When one analyzes the “anger” and “frustration” of the Tea Party Movement and Freedom Works Movement, which began in February 2009, one has to wonder would the same rise of these movements have occurred if John McCain had been elected President?
It is clear that the answer would be No. While there is no way that our economy would have been any better than it is now, if McCain had been in the White House, the difference is that we have an African American President in the White House! Either McCain would have done much the same thing along the vein of what George W. Bush was doing in his last months in office to deal with the economic crisis, or had he done nothing to stimulate the economy, we would be now in a Great Depression Number 2 rather than a Great Recession! But at least we would have a WHITE President, and the country would be “safe”!
It is not as if Barack Obama CREATED this economic collapse! It was caused by LACK of regulation under Republican control of both houses of Congress and the White House for six years. Obama INHERITED this mess, rather than creating it!
Why is it these discontented “folks” did not rise up in anger and frustration over the wild spending on two wars and a “socialist” Medicare Part D prescription plan during the Bush Administration? Why is it that doubling of the national debt under George W. Bush did not cause outrage among these people? Why is it that all of a sudden when an African American President, with the backing of almost 54 percent of the American people, the biggest margin since 1988, takes the oath, all of a sudden, there is awareness of how terrible things are, and they are totally the fault of someone who was not in power and did not have authority to do anything to prevent it?
It is quite clear and obvious that all of the attacks on Obama as a “socialist”, an “illegal immigrant from Kenya”, as a “racist” and a “Hitler” is motivated by anger that we finally have someone in the White House who is there for ALL of the people, not just the privileged upper class and the corporate classes! And again he is African American! What a horrible tragedy, isn’t it, in the mind of these bigots!
The Republican party and conservative ideology are the cause of this collapse of the American economy and society, just as it was in the 1920s, and again, we have to look to the Democrats and progressive values to restore America to a condition of promoting equality of opportunity and hope in the future, now under Barack Obama, as then under Franklin D. Roosevelt, who suffered the same ideological attacks, but is now remembered for his greatness, while his critics are forgotten or recalled as the “lunatic fringe”!
The Tea Party Movement and the Freedom Works Movement are indeed the lunatic fringe of today, groups with no principles or ideals except their own advancement and aggrandizement!
You are a fuckin idjit! How’s it look now, 8 months later. Ur libs are about to run into a meat grinder of a mid-term election 🙂
Wow ive never seen such bullshit in my life!!! The dems are the real problem in this country! Go jump off a bridge u retarded hippie!
man who ever left those boges messages about the demacrats you guys are so selfish because to me this demicrat and republican thing is just about those who want equiality and even the selflessness to help others (the demicrats) and those who want to increase them selves who are selfish greedy liars that just want to walk up to your door and rob you (the repuclicans). to me there is Just one choice,DEMICRATS, screw the republicans, screw MCcain, screw Serra palin, and to hell with u people who think that the demicrats can’t brng america up in the world and make us stronger.
Learn to spell, first off. I found a lot of spelling errors in your essay. Second, people have always been aware of the problems in America. You were probably the one complaining about Bush when he was in office and all of the problems he was causing. It’s not just President Obama.
Also, the reason people don’t like Obama in office is NOT because he is black. It’s because the economy sucks and isn’t getting better fast enough.
Liberals are always complaining too much.
Wow I’m only 14 and i can still see all the irony in these comments. The person defending the TEA party movement(Haily)said that liberals complain too much.Really!!! These kind of comments make me sad.
Professor Feinman,
What are your thoughts: Did the Tea Party truly begin as a grassroots movement, or did it spring from the machinations of some right wing think tank? The fanfare and support that the Tea Party received from Fox News alone makes it appear to have been a heavily top-down generated movement.
I think, Brent, it is clear, that the Tea Party Movement was generated by the Koch Brothers, Fox News Channel, and other right wing forces, but knew how to appeal to lower and middle class people struggling from the Great Recession, and had the resources to help turn the GOP into a majority in the House of Representatives!
All righ winger scumbags are just that. In my own experience as a liberal Dem,I have heard Right winger start to complain with in just a few short weeks after Obama took office start calling him Obummer this and that. The right wingers are the most negative, hate filled biggots of any group of people in this country ! This president was handed a bag of dog crap from the start. Every right winger in this country started to blame him for everything before he even took office! How insane is that?! I call it like it is. Every right winger not just hated the fact that a Democrat took office but a Black Democrat! The right wingers were so enraged they started the TEA party as a hatred vehicle towards the newly elected Black president in February 2009. Do you think if Mc Cain won , would the Tea party have momentum? Doubt very much so.
The right wingers always criticize the president in a derogatory manner even out side of politics. Yet some how everything Obama is or does come to becomes an issue like his Birth, his religion,his background and list goes on.You need to get over the fact that he is no of those things you read or hear only on FOX news- the most bias and racist program on TV ! Bottom line is that you and every right winger failed to realize the fact that this country was RAPED for the last 8 years and now you want to blame a Black man for it. Bush and his cronies did such a deep profound damaged to this country, that the residual effects are still going on for years to come. Bush doubled the defect during his tenure, the right raised the debt ceiling 7 freaking times(Obama cant get 1) ,You had deregulation of the financial system, 3 extremely expensive wars valued in lives and money. ALL for what? To over throw an Iraqi regime that Saudi wanted out, at our expense. Bush was in cahoots with the Saudi on that one. Remember weapons of mass destruction ! The biggest lie on the American public ever created by a president. Remember Haliburton owned by Dick Cheney. They got Billions of dollars in government contracts to go into Iraq. Signed by the president. Billions of Your money and mines was literately siphoned out of this county via a war with Iraq into the pockets of the president, vice president and their friends like the Saudis. Why is every right winger so utterly blind to the truth of what happened then and that still has a profound residual effect to this every day? Obama had nothing to do with past polices that still go unchanged, like the tax breaks for cooperation’s and the rich? Obama has been given the short end of the stick all thanks to the extreme right wing agenda. Its their way or the highway. They will never accept full responsibility of the audacious Raping of the last decade and now they want to Blame a black man for it!
The strange thing is that I’ve been a part of the TEA party movement since at least 2007, and named as such. Before that, I was part of disconnected discussions and groups of fiscal conservatives that had no real banner. While many for decades have gone as “libertarian”, that was a bit fringe for me. I have clear memories of the last presidency. We couldn’t stand Bush and what he was doing as a “compassionate conservative” was as bad as any lib. Have you forgotten how low Bush’s approval ratings became? Were those low numbers due to racism? No, they were due to people like me.
Sure, it’s true – when the democrats took control in 2006 – that’s when things really started getting bad in the country. As for Bush, he just kept signing whatever crap they sent him instead of whipping out that veto pen.
Obama is a fairly late-comer to the ire of the TEA party, but I can understand why it would be so important to cast him as the spark for the larger movement. Without that association, the daily charges of racism levied against a simple anti-spending message ring as hollow as they are.
There are racists everywhere. I’ll say the TEA party has half as many as the democratic party. If you want proof, look at the 20 million votes that Bush Sr. lost to Perot. Were they racists? Look at the 37 million fiscal conservatives that sat out the election for McCain. Also racist? Do you not see that the pool of fiscal voters has always been there?
Hell, look at the 70% approval rating for Obama on day 1. Can any credible “professor” claim that 100% of those who didn’t approve of Obama on day one were racist? Of course not. Even to assume half (that’s 15% for the anti-math set) would be an unjustifiable claim to make without totally ignoring principled party and philosophical disagreement.
Staring us in the face is the glaring *lack* of racism experienced by this president. Oh racism is out there, but the remarkable thing is that the numbers involved are so very tiny. Much smaller than most pundits projected, but I can appreciate the desire to pretend the bogey man is out there.
Yes, I can see why “the machine” is feeling that it has got to manufacture some contradictory truth. Charges of racism have been the bread and butter of those invested in demonizing any legitimate opposition… while excusing plunging approval ratings. Fudging the start date for the TEA party movement is just part of the bigger lie. Thanks to the web, big lies like this can be mapped and tracked and every point discredited… and the evidence reposted.
Check the date on this, “prof”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKZmIzEMUN8
Ooops. Just like that, another attempt to manufacture evidence of racism is exposed as a bald-faced lie. I am Jack’s complete lack of surprise. Let me know if you need further tutoring in the facts around you.
The modern Tea Party movement started on Dec 16, 2007. It was an anti war, anti cronny capitalism, anti Federal Reserve movement. It was also a protest against the policies of gw bush, such as the patriot act, undeclared wars, human rights violations etc. Look up Ron Paul Tea Party 2007.
It’s now 2013 and I have read this article again to see if it still rings true. It does. The Tea Party may have started in 2007 or even earlier for mainly fiscal concerns. But it has grown and turned into a movement that is used by all sorts of groups to show their total hatred for Pres Obama. I know they say it’s not because he is black and that may well be true. But they will never be able to convience a large segement of this country that John McCain would have been treated like they have treated Pres Obama. If they would only take some time to look at what his policies and leadership have accomplished since he took office they would be able to see he has completed a lot of what they stand for in their movement. The federal government has been reduced in size. Immigration policies are being enforced by the Obama admin more than any other admin in the past 20 years. The stock mkt has gained back what it lost under Pres Bush and is now back to it’s highest level in more than 5 years. He has ended the war in Iraq and brought those troops home and the Afgan war will end in 2014. For the 12st time in 10 years america will not be in a war anywhere in the world. Have any idea how much money that will save? Just stop finding trouble with Pres Obama and take a look at what he has really accomplished.