About the Author: Michael Winters
The budget proposals put forward by GOP Congressman Paul Ryan attest to a fact that has been somewhat obscured in our nation’s political life: Ideology is back. The reason I say this fact has been obscured is that the Tea Party has not exactly been the kind of intellectually coherent movement the word ideology suggests. The ideology of the Tea Party has been “No.” It is now clear that the people standing behind the Tea Party do possess a coherent ideological stance and that stance has a name: Social Darwinism.