Good luck convincing anyone on the far right of the political spectrum of that, though. Why am I evil? Because I am a progressive liberal, of course. Ask a TEA Party member or anyone that identifies themselves as on the the far right what that actually means and you typically get either blank stares or answers that do not resemble anything remotely close to truth and fact.
As I mentioned in my last diary I have had quite the experience with what I consider to be the true identification of a majority of the people that claim to be in the TEA Party. They literally fear anyone that identifies themselves on being on the left side of the political spectrum (hell they actually fear anyone to the left of their beliefs which is probably roughly 97%+ of the population).
When you ask them, though, what it is that they actually fear about liberals their answers often resemble a toddler trying to explain why he is afraid of the boogie man; little logic and no basis in fact.
Did you know, for example, that according to TEA Parties, liberals are actually communist, socialist, totalitarian, Nazi Party card carrying members? I know, shocking. Attempt to explain to them that Hitler's believes actually match their beliefs and all hell will break out. They usually fall back on the line that since Socialist is in the Nazi Party name that of course means that Hitler was a Socialist. This is exactly where their ignorance comes shining through, especially on History. They do not bother looking at the facts or researching into why Socialist is in the Nazi Party name. They just know it is there so Hitler being a Socialist is fact to them. They do not care that at the formation of the Nazi Party, Socialism was huge. Hitler knew this so when he formed his new party he through Socialist into the name knowing that the downtrodden in Germany would be easier to pull into his web. Do not tell this to a TEA Partier however. They will accuse you of rewriting History, despite the fact that you are accurately telling them real history and not made up history to get a political point.
The crux for the TEA Party faithful, though, is fear. They apparently love to be afraid of just about everything. They constantly see the worst in every situation and predict that the worst will happen, even if they have to make up the worst possible situation. The new health care law? It is unconstitutional and it will cause premiums to sky rocket. Well they are half right. Premiums have begun to sky rocket but not because of the law. Most of the law will not even go into affect until 2014. The rising cost of insurance can be laid squarely at the feet of the insurance companies themselves. But do not tell the faithful that. The insurance companies are good people (remember corporations are people now) and the only reason they would raise prices is because the evil liberals are making them do it.
I digress, there are many more situations but we all know them.
Most of the TEA Party faithful believe in their hearts that liberals (specifically progressive liberals) are absolute evil and even represent the anti-christ. They are afraid of us. The main reason for this that I have seen is because we do not believe in the status quo of getting things done. The economy will not fix itself, this is a proven. We have now been in bi-partisan control for eight months. Their plan to fix the economy was to do absolutely nothing (they were too worried about restricting the rights of minorities and especially women to worry about jobs) and we have seen the results of doing nothing. New hirings has fallen again, the unemployment rate is back up.
It is a sad day when the majority of Americans believe that more taxes are better especially if the majority of those new taxes are to paid by multi-millionaires and the Republican Party balks at higher taxes because a small number of TEA Partiers are against it. The Republican Party has allowed itself to be overrun by a very small minority of their base and because of this we are facing a double-dip recession.
Why, then, do they view me and other progressive liberals as evil? Because we believe the government can do good. They hate (at least outwardly) everything the government does. I say this knowing full well that they use the Post Office; which is paid for by the government, they drive on the interstates; which were constructed and repaired by the government, they support the military; which is another government run organization, etc. They need something to hate and now that hating blacks, gays, Jews, and Muslims is no longer cool they have turned to the government.
They believe us to be evil because we complain, LOUDLY when the government does something wrong. We do this because we want to see progress and America going forward, not stagnating or regressing. They see it though as proof that we hate all things American (even when they typically complain about some of the same things and do it first). We complain about a justice system putting innocent people to death and we are evil. They complain about the mythic educational indoctrination going on in America and they see themselves as being patriotic and unreproachable.(that may be a made up word but you get my point).
Mostly they see us as evil because we have to gall to disagree with them and actually stand up to them when the make false statements as fact.
They love to misquote the Bible and take it out of context to prove their beliefs. They are not, in my opinion, true Christians but false prophets who use the Bible to hate those that do not fit their idea of what everyone should be. They abuse their religion for political advantage but they do not actually fully understand Christianity or any other religion for that matter.
That is why the 2012 election is so important. 2010 should have never happened. There is no excuse, EVER for any Democrat or liberal to stay home on election day because the candidate in their district is not exactly what they want. Democrats stayed home in 2000, 2004, and 2010 and look what has happened. We cannot stay home next year. Let me put it to you this way, would you rather have a president that shows a progressive streak once in a while but mostly stays in the center; or, a president that will go back to the ways of Bush and Reagan and not only prolong this recession but send it deeper?
Liberal Progressives and the TEA Party do have one thing in common; we are both at the extremes of our respective parties. There are more of us then there are of them. If we show up at the polls in every state we can guarantee a Democratic President and a Democratic Congress.
I am not evil. My brothers and sisters of the Liberal and Liberal Progressive stripe are not evil. It is time for us to stand up and change the narrative that the media has been all to willing to push for the Republicans. The only way to push America back to it's once greatness is to progress not regress.
ADDITUM: I do not believe that the TEA Party or far right Republicans and Conservatives to be evil. I simply was not raised that way. I see the good in everyone, even if they attempt to hide it with their blatant hatred for everyone not like them.