Benjamin Graniero

Unit 2 Assignment

 

            Politics are an excellent place to search for a diverse range of discourse communities, and are definitely a source of tension both between communities and within one community. The U.S. government is no exception to this, due to its government style; the ability of many parties to be present has caused multiple conflicts throughout the country’s history. The Tea Party movement has caused deep rifts within the Republican Party, with radical Republicans fighting against moderate republicans for power and majority control of the party. Recently, a conflict in Congress caused a government shutdown. While people may think that the blame is between Republicans and Democrats, in reality a third group was involved and played the major role in the shutdown: the Tea Party. Unfortunately, the public has not quite caught up with the fact that the Tea Party is a new separate discourse community, and the clash of ideas and values between the Tea Party and Republicans and Democrats show how the Tea Party’s differences have separated itself from Republicans.

            Before I jump into the conflict at hand, is it important to know some background knowledge that led up to the government shutdown of 2013. The Tea Party has had a strong stance against Obamacare ever since the bill was passed in 2010, they believe that the government is taking over healthcare in order to infringe on the rights of American citizens. Tea Party members also believe that this gives too many concessions too poor and gives some of them an excuse to live off welfare and be unproductive citizens. Unfortunately, the Tea Party was willing to take extremely risky measures to try and stop the law before it was enforced. Recently, the government was approaching a budget deadline on October 1, 2013. Now its no surprise that there would be a battle between the Republican controlled house, and the Democrat controlled Senate. But this time, the Tea Party would come into the spotlight; due to members winning enough seats in Congress to change the tide of U.S. politics. As the deadline neared, Tea Party affiliates began formulating a plan to use defunding the AFA as a bargaining tool to prevent the government shutdown. Unfortunately, Democrats would be just as stubborn on their counterclaims, demanding that the AFA have no changes in the hopeful budget deal. Both groups held strong, and the parties failed to reach an agreement by midnight. So, the government shut down and furloughed tens of thousands of workers and cut off some services to citizens. But why couldn’t the government reach an agreement? The answer lies within the core attributes of the Tea Party and the Democratic Party.

            The Tea Party and the Democratic Party are perfect examples of discourse communities that are exact opposites and are prime for conflict. As James Gee once said “There is often conflict and tension between the values, beliefs, attitudes, interactional styles, uses of language, and ways of being in the world which two or more Discourses represent.” Simply stating, the core attributes of different discourse communities can cause moments of tension. The Tea Party is a conservative political group that formed sometime in 2009, with core beliefs in low taxation, and minimal government intervention in the economy. They also support strict immigration laws, and tend to belief that illegal immigrants are ruining the economy and are given better care than citizens. Democrats are the exact opposite, they support taxes to balance the budget, believe an involved government means a better economy, and support more sympathetic immigrant laws.

            In the case of the government shutdown, both the Tea Party’s and the Democrats’ beliefs were contested as arguments and harsh words were thrown around Congress for weeks before and after the shutdown occurred. These differences in the party’s beliefs are the perfect examples to support Gee’s claim, as these different beliefs form the communities’ beliefs, uses of language, attitudes, and ways of being in the world. The language between these two communities are the main cause of tension because both the Tea Party and the Democratic Party have oppositely biased language, which can cause extremely heated arguments in congress. For example, Senate majority leader and Democrat Harry Reid called Tea Party member Ted Cruz a “self absorbed laughing stock”, due to his efforts to gain support against the AFA and for using the shutdown as a leverage tool. ”Democrats – and even many Republicans – have taken Cruz, R-Texas, to task for his hard-ball tactics, but Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., brought the criticism to new heights in an interview with the Huffington Post, calling Cruz a self-absorbed “laughing stock.””(CBS News) This is a great example of differing languages because a Democrat would use his bias and attack a “Tea Partyist”, while the Tea Party associate would use his own bias to counter the Democrat’s. This is basically how political discourse communities work in the United States; differing ideals viciously attack each other and push for control of congress. But most of the time is leads to major gridlock.

            The tensions don’t just end with congress however; John Swales states, “A discourse community has a threshold level of members with a suitable degree of relevant content and discoursal expertise.” Unfortunately, this means that those members with less understanding of the events unfolding in front of them can also take part in the fight against the other discourse community or even get an innocent community involved. I find that this is annoyingly true with young people and even many adults. There are a lot of people who don’t fully research every detail of the event, and will oftentimes use media sources that use the same language to form their opinions. These amateurs, or sometimes called “idiots”, only make the conflicts worse by talking useless nonsense and adding extra yelling or utilizing the “all caps” method if on social media. And while the Tea Party may be the conservative culprit of this tension, the Republicans got involved and unfortunately took much of the blame because too many people don’t recognize the differences between the Tea Party and the Republican Party. As a result, approval ratings for republicans plummeted more than the President and democrats.

            While the Tea Party does not think of a government shutdown as that big of a deal, it actually means more than they can fathom. Hundreds of thousands of government employees and contractors were sent home without pay. The veterans association’s organization and funding crumbled. National parks and memorials closed as well. How could Congress not see the shockwaves of their stubbornness? Worst of all, it completely screwed up the government’s ability to function properly. Congress was passing funding bills in small pieces as time progressed, which many can call stupid because it did not put people back in work. Also, on an even larger scale, the debt default was nearing. If the U.S. defaulted on their debt payments, the shockwaves would be felt globally. And as citizens suffered through the shutdown, the approval ratings of the Republican Party plummeted, but it wasn’t republicans that caused this issue, it was the stubbornness of the Tea Party. However, the Republican party finally pulled itself together, and a bipartisan plan to reopen the government and raise the debt ceiling was passed days before the deadline, effectively eliminating the Tea Party from the equation for some time.

            The Tea Party’s extreme involvement in recent government events and their right wing beliefs have separated themselves from popular belief that they are a part of the Republican Party. The fact that they still are called Republicans is not fair to the rest of the Republicans, one because they have lost all respect from citizens due to the Tea Party, and two because the Tea Party and the Republican Party are so different from each other. It is disgusting to see the Tea Party use the government shutdown as a leveraging tool to defund Obamacare, not only did they put hundreds of thousands of government employees out of work with no pay, they complicated the maintenance and organization of those still in work like military personnel and essential government employees. This conflict helps give people a better understanding of political discourse communities, as they can create a few conclusions. One, tensions exist both in and between communities. Two, beliefs are the source of tension but language fuels the fire. And Three, politicians are stubborn, and the Tea Party is no exception to that fact.

 

 

 

 

 

Works Cited:

 

Gee, James P. “Literacy, Discourse, and Linguistics: Introduction.” Journal of     Education 171.1 (1989): 5-17. Print.

 

“Tea Party movement.” Encyclopedia Britannica. Encyclopedia Britannica         Online Academic Edition. Encyclopedia Britannica Inc., 2013. Web. 28          Oct. 2013.     <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1673405/Tea-Party-      movement>.

 

Miller, Jake. “Harry Reid: Ted Cruz Is a Self-absorbed “laughing Stock””   CBSNews. CBS Interactive, 18 Oct. 2013. Web. 28 Oct. 2013.

 

Swales, John. “The Concept of Discourse Community.” Genre Analysis: English             in Academic and Research Settings. Boston: Cambridge UP, 1990. 21-   32. Print.