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What the Tea Party is Really All About

Contra Frank Rich (in an otherwise good column) and others, FDL’s Blue Texan makes a great point about the Teabaggers (one that many of us have made but that the media are generally ignoring, as it contradicts their narrative). It’s not all about the economy, stupid:

Anyone who thinks the Teabaggers’ unhinged “anger and bitterness” will subside in the face of an improving economy really needs to take a closer look at objective polling on the Teabaggers and review the 1990s.

The ’90s was a time of economic prosperity, but because there was a Democrat in the White House, the far-right was in full freakout mode. Back then, Clinton/Gore’s black helicopters were coming for their guns and right-wing “patriots” like Tim McVeigh and Eric Rudolph roamed the countryside.

But they weren’t called the “Tea Party.” They were the Angry White Men.

*****

Polls have shown that Teabaggers are lilly white and well off. They’re not the people getting kicked out of their houses by the banksters. They’re not unemployed. They’re not bearing the brunt of the Great Recession.

They’re just doing what they do when Democrats are in charge. Obama’s death panels and FEMA camps have replaced Clinton’s black helicopters.

And of course, the fact that this president’s middle name is Hussein and he’s Muslim and black, well, that’s just a few extra scoops of nuts on the wingnut sundae.

These are John Birch Society types, and the crashing of the global economy — a direct result of the plutocratic “free market” [sic] orgy they helped usher in — is just a convenient excuse to act out.

That’s all it is.

Following up on this, allow me to respond to Peter Berkowitz’s ridiculous piece in The Wall Street Journal this past Saturday attacking various liberal commentators — Krugman, Rich, Dionne, and other “[h]ighly educated people” (sarcastically meant) — for misunderstanding the Tea Party “movement” and essentially getting America wrong. While Berkowitz acknowledges that “the tea party sports its share of clowns, kooks and creeps,” he argues, with a heavy dose of condescension based on his (Straussian) reading of the Founders, that “the tea party movement is inspired above all by a commitment to limited government.”

Continues @ TheModerateVoice.com
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Quite a comparison. Yes, they match pretty well!