When we witnessed the spectacle of the anti-Obama protesters at the McCain-Palin rallies in 2008, we should have realized they wouldn't go away without a fight. And after Obama won the presidency, well, it was clear that some people had lost their minds. Aggrieved, angry and racist, some working class white folks threw a collective temper tantrum. The mobs of angry unwashed masses assembled, and the result is the Tea Party.
But of course, it isn't quite as simple as that. This lynch mob is a perfect example of top-down, corporate sponsored outrage. Rich benefactors such as the Koch Brothers joined with lobbyists and the Republican Party to help create the Tea Party and harness its energy for their own nefarious purposes. In the end, a "movement" which appears angry and populist is in reality a front group for the worst, most regressive oligarchic policies. And the people who are chosen to do the bidding of these wealthy interests, the candidates for office in this election season, are the most amazing assemblage of crackpots, extremists and white supremacists. They found their opening in the Great Recession the GOP created. Moreover, they capitalized on the missteps of an Obama administration that, however noble its intentions, cozied up too much with Wall Street, failed to attack the jobs problem right away, and wasted too much time appeasing fascists across the aisle who awoke daily praying for the demise of this president. Add to that a half-stepping stimulus program that steered us clear of a depression, but was not nearly enough to get the nation out of the morass.
The Tea Party is not merely a subsidiary of the GOP. It is the GOP. The Tea Party and the Republican Party are one and the same. The Tea Party is the base, and yet the base is all that is left, due to the years of Lee Atwater's race baiting that drove away all the people who are free from mental defect.
Some media outlets have declared the results of this election a foregone conclusion. And while a Republican victory across the nation is a possibility, we really don't know until we know. However, what we do know is that in this campaign season, the Tea Party has scored a victory. Whether they win an election or not, they have succeeded in contaminating the waters. The Tea Party is a corrosive acid that is eating away at the public discourse.
And the spirit of the Tea Party is one which has no shame in its game. It is a hateful and heartless spirit that strives to elevate demagogues, bullies and criminals. In this political environment, some people believe they can say or do whatever comes to mind. One Tea Party group has called for the ouster of a Congressman Keith Ellison not because of his stance on the issues, but because he is a Muslim. Carl Paladino, the Republican gubernatorial candidate from New York, recently went on a homophobic tirade in the wake of gay teen suicides throughout the nation. Sharron Angle, the GOP-Tea Party Senate candidate in Nevada, aired a television ad designed to tap into white racial fears of Latinos.
A volunteer for Tea Party nominee Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) boot stomped the head of a MoveOn protestor outside of a debate. A California man planned an assassination plot on the Tides Foundation and the ACLU because Glenn Beck, the Fox news jester and Tea Party televangelist, demonizes these and other progressive groups on a daily basis. And NPR has received death
threats after firing Islamophobic Juan Williams, also a Fox news analyst. Apparently not realizing that he is susceptible to racial profiling, the African-American journalist channeled his inner Teabagger and proclaimed that he is scared of Muslims on a plane.
In my state of Pennsylvania, you can see the harshness of the times. There have been cross burnings in recent months, including two crosses burned on the lawn of a white teenage girl because she invited black friends to her home. And at a parade in Lancaster County a few weeks ago, the crowd greeted a multiracial high school marching band with rocks, taunts and racial epithets. The crowd also sprayed soda on the students, who were from William Penn Senior High School in York, PA, and were black, white and Latino. This is the lynch mob in action. This is the Tea Party. These are the people who beat, punched and kicked civil rights workers at segregated lunch counters in the 50s and 60s, who spat at Negro or "colored" students on their way to school, and blocked the schoolhouse door as the federal government enforced desegregation orders.
And so the spirit of the Tea Party lives on, albeit on borrowed time. With the U.S. poised to become a majority of-color nation in the coming years, the backward racists are outnumbered and will be outvoted through a process of attrition. The Republican Party, now primarily a Southern regional party, will likely implode due to the upcoming civil war that will play out in the former party of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass--a party that once boasted 1,500 black political officeholders nationwide during Reconstruction, yet is now the functional equivalent of the Afrikaners' National Party in apartheid South Africa. Nevertheless, for now, we live in a country full of pain and suffering--and hate. These times demand scapegoats, and the Tea Party is more than willing to oblige and hunt them down. We need to be very careful and look out for one another.
David A. Love is the Executive Editor of BlackCommentator.com, and a contributor to The Progressive Media Project and theGrio. He is based in Philadelphia and is a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Pennsylvania Law School. His blog is davidalove.com.
Follow David A. Love on Twitter: www.twitter.com/davidalove
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If you'd like to see it under a microscope (although I'm sure you've had more than your fill), read some of the "tweets" on the Twitter page of @TimProfitt. Mr. Profitt is, of course, known throughout the world as the coward who placed his foot on the head/shoulder of a female protester who had already been wrestled to the ground by three other Tea Party, um, men, if you want to use the term loosely. Only then did Tim Profitt feel it was safe to put his foot on her and push down.
As I said, not a spirit, but a cancer.
Republicans are laughably unable to go into any detail about their plans for economic revival or job generation.
What they know is that tax cuts are awesome, democrats are evil, and only talk to fox news.
Come to think of it, where is their BUDGET????
Necessary and sufficient? Also yes.
Our enemies abroad must be really loving this division in our country. Instead of debating the issues civily on both sides and just disagreeing where there is disagreement on them why is it necessary to completely demonize the other side for the few radicals among them, make false accusations of an entire group and hurl insults? Yes, our enemies must really be eating this up. We are dividing ourselves instead of united and our enemies will therefore conquer us.
I am really disappointed in many of my fellow Americans that they have to resort to such childish tactics instead of acting like adults. I have come to expect it from our politicans during campaign time but not regular Americans as I have seen of late. Very sad, indeed.
Kind of like attaching the label of lazy to all African Americans based on the action of a few, isn't it?
Their agenda isn't based on extremism nor racism. I read their mission statement on their website and just because there may be some radicals among them is no reason to flame the entire group. There are radicals in every group whether they be left or right in their views.
So because many Americans didn't want Obama or the Democrats in office that means they must be racists? How easy is it for the left to forget that Obama is half white?
There is nothing wrong with being angry over the course our country has taken. Anger promotes action for change. The Tea partiers are heartless and mean spirited and bullies? Of course there are no radicals on the left, right? I have seen them at the pro-illegal rallies committing violence and with anti-white, anti-American signs. Am I to assume that they represent the entire pro-illegal movement then?
Of course there are radicals of all political stripes, but that is not the point. And no, I'm not saying all tea party folks are racist, but that's not the point, either. The Tea Party is owned by the wealthy, and its leaders are coocoo for Cocoa Puffs. The Koch brothers have said they like to dabble in ultra-conservative politics and white supremacy because “this right-wing, redneck stuff works for them." The racism is intentional, it is divide and conquer politics, the GOP's Southern Strategy on steroids. And the GOP has made a calculation that they will try to get the angry white vote and give up on voters of color.
The Tea party candidates are way, way out there, and yes it appears that many would be at home at a meeting of the White Citizens Council. So when you are a part of a so-called movement, and these people are your leaders, it's on you if you remain a member and let these folks speak for you. Plus, you have to look at the policies they are promoting. You don't think there's something wrong here?
The tea party sprung up as a grassroots movement enraged by irresponsible out of control government spending. First we threw the republicans out of office in 08 because of their violation of our trust. Then, when the Democrats began to abuse their power in 09, the movement exploded.
That now, there are people with money who promote the ideas originated by the regular folks, is neither here nor there. I would hazard to say that their support is no more dangerous is than the attempt to influence the elections, that the big business Unions wield.
Like any group, there are a variety of opinions within the Tea Party. But it was founded and remains based on basic conservative principles. When they win elections next week, they will be held accountable for the way they govern.
And no, no one is afraid of Muslims because they are dressed as Muslims. Williams claimed nervousness which resulted from the terrorist attacks that were incited by radical Muslim teaching. I would hazard to guess that if we were attacked numerous times by African Americans or Jewish Americans or White Americans who attributed their terrorist attacks to radical African American or radical Jewish American or radical White American ideology, that regular folks might be afraid of these groups too.
People of color as you put it have and probably always will vote Democrat unless the Republicans turn into Democrats advocating for socialism in our country and more government handouts. That isn't what the Republican party advocates for so much of the minority vote is lost to them anyway.
Funny how it is ok for minorites to have all kinds of advocacy groups but let white Americans have anything that even slightly resembles that, it is deemed racist. Since it is mostly white Americans who comprise the Republican party the whole party is smeared as racist also. Racism from the past has just changed colors today. I rest my case.
This underlying meme that there are just as many violent, hate-mongering fanatics on the Left as there are on the Right is simply a false equivalency. It is not borne out by statistics, nor by verifiable audio, video, and printed evidence that is easily available to anyone.
Certainly, there is deep verbal anger from Progressives (in blogs, editorials, speeches, etc.), but this is mirrored by Conservative venues. But c'mon, Mark, you have to admit that there are NO instances of Liberals arriving armed at rallies, or calling for "Second Amendment remedies" if elections don't go the right way, or illegally "arresting" journalists, or advocating the violent overthrow of the Administration, or assaulting opposition voices at rallies.
And too many of these frightening, violent attitudes are being advocated by your CANDIDATES themselves. By their very nature, candidates represent their WHOLE party or movement - so you cannot reasonably say that criticism of the Tea Party is overblown, and based on just a handful of "bad apples."
I simply wish that the "reasonable" people Tea Partiers (and Republicans in general) claim are the majority of their constituencies would stop being so defensive, and admit which side of the political fence is obviously out of control. Hey, WE would - and that's, sadly, what separates our two philosophies...
I opposed much of his agenda - but good grief the man was subjected to immense abuse on the part of the left.
If no weapons were actually used and the weapons had a permit and the carriers weren't breaking the law then what is your gripe? If these things actually occured did you bother to find out why they had them in their possession especially if they never used them? Are you talking about radicals yet again? I have not seen hundreds of teaparty members carrying any weapons at their gatherings.
I think a lot of what you claiming is a lot of exaggerating and blowing things all out of proportion and out of context and again perhaps only by radicals. But the smear of the entire movement by the left marches on. The candidates are advocating violence? Oh, please!
No, it is the issues that separates the left from the right but we should be able to debate them together without setting a platform of contempt and claims of racism and other nasty labels on the other side before those talks even occur. All that does is make the other side unwilling to cooperate.
Here's another axiom Glenn would have heard and pondered long ago if he had been born into the LDS Church: "A Fool Returns To His Folly As A Dog Returns To His Vomit".
No question there, except that this corrosive acid is still a long way from shutting it down. All the Teapartiers have done is disarticulate themselves from the public discourse and lapse into blithering incoherency and clammed up silence, while giving the rest of us more to talk about than ever.
And this is what they fear most - becoming the minority.
Some of us find it racist to assume that the default American is the European American, and that American culture is derived exclusively from this origin, as you clearly do.
Some of us realise that languages change, as English has done in the years that the US adopted it as the principle form of communication here; that the culture has evolved from being a predominantly racist, sexist, anti-semitic and homophobic to one that is more and more inclusive and appreciative of the Melting Pot that this nation is.
Some of us realise that this nation is not the exclusive domain of Eurocentric privilige that you pine for.
Some of us have moved into the 21st century and recognise the dinosaur mentality of those who haven't.
For you, my friend, the demographic meteor approacheth, and there's very little you can do about it (thank goodness), so my suggestion is that you either get with it, or go the way of the dinosaur like all of those who pine for the rose colored days of yore, when those of us who don't quite fit your selective view of what/who an American is were often seen, but seldom heard.....
Neither are many of those in the tea party. I agree that the adds are racist. And I agree that Angle is not fit for office. But the best way to prove that is through reasoned, factual objections. Not simply calling someone names.
There is far more on the decline than just the political conversation, which began at a very low point in this country a very long time ago.
Here we are.