Who is the Tea Party really?

[CHIMO]

Two years into Barack Obama's first term as president, the Beltway wisdom about the vocal opposition, the Tea Party movement, has solidified. The Tea Party, we're told over and over, is a break from the previous conservative movement that was dominated by the Christian right. This time, they're more libertarian in scope, not interested in social issues but just economic ones (as if the line between the two were so thick).

This impression is only solidified by the fact that among the big money players in the conservative movement right now is (likely atheist) Karl Rove with his group American Crossroads, while the deepest pockets behind Tea Party groups such as Americans for Prosperity, FreedomWorks and Citizens for a Sound Economy belong to the Koch brothers, who are radical libertarians who don't seem to care much one way or another about traditional social conservatism. So blinded by these big money groups, mainstream media continues to push the narrative that Tea Partiers don't care about social issues, and even that Republicans who hammer on about social issues will take an electoral hit.

It must have been quite a surprise, then, to have the new Republican-dominated House of Representatives, which rode in on a sea of Tea Party energy and funding, to immediately put most of their efforts into controlling the uteruses of America, through a series of bills that would defund Planned Parenthood, end all private insurance funding for abortion, and even allow doctors to refuse to save the lives of pregnant women if doing so would require performing an abortion.

Where's the "small government" and "fiscal conservatism" in that?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/feb/25/tea-party-movement-republicans

[Xipe Totec]

1. They are the shock dupes of the Republican Party n/t

[enuegii]

2. Karl Rove, "likely atheist," my ass...

he's the blue-eyed bastard boy of the Christian right.

[kimsarah]

3. The Tea Party is

I believe the Tea Party is the brainchild of a few pathetic, nearly-destroyed Republicans, and that it would have died a quicker death if our stupefied mass media had ignored it as it should have, following its initial fascination. I think the organizers were the likes of, in no particular order, Dick Armey, Karl Rove, Tom Delay; the financiers -- the Koch brothers, Rupert Murdoch, etc.; the duped politicians, aka Michele Bachmann, Jan Brewer, Jim DeMented, Rick Scott, Scott Walker, Sharon Angle, Rand Paul, etc., everyone associated with Fox News and Lush Limbo, and our media enablers, including the Associated Press -- who should know better.
Yes, it's been fun watching those of our spineless Dems trying to figure out how to respond to the Tea Party and make sense of it. In the meantime, the wacko poison is out of the bottle and it will be a treat in the next several months to watch how the GOP goes at each other's throats. And Mr. Boehner, where are the jobs?

[Populist_Prole]

4. Let's back into this: Reverse engineer if you will.

I mean the people, rhetoric, tactics aren't all that different than before the "tea party" was a known entity. If Rick Santelli was run over by a bus before he could proclaim his faux polulist rant and there was no actual "tea party" as such, we'd still be hearing the same strident snarling from the neocons and reactionaries. Sure, the Republican party would appear to have swung drastically even more to the right; but really, it's not like like they're bashful about it even now aren't they?

I don't really see where the cons would be a whole lot different without them, other than the faux colonial era garb bullshit.

Just my guess.

[fencesitter]

5. The "Tea Party" has always been around

I knew the same people with the same rants 20 years ago. It's just since Obama became nominated that they got corporate sponsorship, and along with internet access, got louder. The media love them because they're so loony and make great press, so now they're everywhere.

[BobbyBoring]

6. I think you're right

And the only explanation for the sudden explosion is racism. Pure and simple. It took the election of a 1/2 black man to make them realize that the country was fucked. Where were the cries about the constitution when Bush was shredding it? Where were the cries about fiscal responsibility when Bush was spending like a drunken sailor?

Than again, how does one explain Alan West??

More questions than answers

[Populist_Prole]

7. You're both right.

It's the "perfect storm" of people who were always nasty bastards combined with a realization of every racist fear of actually having a black president.

As to those aforementioned nasty bastards, another 20 years of living has added a curmudgeonly crustiness that just accelerates their inner bile.