After the July 4 Tea Parties, What Do They Mean?

In Houston, Texas the Tea Party was part protest and partly a statement of group identity. One sign read, "I'm the ProLife, gun toting Constitutionalist the DHS warned you about." Otherwise the 600 rallied against Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi as a symbol of their discontent. In Austin, they booed Republican Senator John Cornyn because of his vote for the Troubled Asset Relief Program and held signs denouncing illegal immigration and taxes, according to local news reports.

In Evansville, Indiana, the crowd stood at about 1,700, and one attendee told the local newspaper that, "My strongest concern is that our president can say we aren't a Christian nation and it's hardly even noticed." Almost 300 souls turned out for the Tea Party in downtown Terre Haute. Among their grievances: lax immigration rules, socialized medicine and welfare. Across the Ohio River in Louisville, the numbers were down from the previous protest on April 15, but the message was the same: "we are losing our freedom." In Oklahoma City news reports noted that several attendees believed President Obama was actually born in Kenya.

Although organizers claimed that the number of Tea Parties had climbed from 800 on April 15 to 1200 on July 4, anecdotal evidence and news reports indicate that overall participation had probably declined. Not surprisingly, Florida, Texas and California--all states with large populations--had the greatest number of individual events. In heavily populated but Democratic Party-dominated states like New York and Illinois, however, the numbers remained very small. It would be a mistake to simply conclude, as several commentators have, that these were strictly Republican affairs. The complaints cited ranged from fiscal debt and taxes--two staples of the Republican Party opposition--to matters of immigration and guns, issues usually considered the province of gun lobbies and nativists further to the right. And yes, white nationalists did try to turn some of these melanin-deprived protests into a recruiting zone, much as I described in my last post on this topic.

Not everybody agreed with me at that time. One response from a South Florida "Tea Party committee member" wrote to say that "Stormfront is in our neighborhood and has never distributed material at any meetings or events of ours." Apparently Palm Beach County Republicans learned their lesson after letting Derek Black, the son of Stormfront founder Don Black, slip by them and get elected last December to a party committee post. The Republican regulars were subsequently forced to unseat him.

As for the July 4 events, white nationalists of various persuasions were part of the mix everywhere they could get a foothold. One account by Billy Roper's group, White Revolution, described their intervention at a Tea Party in Russellville, Arkansas. They held signs opposing "illegal immigration," handed out leaflets stating general principles and then came back after the Tea Party disbanded to have a protest of their own.

In other cases, white nationalists did not breathe their own name. In Hickory, North Carolina, supporters of media personality Glenn Beck organized into a group calling itself "9/12," had a slightly different kind of discussion.

In Goodland, Kansas, the April 15 Tea Partiers have already transformed themselves into the High Plains Constitutional Society. The constitutionalists sponsored a talk on June 28 by Richard Mack, a former Arizona sheriff who became a darling of the militia movement in the mid-1990s. On July 4, Mack spoke again at an event in Eureka, Montana, according to information provided by the Montana Human Rights Network.

All of the Tea Parties added together will probably have little effect on how the Obama Administration and the Congress decide to make policy. The fact that after April 15 the Republican Party leadership ran away from this mini-movement, does not augur well for its immediate influence. Neither does the fact that the national media virtually ignored hundreds of these events all across the country. As an organization-building effort by Ron Paul's Campaign for Liberty, however, the Tea Parties were an unqualified success. Ditto for Don Wildmon's American Family Association.

For white nationalists, the results are mixed. They still have not developed any kind of program aimed at white people hardest hit by the economic crisis. Instead, they have chosen to insert themselves into someone else's parade, like Trotskyites chasing an anti-war protest. And these points of political weakness among the white power set can not be remedied by murdering doctors, museum guards and nine-year girls.

Follow Leonard Zeskind on Twitter: www.twitter.com/www.LeonardZesk

Comments

[EspritDeVoltaire]

It is not many who are willing to commit such daytime buffoonery and be subjected to public mockery for our amusement. For that we owe them a debt of gratitude.

[rf dude]

Uh - they meant nuthin' BEFORE July 4...
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[DavidDial]

The tea baggers do have at least one thing in common. They don't believe government works for them. By that I mean that they don't like the things government does and they can't get the government to do the things they would like done. And they are absolutely right. They will never get anywhere waving stupid signs and shouting inane slogans for the benefit of Fox News. Their ideas have insufficient merit to attract much support and their total lack of understanding of how government and politics works will make them forever irrelevant.

[Terry Mcintyre]

Reading the Rasmussen polls on the rise of independent voters, perhaps both Democrats and Republicans should pay close attention to the Tea Party movement. When both parties passed the TARP bailout, there was a huge storm of protest. It wasn't all "right wing conservatives", and it certainly wasn't all GOP stalwarts.

Do we find many themes - sometimes contradictory - at protest rallies? Of course we do. There are many reasons for deep-seated discontent with "politics as usual", but chief among them is that politicians are more interested in representing special interests than in the "general welfare" of the country.

In the Honduras, a President was ousted for violating the Constitution; here, gross constitutional violations are the accepted norm. For a lot of Americans, that's not good enough. We deserve better.

[MajorKong]

Most "independents" I know are just Republicans who for some strange reason don't like to admit it.

They "vote for the most qualified candidate" who just so happens to ALWAYS be the Republican.

[jsgaetano]

In addition to "independents", that applies to Libertarians too.

[Chilito]

Given that this pack of ideologues is bent on establishing a socialist dictatorship in a "changed" Amerika, you are correct that they do not listen to ideas contrary to their own; however, the pro-freedom movement is gaining momentum daily as this regime stumbles clumsily. My prediction is a free-fall by the end of the year. Their stupid anti-economy "cap and trade" bill will not get passed - even with their super majority. They haven't got a clue as to how to structure a health care reform plan (other than raise costs, reduce coverage, and increase government meddling). Their insane stimulus spending has succeeded only in raising the national unemployment rate.

No, this bunch doesn't listen to people like working taxpayers who protest government plans to seize even more of their hard-earned cash. And they won't, even when they are voted out of office in the next election. Unless, of course, BHO has his ACORN thugs run the 2010 census and gerrymander all opposition into untenable voting districts.

[KarelS]

Curious, Chilito . . . were you and your super-concerned patriots out on the streets during the eight years of the Bush Administration protesting their mantra of taking from the poor and middle class (you among them?) to give to the rich?
Funny, I don't remember one protest aimed at the economic policies of criminal junta of BushCo.
Maybe I'm wrong, although I'm pretty hip to the news from several different sources. I've Googled "Street protests of Bush economic policies" and have come up with ziltch.
Perhaps you can help us out here.

[MajorKong]

Basically these people believe that the executive branch is their birthright and that the universe is out of kilter if they don't have it.

Once you realize that it all makes sense.

[Terry Mcintyre]

Your memory must be short. There was a firestorm of protest against the bailout. Both Bush and Obama supported it. This will go down in history as the Bush/Obama financial debacle.Th­is time around, Obama will not be able to double down on the excesses of his predecessor and pretend to be a savior. He'll have to grow a pair of balls, resist the Wall Street handlers, and stop letting the Fed and the Treasury pour trillions into well-connected special interests if he really wants to fix the problems facing our economy.

[MajorKong]

This probably sounded better when Rush said it.

[ATLiberal]

Psst. From one Christian to another. We aren't a Christian nation, thank God. We are a secular Constitutional Republic guided by the rule of law.

The Constitution specifically prevents any official establishment of religion. No theocracies in the US. Again, than God.

[MajorKong]

I wish them all the success that the anti-war movement had in 2003.

[weatherwaxx]

What do they mean?

Not much.

[1will]

See you at the DC Tea Party on Sept. 12th.

[sviolette]

Good luck with that.

[MajorKong]

I'd rather get a root canal, colonoscopy and IRS audit simultaneously than attend a Tea Party.

[ignoranceequalsfear]

We AREN"T a Christian nation!
We have no official or State Religion!

That's what he meant.

News Flash: not everyone in this country is christian!!!

Relax and then go feed the hungry, visit the sick and clothe the naked, like Jesus told you to!

[TriChronos]

"My strongest concern is that our president can say we aren't a Christian nation and it's hardly even noticed."

I actually have to agree with this statement as literally worded, Obama has "finally put it to rest" and clarified the FACT that the US it NOT a Christian nation, and apparently these people still haven't noticed the reality of the situation even when it's spelled out for them.

[Rescisco]

What do the "tea parties" mean? Well, perhaps they tell us something about the more primitive mindset of the very extreme right. Their's is a world in which bullying masquerades as leadership, pettiness poses as importance, prejudice is commonly associated with patriotism, history is neither known nor understood, facts are the same as opinions, complexity is resented, and ignorance is assumed to be superior to intelligence. Sara Palin is their goddess (thus lending ceredence to everything I've just said).

[LiteSleeper]

Excellent analysis!

[DavidDial]

Well said

[noneIn2008]

Why all the complaints or concerns on raising taxes? There are multiple ready sources for taxes to pay for societies rights. We can start with increase luxury taxes on shoes, purses, jewelry, fragrances, watches, beauty products. Add on packaging taxes for all boxes and plastic. Keep going on the luxury for any boat or airplane.

[wm1066]

I have never understood why they brand themselves with Tea.
Tea is weak, its unamerican( america drinks coffee!!!)
Little girls have tea parties.
Can you imagine drinking tea on a cattle drive? The Rough Riders drinking tea?
Its not a strong label, it carrys to much negative baggage. Tea was on the opposite side in the revolution.
But if the right wing wants to use it so be it.

[Json]

You really don't know the connection??
It's a reference to the Boston Tea Party. They imagine that they are revolutionaries fighting an oppressive government. (Apparently in their minds it's not really "representative government" if they guy they voted for didn't win.)

[wm1066]

I get that, but Tea was something our enemies drank, its not a good symbol to brand yourself with. Its like they put on a Red Coat, the image doesn't work right.

[MThomasNC]

I suspect that the mindset of the people behind these 'tea parties' is that the person leading the country now has a different face color than theirs regardless of the fact his heritage is 50% the same as theirs. Forget the fact that their conservative political patrons have used, abused and screwed them along w the rest of us for past 30 yrs.
They cry now for all the things they should have cried for when their jobs were being outsourced overseas beginning in the 1980s, they voted republicans into policy making positions thinking they were going to overturn 'roe v wade', put prayer back in schools, put minorities back in their place but all they got was corporations dictating govern't policy thru their lobbists, unnecessary wars based on lies, and more leniency to carry firearms. These 'tea baggers' did this to our country by 30 yrs of voting for these blowhards, thieving republicans. Now they are unhappy because the new president wants to do right by the american people but the tea baggers want to continue to be screwed. Go figure...

[themidnightreview]

I like the idea of a "tea party" as a show of patriotism and symbolic reverence to our forefathers. What I dislike is that a minority of a political party is pushing through an agenda at a national level. These tea parties are propagating divisive and false rumors (Obama being a Muslim, Obama not being a natural citizen). In the previous census, 52% of Americans identified themselves as Christian. The idea that America is a "Christian" nation is insulting to the roughly 148 million non-Christians or those with no preference. To even define Christianity is a task unto itself.

Out of those who associate themselves as Christian, you still have further divisions between various groups such as Protestants, Mormons, and Catholics, where there is still tension between the groups. I have known people to refer to Catholicism as a cult or saint worshipers. Are those religions that deviate with the majority of Christian Americans non-American or second class citizens because they do not conform with the definition of Christian presented by the right-wing bigots?

These hypocritical Tea Parties will focus on numerous hot button issues that follow an anti-big government pro constitution platform. Majority of these ardent supporters of the constitution are also those same who want to ban homosexual marriage, even though that is not explicitly mentioned in the constitution. Their solution is to add the Federal Marriage Amendment.­..