I'm going to equivocate and say both yes and no. YES, because I think, as a general rule, both the Tea Party and the Ku Klux Klan hate poor people (and the TP and KKK would say poor people don't deserve to be helped out with food stamps or healthcare or education or 40 acres and a mule). But, on the other hand, NO, because I think there are nuances and various shades of gray. I don't like to lump together a group of people under one word. I can identify at least three Tea Parties and historically there were at least three incarnations of the Ku Klux Klan.
I'll ravel the strands of my argument below the orange Gordian knot.
This diary started as a comment to the post by ApostleofCarlin, which you can read here if you want: I stand with Alan Grayson. The Tea Party IS like the Ku Klux Klan.
I loaded up my word processor, wrote several paragraphs, and realized it was probably too long for a comment. Plus, by the time I posted this, the original diary would have scrolled off the edge of the world and nobody would see it.
Here goes...
I hate to be wishy-washy, but I both agree and disagree with the idea that the Tea Party is like the Ku Klux Klan. First, I’ll explain why I see some truth in the idea and then I’ll say why I think the idea is flawed.
On the One Hand, They Both Hate Poor People
Let’s say you’re some ordinary Joe and you’ve come on hard times -- you lost your job or the value of your house has gone down or you can’t pay for healthcare or college (or you have some other personal economic problem). Something went wrong and you want to blame someone. You can do one of two things: either you blame the rich or you blame the poor. To fix the problems in the country, do you go after the rich (and help out the poor) or do you persecute the poor (by supporting the rich)?
Short version: If you’re a 21st century Democrat (like me), then you probably believe there are government programs that benefit poor people: food stamps, Social Security, Medicare, and Obamacare -- although I’d prefer a single payer system run by the government -- and there are various other safety nets that help people who don’t have the resources (or relatives with money) to help them get back on their feet. And the way you pay for safety nets is very simple: You raise taxes in a progressive way so that we can pay for these things that help people who need help. In good times, you balance the budget. In bad times, you use deficit spending to kickstart the economy. It makes sense to me.
But if you’re a Tea Party Republican, you want to lower taxes and cut food stamps and cut Medicare and Social Security and eliminate Obamacare. And you dislike undocumented immigrants and Muslims and blacks and poor people and unions (and so on). You look at your own situation and then you blame “those people” who have even less than you. Or maybe you think they have more than you do because they‘re getting free stuff from the government or from the union. And they’re having lots of children (or getting free abortions)! And they’re collecting welfare and eating steak every night! And not working for a living! Their religion is different! Their skin color is different! It’s all their fault.
It’s all about demonizing “the other.” Those other people. The people who look different or think different.
So that, in a nutshell, is why I think that, in some ways, the Tea Party is similar to the Ku Klux Klan -- they blame the nation’s economic problems on the poor, the uneducated, the recent immigrants, and people who need help. They don’t mind rich people getting richer.
That’s why the Tea Party is like the KKK. They blame the powerless for their own lack of power.
On the other hand, I would ask the following question:
But Which Tea Party? Which KKK?
If you suggest to me that “The Tea Party is like the Ku Klux Klan,” then my first question would be “Which Tea Party is like which Ku Klux Klan?” There are (currently) at least three different Tea Parties and (historically) at least three different Ku Klux Klans.
Three KKKs
The first KKK (1870s) was a reaction to the Civil War and the freeing of slaves. It was white people (almost entirely in Southern/Confederate states) who wanted to terrorize the former slaves and institute Jim Crow laws and basically hold on to power. They also hated the carpetbaggers from up North.
The second KKK (1920s) was still anti-black, but I would argue a lot of it was both pro-WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) and anti-immigrant. They hated the somewhat darker-skinned/swarthy immigrants who were Catholic or Jewish or Orthodox, from southern and eastern Europe. This anti-immigrant sentiment traces back to the anti-Irish-immigrant sentiments of the 1850s (and it traces forward to anti-Hispanic prejudices of today). The second KKK took its name from the first KKK, but it derived its ideas more from the anti-immigrant Know Nothing Party of the late 19th century. In the 1920s, one of the biggest Klan states was Indiana (which wasn't a Confederate state). For several years, it was said that an Indiana politician couldn’t get elected unless he was a member of the Klan. Then the head of the Indiana Klan was caught imprisoning and raping an underage girl and the movement sort of fell apart (at least in Indiana).
My grandfather was invited (and he refused) to join the KKK in Fargo, North Dakota, in the 1920s when he was in his twenties. At that time, there were almost no African-Americans in Fargo. The KKK was primarily an anti-Catholic and anti-Jewish organization at that time and in that place.
The third KKK (1960s and 70s) was a racist reaction to the 1950s Supreme Court decision to integrate schools and the several 1960s Civil Rights and Voters Rights laws. After the Civil War, the Southern states had been solidly Democratic (and racist) and they gradually switched over to being Republican (and still racist). I think the split in the Democratic party began in 1948 with Hubert Humphrey’s civil rights speech at the Democratic Convention (which led to the Dixiecrat schism and Truman integrating the armed forces with a stroke of his pen). And the split culminated in Richard Nixon’s “Southern Strategy,” when he welcomed all the anti-busing and anti-integration assholes into the Republican Party. White racists gradually migrated from the Democratic party to the Republican party between 1948 and 1972. So there is definitely a racist tinge to all Republican politics (although they deny this, especially when there‘s a rich pizza guy who‘s black and runs for President).
So my point is this. I would argue that, historically, there have been three different KKKs (1870, 1920, 1960), each with distinct agendas. Next, the Tea Parties...
Three (or more) Tea Parties
Let’s now look at the Tea Party (which absolutely cannot be called a single party with a single agenda). They have at least three major national organizations: Tea Party Nation, Tea Party Express, and Tea Party Patriots. One of them (the ones with the bus that traveled around the country) has its origins with a bunch of rich advertising guys from California, traditional Republicans, who were friends of Ronald Reagan. Another Tea Party was started (as a for-profit organization (!)) by some shady Nashville lawyer, who was trying to make a buck. He’s the guy who had a convention in Nashville and later cancelled the convention in Las Vegas (and was sued by a hotel). And another tea party was mostly lobbyists and inside-the-beltway Republicans trying to invent a fake grass-roots movement (an astro-turf group). There are also some local tea party organizations that have roots in Ron (and Rand) Paul libertarianism. And some others that are outright racist. Or fundamentalist Christian. Or anti-tax. Or whatever.
So my point is, there were three different Ku Klux Klans (with different historical roots) and three or more different Tea Parties (with different backers and different agendas).
--
I’m just saying you can’t use one word to characterize all people who claim membership in a group (the Tea Party, the Ku Klux Klan, the media, Democrats, Republicans, African-Americans, old people, people on welfare, or whatever). Sometimes there are shades of gray.
I’m arguing that, yes, the Tea Party is similar to the Ku Klux Klan (because they both hate poor people and don’t want to give them a helping hand). But they’re different in various ways, depending on which Tea Party and which KKK you’re looking at. There are shades of gray.
And Alan Grayson?
The original diary included a quote by Alan Grayson. Which I’ve ignored until now. Yes, he often says outrageous things (someone called him “The Ann Coulter of the Left”), which made me laugh because he makes sense but she's silly.
I like Grayson. He’s extremely smart -- in fact I think he had a Rhodes or a Fulbright scholarship. He’s a brilliant and charismatic speaker. And he’s rich (from the stock market or investments of some sort), but he’s not a Republican. In fact, he’s a rich guy who argues for higher taxes. He reminds me a little bit of Teddy Kennedy (who was rich, but always had empathy for the little guy who was out of work or needed health care). We need more people like Teddy Kennedy or Alan Grayson in Congress.
Two Other Things I Wrote on DKos...
Here are a couple of links.
In 2010, I wrote about the Teabaggers and their different organizations. It's probably a bit out of date but it's interesting as a historical document from three years ago: Who And What Are The Tea Parties?
Also, after the 2012 election, I wrote about how the Tea Party fared in the 2012 election (20% of them left congress by quitting, losing the primary, or losing the election, but a lot of them are in very red tea districts): What Happened to The Tea Party in the 2012 Election?
I've been keeping an eye on the so-called tea party for years.