For the love of Obama and fear of Tea Party, Brits talk about US

“The Tea Party rules Washington as Barack Obama braces for savage cuts

New breed of right-wingers takes over the Capitol with a slash-and-burn agenda that threatens the White House

 

Dick Armey's black, lizard-skin cowboy boots lay on the floor while he relaxed on the couch in stockinged feet. The former Texas congressman was in a jovial mood in his office just off the Washington Mall – and for good reason. He may no longer be a politician but as chairman of FreedomWorks, one of the main forces behind the conservative Tea Party movement, he is once more a major player in the new Washington DC.

 

"My wife likes the terminology of a 'paradigm shift'," he said in a western drawl. "And I like to agree with that. It is a paradigm shift. It's a phenomenon."

Democrats might not agree, but it is hard to argue the Congress sworn in last week – now with a Republican-dominated House of Representatives – has not made Washington a very different place from the "New Camelot" hailed by the media when Barack Obama was inaugurated in 2009.

The new influx of GOP politicians that has swaggered into the American capital, represents a massive change in political culture. A staggering 87 new Republican congressmen and six new Republican senators have landed on the banks of the Potomac river.

But it is not just the numbers; it is the way they were elected. The 2010 midterm elections, which sank the Democrats, were propelled by the energy of the right-wing Tea Party movement. Many of those newRepublicans are Tea Partiers themselves or beholden to its activists and their conservative agenda.

That's why people such as Armey will shape the new face of the capital. To its critics, FreedomWorks is a corporate-backed front group exploiting the Tea Party. To its fans, it helps to co-ordinate and focus an outpouring of anti-government rage and desire for personal liberty the like of which have not been seen for a generation. Either way, Armey's cheerfulness seems justified given the sudden change of fortunes between Republicans and Democrats.

"The Obama White House forgot about America," he declared, as a young fan from a Republican-leaning website walked in and asked him to sign a book.

Last week seemed to strangle the last vestiges of the Democrat-dominated era ushered in just two short years ago. Back then the party was giddy at controlling the White House and both houses of Congress. The Obamas were a glamorous couple who made the dour capital trendy, exciting and a little alluring. Magazines ran features on youthful White House staffers. But that was then.

Senior aides to Obama – such as Rahm Emanuel, David Axelrod and Robert Gibbs – have left or are leaving. The incoming Republicans, gleeful at the prospect of power, have no interest in fashion spreads or looking cool. They are interested in cuts – real, massive cuts to government spending. They want to slash government and roll back the state. Even defence spending is on the table.

Their anti-government mentality runs deep. One new Republican set up a couch in his office as he has sworn to only work, not live, in the city. Another, Illinois congressman Joe Walsh, refused to take up his government healthcare plan in protest at Obama's reforms, even though his spouse has a pre-existing medical condition. "Walsh's wife is reportedly unhappy with her husband's decision," the Hill newspaper reported.

That is a far cry from Obama's "sexy" Washington. Now the new face of power in the city is someone like congressmen Paul Ryan, one of the so-called young guns of the Republican party. Lean and serious, Ryan spoke at a National Press Club meeting last week and boasted of coming spending cuts and swore there would be no more government bailouts, not even if major states such as California went to the wall. Obama's hope and change, it appeared, had been switched for Ryan's doom and gloom. "The economic day of reckoning is here," Ryan said. He laughed at claims Republicans might back off from a promise to axe spending. "If people think we are afraid of cutting $100bn, they have got another think coming. This is just the beginning," he said. That sort of talk is music to the ears for members of Washington's celebrating network of conservative thinktanks. The era of George W Bush and the first years of Obama's presidency were a lonely time for them. Government spending on foreign conflicts, stimulus packages, bailouts and then healthcare reform was all the rage. But now they are front and centre of the new slash-and-burn era.

"It's been a dramatic shift," said David Ridenour, vice-president of the National Centre for Public Policy Research, which sits in a modest brick building down a side street near the Capitol. Ridenour, along with two senior staffers, sat in a conference room over which beamed a photograph of Ronald Reagan.

The organisation has a free-market, small-government ideology and believes its time has come. Ridenour predicted that Republicans would only get stronger in 2012's elections. "The 'New Camelot' was created by a media that loved Obama," he said, insisting that conservatives – whether from thinktanks or from Tea Party groups – would hold Republicans to their austere promises. "There is a feeling they have to make good on their mandate. Otherwise they get kicked out too," he said.

But to the seasoned observer of Washington's way of life, that might not be so easy. The city's army of lobbyists has eagerly awaited the new arrivals. The very system of governance – focused on endless campaign fundraising – encourages outsiders to turn into insiders very quickly.

Already several Tea Party-backed Republicans have hired established Washington lobbyists. Indeed, some Republicans wasted little time in adapting to local ways. Last week, at the swanky W hotel, California Republican Jeff Denham and several Tea Party-backed politicians laid on a lavish fundraiser featuring country and western star LeAnn Rimes. Tickets cost $2,500. Or for an eye-watering $50,000 you could get eight tickets and a VIP hotel suite.

Not surprisingly, given the rhetoric of austerity (and perhaps Rimes's recent appearance at a gay men's event wearing a sexy Santa outfit), the glitzy do ruffled some feathers. In fact, Denham's shindig generated so much outrage that he held a news conference before it began. "We're conservatives, but that does not mean we can't have fun," he said.

That is precisely the sort of talk that outrages the Tea Party faithful, most of whom view Washington as a new Sodom and Gomorrah. One of those is Jenny Beth Martin. A founder of Tea Party Patriots, and named one ofTime magazine's 100 most influential people in the world, Martin does not live in Washington. She lives in Georgia. But she visited last week, holding meetings andassessing the new political landscape. "I am cautiously optimistic, but the Republicans have their work cut out for them. We have to do everything we can to make sure this is a permanent change in attitude to spending money," she said.

However, Martin remains wary that Washington will not simply try to stifle the revolution in favour of the status quo. She pulled no punches on her continuing feelings towards the city's politicians, whether Republican or Democrat.

"It's corrupted. When I come here, I work really long days so I can leave sooner. I really hate it," she said.”