Reply #100: I'm probably wrong but didn't the

[howaboutme]

original Tea Party come from a very fractured diverse group of frustrated individuals who had a long standing but increasing belief that the DC politicians weren't listening to the people?

As I recollect the roots of this group were established by the Ron Paul supporters (Revolution). There was a huge Ron Paul segment that were mavericks to both Parties and they were already organized more as Independents that opposed the wars and foreign aid and other anti-establishment ideas. They may have had a Republican bent but were not war mongerng/corporate/neocon Republicans. When Ron Paul didn't run many in this group remained outside of the GOP fold and many may have even voted Obama based upon hope and change.

Then in the post Nov 2008 election interim period we had the bailout by Bush and Paulson assisted by Obama and Geithner and that upset many fiscal conservatives and brought out their anger and the beginning of the organization. Rick Rick Santelli on CNBC had an on air rant about the need for a Boston Tea Party because of all the money and debt that they said was outrageously being spent. That soon turned into a huge disorganized anti Wall Street, anti-banker Tea Party that actually worried the GOP and Democratic Party because it threatened the status quo. The Parties had always been able to maintain a propaganda hold on their minions and now they had a massively angry bunch of fiscal conservatives who were blaming the banksters potentially going 3rd Party and that scared the hell out of the PTB. Slowly but surely Freedomworks headed by Koch and Armey infiltrated and organized a segment of the TP to "disarm and neuter" them to be obedient corporatists. That hijacking by Koch was what brought the TP more into the traditional GOP fold by Nov 2010. The Dems and media tried to portray the TP as racist idiots to discredit and weaken them. Instead the Dems could have been smart and brought many of them into the Party fold.

There are still many maverick Tea Party types out there that are fiscal conservatives but liberal in many other aspects. As Thom Hartmann recently alluded this is where common interest lies.