In thinking about the Tea Party recently, I, like many of you, simply failed to fathom the bizarre-ness of it all. How can people possibly believe so many things that are so manifestly untrue? If you have two neurons to rub together, how can you believe that "global warming is a hoax", or "Obama was born in Kenya", or "tax cuts pay for themselves", or any of the other demonstrably false claptrap they believe? Then a light bulb went on. It's a cult.
I thought, before I throw that word around, I'd better verify what it means. So now I submit to you definitions of "cult" from various sources. See if they bring to mind images of our friends in the tri-corner hats. In some of these definitions, if you remove the word "religious", you have a spot-on portrayal of the Tea Party. I have added some brackets below to aid in this comparison.
Wikipedia
The word cult in current popular usage usually refers to a group whose beliefs or practices are considered abnormal or bizarre.
... cults as deviant [religious] groups "deriving their inspiration from outside of the predominant [religious] culture". This deviation is often thought to lead to a high degree of tension between the group and the more mainstream culture surrounding it ...
... "cults" arise spontaneously around novel beliefs and practices.
... cognitive dissonance theory, which states that people are in general motivated to adjust their beliefs so as to be consistent with their behavior, in order to avoid the painful experience of a dissonance between the two. On this account, the more committed one is at the behavioral level to their beliefs being true, the more driven one is to reduce the tension created by dis-confirming evidence. An important implication of this theory is that common, universal psychological factors contribute to the persistence of what otherwise appear to be bizarre and even absurd set of beliefs.
Oxford English Dictionary
"Cults[...], like other deviant social movements, tend to recruit people with a grievance, people who suffer from some variety of deprivation."
Answers.com
CULT:
A [religion or religious] sect generally considered to be extremist or false, with its followers often living in an unconventional manner under the guidance of an authoritarian, charismatic leader.
Obsessive, especially faddish, devotion to or veneration for a person, principle, or thing.
Though I put brackets around the word "religious" in the examples above, I believe that most Tea Party members are fundamentalist Christians. As far as "authoritarian, charismatic leader" goes, think Rush Limbaugh.
I used to think, "there is no such thing as the Tea Party; they are all just Republicans that are too embarrassed to call themselves that". And they ARE all Republicans. But there is something more strange than that going on.
We've always had right-wing nuts in our country, just like every other country. But 9/11 and the Bush administration's response to it gave permission for these people to crawl out from under their rocks and start scaring us all. That is when this reactionary nonsense started dressing up as legitimate.
I thought it interesting to frame the Tea Party in this way, so I just thought I'd share it with you all. I look forward to the education I am about to receive from your comments.