Social justice is Tea Party equivalent

As a conservative, I’ve recently learned what  divisiveness and political polarization can do to a party.

And let me tell you — the Republicans’ civil war between the GOP establishment and the anti-establishment rebels that have pushed forth far-right politicians like Sarah Palin and Herman Cain is nothing compared with what is to come on the left.

Who wouldn’t say they believe in the idea of equal opportunity for all U.S. citizens, regardless of race, religion or creed? Social justice — in the context of the contemporary social movement — appeals to young and old alike, with the goal and face of a self-explanatory movement for the common good.

The social justice movement reminds me of another sociopolitical movement currently holding the support of approximately 10 percent of the voting population. It’s a movement for individual liberties, personal freedoms and fights for the reduction of interference in the lives of average Americans of all races and creeds.

It’s called the Tea Party, and the divisiveness and political extremism jaded Republicans found in the Tea Party over the past few years has reared up again on the other side of the spectrum, this time in the name of social justice.

The Tea Party has been an interesting beast to behold and one that I don’t necessarily disagree with on a fundamental level. Conservative groups opposed to President Obama’s agenda morphed into a strange mutation for several years, being the host of several controversies including the Obama birth certificate debacle and the threatening and harassment of Democratic lawmakers over the Affordable Care Act, which has affected public opinion of conservatism in general.

Even with the recent swing back to its roots, the Republicans’ and Tea Party’s lack of condemnation for their more bizarre and ungrounded extremists is what led to the dip in favorable public opinion. The important thing to keep in mind is that the Tea Party is not crazy or truly “out-there” in its beliefs. In its purest form, it is the logical, reasonable extreme of the right wing.

This is where the past failings of the Tea Party offer insight into the path of social justice. Without many popular, centralized politicians to act as representatives, the movement gained more and more support from isolationists and racists that the party didn’t really want speaking for them. Without representation, any loon can claim to speak for the group.

Social justice is a similarly intangible idea. There is no metric by which you can measure or quantify what activists fall under what the banner is seeking.

Sure, feminists can claim the “wage gap” as a measurement of inequality, but as I’ve written before, it’s a baseless and altogether false claim.

It’s the same for any anthropological observation.

So we are left again with a movement that wants to do good and has the means to do good, but has neither a regulated set of representatives, nor a truly concrete set of issues that can be measured to have been completed. Just like civil liberties and personal freedoms, this is where bizarre and extremist persons and ideologies thrive.

“I don’t care if you landed a spacecraft on a comet, your shirt is sexist and ostracizing,” reads a headline from the Verge as it slams one of the leading scientists behind the Philae spacecraft. The man, Matt Taylor, was the victim of an internet lynching, having his name dragged through the mud because he was interviewed wearing a tiki shirt covered in caricatures of sexually attractive women, a shirt a female friend made for him.

He went on to profusely apologize in a televised interview and ended up breaking down into tears, turning what should be the happiest event of his life into a miserable affair. All of this was justified, in the mind of his harassers, as he was participating in “casual misogyny.”

This social extremism is not going to stay contained to grassroots movements and isolated events. As it did with the Tea Party, it will begin to influence the left’s politicians. Bernie Sanders has already made plenty of bizarre, emotional statements about equality, both concerning race and income.

“You don’t necessarily need a choice of 23 underarm spray deodorants or of 18 different pairs of sneakers when children are hungry in this country,” the Boston Globe quoted him as saying, showing a complete lack of understanding on the origins of economic inequality.

Hillary Clinton has tried to cash in on identity politics as well, changing her logo to an image of Rosa Parks, though missing the necessary insight or awareness to not position her at the back of the bus.

It’s to be expected that politicians will pander to the farther poles of the spectrum, as taking a decisive, extreme stance in either direction is better for public image than admitting that the answer might be somewhere more moderate. This is not going to end as long as people in the Democratic party refuse to police their own constituents. It is up to members of the organization to directly and unequivocally distance themselves from the deprived rantings of the bizarre left.

I’m sure it isn’t easy, as a progressive, to openly disagree with a movement that describes itself as sticking up for the equality and rights of all races and groups. It wasn’t easy for Republicans to eventually say, ‘Quit it,’ to a fraction of the party that described itself as solely concerned with individual liberties and fighting oppression from the over-reaching government.

But we managed to slap some sense into our divisive group, and now have Ted Cruz as a candidate running for president that identifies with the Tea Party to no ill effect.

I can only hope the Democrats manage to do the same.

Timothy primarily writes on free speech and media culture for The Pitt News.

Write to him at thn17@pitt.edu