'The Daily Show' Correspondents Explain The Tea Party (VIDEO)

While "The Daily Show" is on hiatus this week, the "Best F#@king News Team Ever" is providing us with some hilarious looks at American politics via a series of explanatory videos.

On Tuesday Jon Stewart's correspondents broke down the two-party system for us, and today we bring you their examination of one of the most widely known third parties: The Tea Party.

Watch as Jason Jones, Samantha Bee, Wyatt Cenac, Aasif Mandvi and John Oliver go over the motivation, tactics and fashion choices of Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin's prideful followers. For example, Cenac explains how the name was conceived (a 4th grade understanding of American history) and Jones tells us what he thinks of when he hears the term (hint: it has to do with his five-year-old daughter).

You'll also hear why the Tea Party is kind of like the punk rock movement, but for old people who wear matching track suits. It's a perfect "Daily Show" fix to get you through the two-week hiatus.

WATCH:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
The Correspondents Explain - Political Parties - The Tea Party
www.thedailyshow.com
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Comments

[cincinnati]

05:36 AM on 08/30/2011

Where were 99% of the tea party/GOP types when
Bush/Cheney were spending like drunk'n hillbilly's ?

SUPPORTING THEM $$$$$$$$$

[waukonwhite]

01:16 PM on 08/27/2011

The Boston Tea Party was not a dispute over high taxes as many seem to think, the price of tea was actually reduced by the Tea Act in order that BEI Co. could sell their surplus inventories below the price of smuggled tea. The issue was that the taxes on the BEI tea were being used to pay the salaries of British colonial officials instead of them being directly accountable to the colonists.

If you believe that your taxes are going to a foreign government and then are being used to pay the salaries of the people that are supposed to be representing you in government then you are a true "Tea Partier".

If the Tea Party was about reducing our dependency on fossil fuels and protesting the influence that the large oil companies have on policy they would be much closer to mark with the principles the the American colonists were concerned with.

[provgrays1]

09:27 AM on 09/03/2011

waukonwhite,

You completely misrepresented the Boston Tea Party.

When the Townshend Acts imposed on new round of taxes on Americans in 1769, a Colonial boycott reduced British imports to the Colonies by 40 percent. English merchants then begged Parliament to repeal the Townshend Acts since they were losing money.

Lord Frederick North, a new British Prime Minister, ordered the Acts repealed in 1770, with the exception that Americans would still have to pay the tax on tea. The tax itself was not the central issue but the lack of Colonial representation in Parliament as a result of the tax.

You've heard of "Taxation without Representation", right? That is why the Tea Party protesters dumped 90 thousand pounds of tea into Boston Harbor on December 16, 1773. It had nothing to do with paying the salaries of British Colonial officials.

That's a very long way from Michelle Bachmann.

[OnTopicOffTopic]

12:40 AM on 08/27/2011

Pretty darn accurate

[Angie Daniels]

11:21 PM on 08/26/2011

Very funny.

[Json]

07:57 PM on 08/26/2011

I love TDS, but that was a little weak.

[soundping]

07:36 PM on 08/26/2011

Tea Party = Koch brothers play things.

[p c r]

05:45 PM on 08/26/2011

"Keep your government hands off MY Social Security!"
"Keep your government hands off MY Medicare!"
Limit government interference in the lives of Americans-- EXCEPT when a woman goes to the doctor or a gay couple wants to marry or a MUSLIM wants to exercise religious freedom and build a Mosque.

[al]

09:52 PM on 08/26/2011

Don't give me no lines and keep your hands to yourself.........................

[spider9000]

09:06 AM on 08/28/2011

Or if someone wants to smoke marijuana.

[p c r]

05:28 PM on 08/26/2011

Since Jon and Stephen are on vacation, I am glad that the correspondents are around to make me smile.
The sad part is that most of what is funny is spot on true.

[imfedup]

02:18 PM on 08/26/2011

Desperate attempt by radical, hypocritical, ignorant libertarians to look cool and scary.

Yawn.

[Ellen Raff]

02:46 PM on 08/26/2011

Tea party sympathizer appears not to know the meaning of libertarian. But if he means to use the word liberal, s/he is mistaken in thinking that's an insult.

[imfedup]

02:53 PM on 08/26/2011

I always laugh when someone calls me a liberal thinking it will insult me. I am proud to be a liberal; otherwise, I wouldn't be one!

[Trekkiefandom]

01:54 PM on 08/27/2011

OK. I think someone is drinking the TEA too much.

[ydnas639]

12:36 PM on 08/26/2011

morefreethings
fixed income analyst
228 Fans
Become a fan
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22 hours ago (2:38 PM)
ANYONE middle class or above would gladly pay a few hundred dollars year more to have those problems solved, the problem is, it wont solve them. We pay more now on an inflationa­ry basis than ever before for schools, and its not working, in fact its becomming worse. So for those not paying fed taxes its easy to demand more $$...

Blaming deregulati­on for our financial crisis is a little like saying the guy who got shot was kil led by a bullet...o­r even a gun...and not by a person
_
≠≠≠≠≠≠≠≠≠≠≠≠≠≠≠≠≠
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I agree, your analysis is 'fixed', freeloader.

[Downwithdull]

11:15 AM on 08/26/2011

The tea party is a joke. Five years from now they'll be as relevant as Terry Schiavo. Oh snap!

[Johan Echaniz]

10:30 AM on 08/26/2011

I wish they would drop the "movement" and try to become an independent 3rd party. They would slip into irrelevance offstage.

[RockiesRiter]

12:37 PM on 08/27/2011

Excellent idea. Then the Bachmann's and Perry's can run under the Tea Party, and the establishment Republicans can run their own candidate, thus handing every election to the Democrats.

[blarneydude]

10:16 AM on 08/26/2011

The Tea Party is about limited government all right.

They want corporations to run EVERYTHING. But leave their Big Gummint bennies alone.

Oh, these guys have it down, all right. It should unsettle us that The Daily Show is by light years the best news program on the air. I guess it's too funny to be unsettling.

[imfedup]

02:19 PM on 08/26/2011

Let's see how they want the federal government off their backs when their houses are LITERALLY under water.

[Angie Daniels]

11:26 PM on 08/26/2011

They should opt out of big guvmint bennies if they're so concerned about the deficit.

[Roy Mandina]

10:10 AM on 08/26/2011

What a crew to try and explain things! I almost felt bad for them. I came away with a feeling that each and everyone of them was picked on as a child. You know; the kind of kid that was pushed in the hedges or pelted with spitballs everyday. Hey you guys! That was so long ago, and we were just kidding. Not one would explain that the Tea Party stands for limited government and lower taxes for all Americans, as the Founding Fathers planned and the Constitution was designed.

[mmazur1o5]

10:35 AM on 08/26/2011

Yes, limited government (except for medicare, social security, a woman's right to choose, gay rights) and lower taxes for all American's (even though we are now ranked just above Uganda in income inequality). The founders wanted this country to be ranked with 3rd world African countries and run by people who only think the government can be big when it's telling other people that they can't do what you don't like. The Tea Party is utterly inconsistent on everything that they "stand for".

[p c r]

05:31 PM on 08/26/2011

Have you not noticed that they want limited government EXCEPT when they benefit from government intervention or the government is attempting to impose restrictions and mandates on something they specifically disagree with, like abortion, women's healthcare or gay marriage. Then, they want a government regulation in every bedroom and vagina.

[PamperedHousecat]

08:50 PM on 08/26/2011

Hey!
I've seen people saying the same thing you're saying.
Don't you realize these people have their heads made up, and no amount of common sense is going to change that.
You might as well be talking to the teabags they're using as decorations.

[ocrmom59]

01:41 PM on 08/28/2011

They have no clue that means having the government involved, to them it means doing what is best for the american people because we don't know what is good for us. We are suppose to be happy for all the unwanted children being born because of lack of birthcontrol methods(not abortions) or that a woman life might be harm or in danger by being pregnant(she just have to live long enough to have the child and then die or stay on life supports until then).

It is okay for men and women to wed each other and then have numerous affairs and spread diseases from one to another. It is okay for those so called straight people to rape and kill women and children and claim they are sick. Most gay people do not bother anyone but themselves and they are branded as the worst things on this earth. At least they are open about their lifestyles, while we still have those who are still in the closets and afraid of it getting out in the public. So I don't really pay that much attention to those groups who claim to be something that they are not

[Raccoon1]

09:53 AM on 08/26/2011

The whole point that the Tea Party misses is that the Boston Tea Party was not about increased taxes. It was about one company, the British East India Company (owned by the corporatis­ts of the day- the royal family and a few others) being given a special TAX BREAK that would have made it impossible for the many tea sellers and tea houses who did not get the tax break to compete with the CORPORATIO­N.

Sound familiar?

[Roy Mandina]

11:01 AM on 08/26/2011

Please, leave history to historians. Not to revisionist like you. The BEI Co. was not "being given a tax break" you liar. The British failed to remove the tax on tea after the repealing the Townsend Act. No break was given to the co., the colonist were made to pay extra. You either know this, but chose to lie so that to push your ideology, or you're ignorant of the facts. Which one is it? (Everybody reading this knows two things. One, that I'm right, and two, that you are not going to admit that you were lying or that you were wrong. You'll just find some lame way of trying to prove an invalid point.)

[Raccoon1]

11:19 AM on 08/26/2011

BEI paid less. Colonists paid more. Twist it how you like. The fact remains.

About your other comments: Your Mamma!

[p c r]

05:35 PM on 08/26/2011

You are certainly not an historian. They British raised taxes on the colonies while they had no elected representation. Since folks now elect their representatives, raising taxes should be no problem. Do you recall the theme-- No taxation without representation!
The TEA Party, by basing their movement on the Boston Tea Party, actually has no leg to stand on. They are being represented.