The two leading conservative women in the Republican Party, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin and Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, will be the leading speakers at the first National Tea Party Convention to be held in Nashville in February.
The Tea Party movement is a rebellion of people who are appealed to by the far right, and it represents the disintegration of America going on in the heartland of this nation.
Claiming to be religious and patriotic, this movement has promoted racism, anti semitism, anti immigrant views, and has encouraged fear and hysteria in people who are easily manipulated and very gullible, that somehow there are simple answers to everything, and that Barack Obama is the enemy, rather than the right wing influences under George W. Bush that actually caused the economic and social mess we are now in .
Just cut taxes, fight health care reform, promote religion and the military, and the country will be saved from imminent disaster, according to the ideologues who have organized this movement.
The one thing this convention will do is draw more attention to the two conservative women heroines, both of whom lack credibility, but to believe that either or both have any clue as to what needs to be done to restore America, one has to be deranged! 🙂
Ronald, I’d like to add to your definition of the Tea Party movement and perhaps modify it a bit: “The Tea Party movement is a rebellion of people who are appealed to by the far right, and it represents the disintegration of America going on in the heartland of this nation.”
It’s important to mention that, at least in the beginning, the “tea-baggers” were financed by Americans for Prosperity (AFP), a pro-industry lobbying group that once helped to defeat cigarette taxes and clean indoor air laws. Now they are working on behalf of the insurance industry to defeat health care reform. There may be other right wing groups behind the movement now. One that concerns me, although there is no evidence that they are associated with the Tea Party movement, is the Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI), the neo-conservative think tank that replaced the Project for a New American Century (PNAC). FPI is more subtle than PNAC (e.g., there is no talk about a “new Pearl Harbor†or “unilateral, preemptive action†because those things are alarming), but they are “free-market†empire-builders just the same. I worry about this group. Members seem to be biding their time right now, but if they decide to start pushing their line of propaganda, they will be formidable opponents and Sarah Palin or Michele Bachmann could translate their intellectual arguments into simple rhetoric that tea-baggers could easily grab and run with. More importantly, if FPI started operating on another front, they might be able to steal well-educated, but disillusioned, Americans away from Obama and put the neo-cons back in power. That’s really scary.
One other point (my post was getting too long so I thought I’d better start another). Your description of the movement as “the disintegration of America going on in the heartland of this nation” is eloquent, but I’m not sure I agree with it. I think I would substitute “alienation†for “disintegration.†Tea-baggers can be downright ugly, but I think they’re suffering from shell shock. This group in the heartland never really adjusted to the rapid changes that took place in the 20th century much less the 21st. Urban values, intellectual and institutional complexity, multiculturalism, and diversity seem alien to them and Obama represents all that. With him in the White House, they are constantly reminded that their familiar world has collapsed around them, and now they are striking out by falling back on traditional values and eliminating “alien†influence. The same thing happened in the 1920s. Perhaps the tea-baggers are acting out of fear — fear of losing their jobs, their traditional values, their familiar surroundings. Nevertheless, they are easily manipulated and can be dangerous. Obama’s guns and religion remark was actually correct, although he had to retract it to keep peace.
I think it was Chris Matthews, or one of the other MSNBC commentators, who explained the success of Sarah Palin’s book by pointing to her victimization. She portrays herself as a victim — of the liberal media, of ethics committees, of political opponents. Michele Bachmann does this as well. Tea-baggers feel victimized too — by the economy, by the lack of opportunity, by the collapse of a world that was once very familiar to them. As a consequence, they identify with these politicians. With enough money behind them, could they win an election to high office? I certainly hope not. At the moment, I think the right wing is making a lot of noise, but is not that large in numbers. With a few successes, especially ones involving the economy and jobs, Obama just might be able to neutralize them.