivility and hurts reasoned political discourse, but that is only the tip of the iceburg.

Mr. Hoffa implies that the tea parties are somehow opposed to workers. While it happens on occasion that the reduce-spending agenda of the tea parties sometimes hurts public sector workers as collateral damage, whether through layoffs or reduced benefits, at its core the tea party is all about making lives easier for the average person by getting big government and big business off our backs (they work hand-in-hand these days). That is the very definition of the tea party, and the philosophy behind their name. Many tea party members are workers. It may be that some elected officials have been careless in who they hurt while pushing parts of the tea party agenda, but that doesn't mean the tea party is at war with workers, it just means we need to be smart and careful about how we save money. Until Hoffa's comment, I thought of the tea party and workers as allies; I didn't realize they were at war.

The second major problem I have is how RealClearPolitics (as well as the DrudgeReport and others) has presented Mr. Hoffa's comments. The title of this page is "Jimmy Hoffa Threatens GOP At Obama Event." In the video, and in the text below, I never hear or see Jimmy mention the GOP. He directs his ire only at the tea party. The tea party and the GOP are not the same thing. The entire reason the tea party exists is because its members felt they were no longer welcome in the GOP, as it had lost its way. Some tea party members lean to the right, but other members are equally mad at both major parties.

The tea party is not the GOP, and neither the tea party nor the GOP are at war with workers. Has Mr. Hoffa and those covering his comments just created a conflict out of thin air? Are we at war now, and which side am I on?