Click here to read James Crabtree's article on what the Tea party means for the American political establishment
Try a thought experiment: what would America look like if it was run by the Tea party? How would the small-government and low-tax policies play out in action? To find out, you just need to visit Las Vegas.
This might sound crazy. The roughly one in five Americans who identify as Tea party supporters are, on average, married, in late middle age and likely to describe themselves as “very conservative.” Hardly the folk one would expect to find tipping an exotic dancer with a night’s blackjack winnings, or any of the other activities that we associate with Sin City.
But that picture misrepresents both Las Vegas and the Tea party movement itself. Vegas is known for vice and excess, but disdain for governance is at least as strong a theme in the city. More than anything else, what unites the disparate Tea partiers is a dislike of big government. The movement’s conservatism is far more fiscal than social.
The most prominent of the Tea party candidates has already had a hand in running Vegas. Nevada’s state assembly is a good place for someone sceptical of government: it meets for just 120 days every other year. Sharron Angle served there between 1999 and 2005, during which time her main aim seemed to be to prevent legislative progress. So often was she the lone “no” vote in the 42-person assembly that results became known as “41 to Angle.” In November she will attempt to unseat Democrat Harry Reid, the senate majority leader and a close ally of Barack Obama. At the time of writing, they were tied in the polls.
Angle’s idiosyncratic legislative style is the kind of thing that Vegas business leaders are comfortable with. In the half century following 1946, the year in which mafia frontman Bugsy Siegel opened the Flamingo hotel on the edge of what was then a dusty desert town, the citizens of Las Vegas have had a deficit of governance. At one time or another, the mob, newspaper editors, casino owners, the Mormon church, corrupt union officials and Howard Hughes, the reclusive and mentally ill millionaire, have all held some sway over Vegas. Elected officials, as the journalists Sally Denton and Roger Morris describe in their 2002 book The Money and the Power, barely got a look-in.
Vegas exists mainly to make money for its wealthy investors. Its history is a rollercoaster of reinvention, with minimal regulatory restraint. Mob money fuelled the 1950s boom—making it America’s fastest growing city, a position it held for most of the next 50 years. A second wave of construction followed in the 1970s, this time with an emphasis on luxury and entertainment. As the century drew to a close, Vegas hotels became attractions in their own right. The entrepreneur Steve Wynn visited the village of Bellagio on the shores of Lake Como; finding it beautiful, he built an outsized version back in Las Vegas.
All the while, Vegas rode out recessions and predictions of doom. It continues to innovate. Robert Lang, a sociologist at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, says the city is poised to become a telecommunications hub and that its construction industry is responsible for some of the most energy and water-efficient buildings in the nation. Lang’s new house, for instance, is double the size of his former place in Virginia, but projected to use half the energy.
There is, of course, a flipside to this freewheeling capitalism. Suicide rates in Vegas are among the highest in any US metropolitan area, perhaps because mental health services are so pitiful. The emergency room is often the only treatment option for the uninsured. In 2005, psychiatric patients who turned up at ER waited an average of 85 hours for treatment. Around half left without being treated.
Funding improved after 2005, then fell back—typical of the gyrations in public spending in a state with no income tax. When takings from casinos and other corporations fall, as they have during the current recession, social welfare takes an immediate battering. Volatility brings shoddy service: Vegas ranks poorly across a swath of social indicators, from graduation rates and immunisation coverage to teen arrests and foster care provision. America’s boomtown is also one of its most dysfunctional.
Sharron Angle does not seem too concerned by the mess created by Nevada’s hands-off governance. Quite the opposite. Her most notable policy ideas include plans to abolish the department of energy and the Environmental Protection Agency. She also wants to repeal Obama’s healthcare reforms, including measures that many Republicans agree with, such as requirements that patients with pre-existing conditions receive coverage.
As the polls indicate, many Nevada voters seem to find these cuts palatable. But even if she does capture the senate seat, our thought experiment is likely to remain just that. Americans are angry with their government and are attracted to politicians who promise radical reforms, but there is little evidence that a majority want to dismantle whole chunks of the bureaucracy. It’s a little like the country’s attitude to Vegas. There is great affection for the city’s cut-loose attitude, but that does not mean voters want the same philosophy installed in their hometowns. As the old saying goes, what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.
Try a thought experiment: what would America look like if it was run by the Tea party? How would the small-government and low-tax policies play out in action? To find out, you just need to visit Las Vegas.
This might sound crazy. The roughly one in five Americans who identify as Tea party supporters are, on average, married, in late middle age and likely to describe themselves as “very conservative.” Hardly the folk one would expect to find tipping an exotic dancer with a night’s blackjack winnings, or any of the other activities that we associate with Sin City.
But that picture misrepresents both Las Vegas and the Tea party movement itself. Vegas is known for vice and excess, but disdain for governance is at least as strong a theme in the city. More than anything else, what unites the disparate Tea partiers is a dislike of big government. The movement’s conservatism is far more fiscal than social.
The most prominent of the Tea party candidates has already had a hand in running Vegas. Nevada’s state assembly is a good place for someone sceptical of government: it meets for just 120 days every other year. Sharron Angle served there between 1999 and 2005, during which time her main aim seemed to be to prevent legislative progress. So often was she the lone “no” vote in the 42-person assembly that results became known as “41 to Angle.” In November she will attempt to unseat Democrat Harry Reid, the senate majority leader and a close ally of Barack Obama. At the time of writing, they were tied in the polls.
Angle’s idiosyncratic legislative style is the kind of thing that Vegas business leaders are comfortable with. In the half century following 1946, the year in which mafia frontman Bugsy Siegel opened the Flamingo hotel on the edge of what was then a dusty desert town, the citizens of Las Vegas have had a deficit of governance. At one time or another, the mob, newspaper editors, casino owners, the Mormon church, corrupt union officials and Howard Hughes, the reclusive and mentally ill millionaire, have all held some sway over Vegas. Elected officials, as the journalists Sally Denton and Roger Morris describe in their 2002 book The Money and the Power, barely got a look-in.
Vegas exists mainly to make money for its wealthy investors. Its history is a rollercoaster of reinvention, with minimal regulatory restraint. Mob money fuelled the 1950s boom—making it America’s fastest growing city, a position it held for most of the next 50 years. A second wave of construction followed in the 1970s, this time with an emphasis on luxury and entertainment. As the century drew to a close, Vegas hotels became attractions in their own right. The entrepreneur Steve Wynn visited the village of Bellagio on the shores of Lake Como; finding it beautiful, he built an outsized version back in Las Vegas.
All the while, Vegas rode out recessions and predictions of doom. It continues to innovate. Robert Lang, a sociologist at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, says the city is poised to become a telecommunications hub and that its construction industry is responsible for some of the most energy and water-efficient buildings in the nation. Lang’s new house, for instance, is double the size of his former place in Virginia, but projected to use half the energy.
There is, of course, a flipside to this freewheeling capitalism. Suicide rates in Vegas are among the highest in any US metropolitan area, perhaps because mental health services are so pitiful. The emergency room is often the only treatment option for the uninsured. In 2005, psychiatric patients who turned up at ER waited an average of 85 hours for treatment. Around half left without being treated.
Funding improved after 2005, then fell back—typical of the gyrations in public spending in a state with no income tax. When takings from casinos and other corporations fall, as they have during the current recession, social welfare takes an immediate battering. Volatility brings shoddy service: Vegas ranks poorly across a swath of social indicators, from graduation rates and immunisation coverage to teen arrests and foster care provision. America’s boomtown is also one of its most dysfunctional.
Sharron Angle does not seem too concerned by the mess created by Nevada’s hands-off governance. Quite the opposite. Her most notable policy ideas include plans to abolish the department of energy and the Environmental Protection Agency. She also wants to repeal Obama’s healthcare reforms, including measures that many Republicans agree with, such as requirements that patients with pre-existing conditions receive coverage.
As the polls indicate, many Nevada voters seem to find these cuts palatable. But even if she does capture the senate seat, our thought experiment is likely to remain just that. Americans are angry with their government and are attracted to politicians who promise radical reforms, but there is little evidence that a majority want to dismantle whole chunks of the bureaucracy. It’s a little like the country’s attitude to Vegas. There is great affection for the city’s cut-loose attitude, but that does not mean voters want the same philosophy installed in their hometowns. As the old saying goes, what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.
