Amercian Tea Party finds new icon in Modi

[hinduwoman]

The new Indian Prime Minister has admirers!

Imagine that Ted Cruz became the GOP nominee for president in 2016, running against Hillary Clinton. And now imagine that he won the general election in a landslide, getting record-high vote percentage for the Republicans and capturing states and constituencies the GOP had not won for decades. That seemingly unlikely scenario is the rough equivalent of what happened in India last week, when Narendra Modi, head of India's conservative, pro-business Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP, and bête noire among the Delhi and Mumbai smart sets, led his coalition to the best general election performance in India in three decades.
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The BJP, meanwhile, is the party of the Hindu heartland, culturally and religiously conservative, and generally speaking, far more supportive of the free market than Congress. The BJP is also supported by businessmen and industrialists, and increasingly, India's rising middle class.
In fashionable drawing rooms of Delhi, the BJP is frequently treated with dismissal and derision, similar to that faced by Republicans from the Hamptons to Hollywood. It is a measure of elites' continued control of India's image in both the national and international media, that Modi was regularly referred to in the media as "divisive" even after winning a popular mandate unprecedented in the last several decades.
So how did Modi, long dismissed as unelectable, manage to win an unprecedented electoral mandate for his conservative party without compromising on his principles, and what can the GOP learn from him?


First, he embraced populist conservative themes consistently against his entitled and out-of-touch opponent, Rahul Gandhi, who claimed to speak for India's common man while living a life of luxury. Modi regularly mocked Gandhi, drawing attention to his role as the scion of a political dynasty that has ruled India dating back to his great-grandfather Jawaharlal Nehru.
As long as the GOP faces Hillary Clinton and nominates someone without the last name Bush, it will have a compelling similar story to tell. Potential candidates like Marco Rubio and Bobby Jindal, both children of immigrants, will provide a welcome contrast to the privileged daughter of Wellesley and wife of the former President
On economics, in the face of a Congress Party that endlessly discussed continued expansion of India's notoriously corrupt and inefficient safety net, Modi relentlessly focused on growth and economic opportunity. His positive message was about growing the pie, not sharing the crumbs, and could have been taken out of the playbook of free market conservatives from Jack Kemp to Ronald Reagan.
Furthermore, Modi's electoral wave decimated the Communist parties in India, which have long been a powerful national force and now find themselves with just 10 seats in the 543-seat Lok Sabha, India's most powerful legislative body.
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For those from Rand Paul to Susana Martinez looking to write a new GOP narrative on race, Modi's campaign offered an example of forthrightly addressing a core issue of group identity without pandering.
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But whether Modi succeeds or fails in governing, the GOP could learn a number of lessons from his successful campaign, one that showed how an allegedly "extreme" candidate of a party disdained by media and cultural elites can achieve unprecedented electoral success without sacrificing its principles.
In that vein, it is perhaps appropriate that Modi began his professional life selling tea in his family's tea stall. In more ways than one, he represents the victory of India's tea party.

Out of curiosity did any senators form GOP actually began their lives selling tea or their equivalent?

 

[Bomb#20]

Out of curiosity did any senators form GOP actually began their lives selling tea or their equivalent?

Saxby Chambliss went through college working at a bakery; does that count?

 

[lpetrich]

CNN's commentator was projecting a common right-wing narrative onto Narendra Modi, it seems to me. I tried http://india.isidewith.com and I found:

Narendra Modi: 89%
Rahul Gandhi: 86%
Indian voters: 59%
Indian National Congress: 90%
Bharatiya Janata Party: 90%
Aam Aadmi Party: 89%

Details:

Transport
High-Speed Rail: Yes
Metro Rail: Yes

Social
Decriminalize homosexuality: RG, INC, AAP, me: yes, NM, BJP: no
Domestic violence: yes
One-child policy: NM, BP, me: yes, RG, INC, AAP: no

Infrastructure
International private companies: NM, BP, AAP me: yes, RG: no
Roads over rail: me: no, NM, RG: unstated, BJP, INC, AAP: yes

Foreign Policy
Devastating response if Pakistan attacks: NM, BJP, AAP, me: yes, RG, INC: no
Counter China's influence: NM, BJP, AAP, me: yes, RG, INC: no
Military: NM, BJP, INC, AAP, me: increase, RG: decrease

Healthcare
Right to food for 2/3 of population: yes
Lower cost or improve quality of healthcare: quality
More public vs. private investment: me, INC: public, NM, RG, BJP, AAP: private

Domestic policy
Caste-based reservation: no
Poor people right to homestead: yes
Jan Lokpal bill: independent org to probe corruption: yes

The Economy
Tax on business: me: increase, NM, RG, BJP, INC, AAP: decrease
WalMart and Tesco: more entry: RG, INC, me: yes, NM, BJP, AAP: no (should not be allowed)
Foreign countries producing military stuff in India: NM, RG, BP, INC, me: yes, AAP: no
Guarantee wage employment to every low-income household: yes
Bringing black money back to India: RG, INC, me: incentives, NM, BJP, AAP: punishment
Reduce income taxes to try to reduce black money: me: no, RG, NM, BJP, INC, AAP: yes

Religion
The government financing the building of the Ram Temple at Ayodhya: RG, INC, AAP, me: no, NM, BJP: yes

Education
Free of charge: yes


The teabaggers would hate several of NM's positions. One-child policy, free education, guaranteed employment, right to food, right to homestead, urban rail and high-speed intercity rail, keeping big Western retailers out, ...

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

You should always be cautious when a reporter says "and he is like prominent US politician X". Usually it is not meant to be complimentary, and even when it is complimentary there is analysis lacking to make a crude comparison.

Why Ted Cruz in particular? Coming from CNN, this is of course meant to make people not like Modi, but why Ted Cruz of all the Republicans? Is Ted Cruz seen as the front runner right now making this a gratuitous slam? Is the Bharatiya Janata Party really like the Republican Party? Coming from CNN, this is of course meant to make people not like the Bharatiya Janata Party.

 

[dismal]

I'd be willing to wager <2% of Americans outside of those with Indian roots have any idea who Modi is.

That he has emerged as some sort of icon of any group of Americans strikes me as patently absurd.

 

[Sarpedon]

It would be mighty ironic for them to adopt a hindu leader as an icon when they recently shouted down a hindu priest trying to give a blessing.

 

[premjan]

The tea party was about destroying tea, whereas Modi used to sell tea.