Also, the Tea Party has so far found a far more effective means of political engagement than protests like these. For better or worse, they've actually gotten involved with electoral politics, and they've had a huge impact.
What's the result? Tea partiers aren't going to get what they want (since it's never been on the table to offer them), and they're being used as a weapon to prevent thing that citizens in general agree with (the wealthy should pay more in taxes, the FAA should keep operating, that sort of thing).
This really is political coopting at it's finest.
If the default threat were really no big deal, why did the stock market plunge 15% during the Republican-engineered budget crisis? Clearly somebody thought it was a big deal, because it requires a hell of a lot of selling to make the market move like that.
The Republican congressional leadership stated outright that default was preferable to raising one penny of taxes to balance the budget. That's not "business as usual". It's arguably not even constitutional. But it's certainly never happened before in the history of the United States.
A default would be a huge deal, but not passing the debt ceiling increase doesn't automatically equal a default. The leadership wanted to pass an increase (that is pretty clear from their rejection of some of the more honest spending cut packages), they also are being pressured to not raise taxes but cut spending. The final deal was not what any tea party house member or senator wanted.
"It's arguably not even constitutional" - The Congress is in charge of the budget per the US Constitution, not the President. The US Constitution evens goes as far as saying where such bills must start (Article I, Section 7, clause 1).
Sorry, that's what everybody in government was saying during the manufactured crisis. If you have some kind of insider information that contradicts what everyone in government was saying, then produce it. Otherwise, it sounds like you're making up facts to fit an agenda (quoting the constitution is a common symptom of this).
"quoting the constitution is a common symptom of this"
Forgive me for quoting the actual section of the document when you raised the "unconstitutional" claim. I would expect a programmer to quote the actual language standard when claiming a compiler didn't implement a feature correctly. You sound like a priest from the middle ages who is mad that someone has actually read the bible.
My only agenda is that I think the American people are getting well and truly screwed by pundits on TV and in office. Everything is a drama and not one statement is checked or even questioned. Heck, no national news network actually talked about the actual text of the health care bill when it was available. The reporting on the new jobs bill might as well be propoganda compared to what the thing actualy says (not much fun to read, but the gaps show). I am well and truly sick of Fox, CNN, and MSNBC. Scream and demonize are everything, ignore history, ignore the actual documents (yes, the constitution too), and see which pundit looks best while we ask none of the hard questions.