While reading history one often finds relevant parallels between times passed and times present. The cyclical behavior of humans becomes more predictable - at least for me. The Tea Party is a repetition of equally bizarre precursors each having their own ideology, but all containing certain characteristics among adherents.
I'm no sociologist, historian or psychologist, but I do pay attention. I just watched a documentary about the Wall St. crash in 1929. It was spooky. The moguls of the time invented borrowing on margin for buying stocks, marketed the hell out of it and sold it to a greedy, unsuspecting public all the while telling them the lie that prosperity was here forever. Even Groucho Marx lost his shirt and mustache in 1929. They believed the lies and they bought the farm...so to speak. In 1999, the Republican Congress overturned the Glass-Steagall Act that prevented banks from loaning on margin for investments, the process that led to the Great Depression. J. K. Galbraith mused laconically that when it comes to money, cycles of responsibility last about 20 years before another generation of greedy suckers comes along.
About that same time a young dissident with an attitude came roaring onto the political scene in Germany bringing the siren song of National Socialism. It was a philosophy that fronted egalitarian ideals, but was actually steeped in hate, prejudice and revenge. Adolf Hitler's "posse" were known as Storm Troopers or Brownshirts. These were his thugs who went to political rallies and disrupted civil discourse. They formed cordons around government meeting halls to intimidate and terrorize duly elected officials from carrying out their duties. They produced propaganda and pogroms against Jews and anyone else they felt wasn't in the spirit of National Socialism. The physical abuse heaped on German citizens by this rabble was profound and brutal. Finally, by suppressing civil discourse and "normal" political processes, they succeeded in hijacking a country and led the world into history's most devastating calamity.
In the United State today we have right wing extremism in the form of the Tea Party. They aren't wearing jack boots, Sam Browne belts or red armbands...yet, but they began to behave just as the Brownshirts during the 2008 Presidential campaigns. Carrying loaded assault rifles to rallies, shouting down speakers at town hall gatherings and parading vivid posters displaying their ideology. O.K. Freedom of speech protects that. But suppressing others' freedoms of speech is not. It's O.K. to wear 3-cornered hats with dangling tea bags, but it's not O.K. to shove somebody off the stage because you don't like what he/she is saying.
So, who is a "tea bagger?" Who were the Brownshirts? There are some, but not complete similarities between the people who participate and participated in these two groups. Both have strong prejudices, even hatred. The TP hatred of Barack Obama dispels any disclaimers that they are not a racist organization. Similarly, the Brownshirts openly abused Jews and anyone associated with Jews. They didn't come right out and say they were anti-Semitic, they just burned their shops.
The Brownshirts often were disenfranchised people with broken or non-fulfilled careers. They were mostly ignorant of how their government was supposed to work, what civil discourse meant and how democracy, in spite of its messiness, could work things out most of the time. In view of the viciousness of the TP displays, demonstrations and blog sites, it seems to me they're doing our 21st century version of intimidation and directed hatred at any political or social thinking any further to the left than what they think is correct.
Clearly, the kind of irrational behavior exhibited by both these groups smacks of emotional disturbances that can come from many sources. Hating for the sake of hating comes from something else besides just race or religion. It comes from abuse in the past.
I may be wrong, but the similarities between the two groups mentioned here show more kinship than they do differences. Are we headed for another cycle of civil unrest and perhaps insurrection? Who will stabilize our political environment enough that "regular" American citizens can go about their business without having to endure the prejudices of others and the baggage that they bring with them.