Examining the Tea Party Movement -- Manipulative Hate Talkers -- Where it goes from here
The final days of the health care debate have brought out the demons in the words of Louis Gohmert Republican Congressman from Texas. One would hope when finding ways to provide access to health care for all Americans the discussion would have brought out the better angels of our nature, those immortal words of Lincoln. Of course, what began as a debate turned into a riot. The GOP spurned a bipartisan outreach, seeking the politics of 1994. Fox News and wingnut radio fanned the flames of discontent. Once the flames got started the right wing talking heads turned on the fire hoses of gasoline.
It became apparent that the GOP Senators were only foot dragging; the chief negotiators made statements they wouldn’t vote for any bill. This ended any hope of a bipartisan effort. At this point, only Obama and conservative Democratic Senators wanted a bipartisan approach. Senator Grassley wouldn’t correct a Tea Bag protestor at a town hall; his words only escalated the death panel myth. The two party approach had become as dead as a zombie, but like a zombie continued to walk around. The Bipartisan Zombie demanded to be treated as if it was still alive. Senator DeMint declared this would be Obama’s Waterloo putting into words what had been the strategy all along.
Facts became irrelevant. The fact that corporate interests funded Tea Party events, Fox News was caught using stagecraft at the rallies, propagandizing the news, as Glenn Beck grew more irrational. None of this deterred the disaffected in our nation. The demons became stronger, the voices became louder, and a breach developed in the minds of the members of Tea Party movement no fact could mend. Congress members those who rarely act like leaders made vitriolic attacks and created more falsehoods. Apocalyptic visions began to from in the true believers. No, this would not be a rational debate this would be a cauldron of extremism.
So who are these Tea types? They are people set adrift, in a future shock sense. They know society is changing; they do not believe the change is good for them. They put an unfounded faith in W, Delay, and the GOP in general. After the 2000 election they had it all: faith based, fundamental, red meat conservatism held complete sway. There was no dissent, no doubt, and no debate. The result was a financial collapse, a gargantuan debt, and a long war that seemed out of control.
These were believers not in a political approach, but in an attitude. Walmart nation, Nascar Dads, Religious Right, Libertarians, real Americans so many names trying to define a new political class. Now, called the Tea Party Movement; it is still a mystery to our political, media, and corporate elites. Tea’ers wanted to be Ditto Heads and they believed in the GOP, Wall Street, corporate America, and evangelical leaders. It didn’t work out: Chinese goods in Walmart, some evangelicals disgraced, retirement accounts reduced or lost, houses foreclosed, failed promises and morals from once trusted politicians. The old bromides and bumper sticker slogans were no longer adequate.
When set adrift fear floats along, so the grifters of talk radio, interest groups, and media outlets played upon those fears. The claims became wilder less grounded in reality but believed by the core group. The Tea Party believes it is a majority in America; it is not. Even a good Tea Party candidate will never get more than 28% of an electorate. If you believed the President was a foreigner, government was coming to put you in FEMA camps, kill your grandma, take your guns and fishing rods, you would stand up and scream about it, too.
So this weekend it all melted down. Those few die-hard Tea’ers in Washington DC, outnumbered by the all but ignored war protestors on Saturday, an even larger immigration rally on Sunday, were left only to their prejudices. Congressmen, spit upon, called niggers and faggots, facing hate shouted towards them in a style not heard since the 1960’s. Jimmy Carter pointed out some hate Obama’s race; he was attacked with a logic like that used by defenders of the Southern cause. Most Confederates were not slave owners, OK; not all Tea’ers are racist bigots, but some are. The fact that not all Confederates were slave owners didn’t mean slavery wasn’t the cause of the Civil War. The fact that not all Tea’ers are racist doesn’t mean racism isn’t a catalyst for the movement.
It finally came into the House of Representatives where ardent pro-lifer Bart Stupak was called “baby killer” by Randy Neugebauer of Lubbock TX, or maybe just “it’s a baby killer.” Either spin really puts the exclamation point on the end of civility in our politics. We have been like this before the “know-nothing” movement, the hyperbolic secessionist rhetoric, the extreme segregationists of the Dixiecrats, now the GOP base. We have survived many other demagogues with misguided causes throughout our history. It is never healthy, but we can be cured. This health care bill will begin the healing because it isn’t much of anything the protesters claimed it was. So truth will win out. Congress will want to make changes and improvements, but the reform bill will prove itself by not killing grandma, stealing freedom, or ending our American civilization. If you want to find the districts of the most extreme congressman check out this map from the 2008 election.
http://elections.nytimes.com/...
Pick a crazy congressman find the least blue areas stick a pin in it. Sticking a pin in a congressman would not be an act of civility.