Flags, not crosses:
“If you take 1,000 so-called tea partiers and ask them what this movement is, you’ll get 1,000 different interpretations,” Mark Williams, a talk-radio host and chairman of the Tea Party, told the Post. “But they’re all waving American flags and speaking out against the galloping socialist agenda.”
This is actually just a version of “it’s okay to spend money on me, but not on thee.”
During the Reagan and Bush eras, Christian Right movement leaders such as the late megachurch pastor D. James Kennedy held rallies with names such as “Reclaiming America for Christ.” So far, it seems the Tea Partiers are mostly interested in reclaiming America for the Chamber of Commerce.
Bingo. But, that’s not the whole story. During the Bush II years the Republican Party lost even the pretense of representing libertarians. This Tea Party nonsense is how the Chamber of Commerce gets these folks back. Call it the Southern Strategy on steroids with a bunch of Bircherism thrown in for fun.
