I missed this Tea Party profile piece in the New York Times until Frank Rich pointed me to it. It seems to me that most of these tea partiers are conservative-minded but not really Republicans. I suspect very few of them have ever voted for a Democratic presidential candidate, for example. But they are not so dumb that they are unaware that Bush and Cheney screwed up the economy and violated the Constitution on a routine basis. The problem is, they’re still getting their information from FOX News and Glenn Beck. So, they’re being fed Republican propaganda and paranoid nonsense on a regular basis, and then they’re going online and reading truly crazy stuff on websites like WorldNetDaily.
How many of these folks are going to do something crazy like flying an airplane into a federal building? I don’t know, but they do pose a danger. What’s ironic is that the kind of government surveillance required to keep track of that danger just feeds their paranoia. But if you are palling around with people that are talking about taking up arms against the government, the government needs to know what else you’re doing.
Personally, I’m more offended by acts of terrorism carried out by acolytes of Glenn Beck than I am by people who have actual geo-political goals behind their actions, but both of them result in dead Americans, so both of them need to be treated the same way.
One piece of constructive advice I have for the people who are working to organize a Tea Party is that you’ll never succeed in sending people to Washington to be your federal representatives and then having them vote against the federal government doing anything. That’s just something Republicans say they are going to do when they are out of power. Lately, they’ve started voting that way, but it will last only so long as they are in the minority and then they will go back to building up huge deficits, cutting taxes on the wealthiest Americans, and generally doing the bidding of Wall Street. It’s just the nature of the federal government that if you control it, you use it to do stuff. So, if you are a Tea Party proponent, you can’t fool yourself into thinking that you can find some leader who will do jackshit about the power of the federal government. What you can do is work with civil libertarians and progressive Democrats to protect our privacy rights and Net Neutrality.
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Traitor Dick Morris
iswas a close Clintonite and has joined the Tea Party movement with harsh Obama criticism and opposition to health care with ads by his League of American Voters.Dick Morris and his political prognostication on a Hillary primary win.
From my diary – Obama FP Converted to Clinton Real Politics
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."The Rutgers-Eagleton poll concluded that in NJ, they’re mainly Republicans, but Republicans unhappy with their leadership.
http://eagletonpoll.blogspot.com/
You’re acting as if the terms “libertarian” and “independent” actually means something other than “rabid right winger” in this context.
The Tea Partiers are not concerned about civil liberties, they’re concerned about their enemies (liberals) possibly doing the exact same things they themselves would do if in power. And they’re only disappointed in their current leadership because they have failed conservatism… by being unpopular. And they only hate Wall Street because their quasifascistic demagogic leaders keep saying that liberals (that is, Jews) control the banks. These jackasses are simply the traditional far right paranoids that Hofstader wrote about and that formed militias in the 90s.
We don’t need to be making alliances with these people. The money Republicans may restrict our rights and steal from us, but Tea Partiers will put us in camps if given the chance.
There is a very active Tea Party organization right here in my local area. I have a some close family members who have attended several of their local get-togethers. I have been tempted to attend just to get a flavor for what is going on. I have been encouraged to attend by my family. They seem to have a hope that if I would just hear the Tea Party Gospel that I might “see the light”. I am really tempted to go and just observe and listen. I am a registered Democrat. It wouldn’t take a rocket scientist to expose me as someone who does not have a Tea Party sentiment. Certainly my family knows that I am a “bleeding heart liberal”.
But they seem to think that anyone who hears the message cannot help but convert to the cause. Like the blind man who was commanded by Jesus to put mud in his eyes and wash in the pool of Siloam to have his sight restored, they seem to think I will have my political sight restored and see the truth if only I attend with an open mind.
I’ve got to say, I am tempted to play this for the entertainment value. Am I being being a silly person?
Go. Ask them pointed questions. Or just go and give your friends and neighbors a hard time about the more absurdly unrealistic goals later. Or just go and be there. But go.
Thank you. That is my gut feeling too. I know from the perspective of my immediate family, there is a significant racial component to their Tea Party sentiments. But I don’t know if that translates into the larger component of the local Teabaggers. I have to say, I am really, really curious about what is driving them. And the fact that this movement is taking such a hold in the local area, my curiosity is really piqued. I am instinctively a very curious individual. I think this would be fascinating.
The thing that got me about the Frank Rich column was that Rep. Steve King of Iowa wants to abolish the IRS. I will be calling his office on Monday to find out if he would be working for free in that case or if he thinks he should just draw a salary directly from major lobbying groups.
I dunno, BooMan, when you say tea baggers are “not really Republicans” I have to marvel. Every single “Tea Party Patriot” I know of has voted Republican since the Dixiecrats left the Democratic Party. And, they do not admit that Bush and/or Cheney screwed up. Their problem is not that they are misled by disinformation; they prefer watching propaganda because it supports their POV.
Let me say that another way: Fox News did not invent these people; they simply catered to a pre-existing market. Our problem is that there are enough of them to have made rabid right-wing talk radio and Fox News successful! The apparent power that Fox has had over the rest of the media — and by extension over politicians — has emboldened this segment of our culture that has always been there. They now feel that they can literally come down out of the hills and impose themselves on the rest of us!
They don’t want to elect leaders to represent them; they want to toss wrenches into the gears of government to grind it to a halt. They don’t care about Net Neutrality and the liberties they want aren’t civil. We will never make common cause with these people because at their core they are delusional, selfish and prejudiced.
Check out the Coffee Party movement. I hear it has some tea partiers very nervous:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2010/02/26/DI2010022602928.html