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Tea Party anger not new
What is the Tea Party?
I think the Tea Party is a group of people angry at the government and helped along in their protestations by the media.
They are a group of people who feel marginalized and forgotten, and they are a group of people who find it hard to accept and adapt to the changes that are happening almost daily in American society.
That is why they cry that they want their country back.
Will Bunch, in his book "Backlash," notes that there is a "paranoid style in American life," something that has been extant since there was an America. Whenever there have been changes advocated for America, changes that would help so-called marginalized people, there have been cries of anger and protest. It happened when President Johnson pushed for passage of the Voting Rights Act. People who pushed for it were called "Communists" and "Socialists."
The late Sen. Strom Thurmond said that the "Democratic Party has abandoned the people" as he angrily derided proponents for the passage of the Civil Rights Act. Taylor Branch in his book "Pillar of Fire, recalls Thurmond saying that "the Democratic Party has invaded the private lives of people ....and succored and assisted our Communist enemies ...worships at the throne of power and materialism ...and protected the Supreme Court in a reign of judicial tyranny."
Angry Christians said, as the swirl around the passage of the Civil Rights Act grew more powerful, said that the expected bill exempted churches from mandatory integration. The late Gov. George Wallace, angry even at the thought of the passage of a civil rights bill, demanded that the Democrats repeal the law and "foretold otherwise there would be an uprising on par with the revolt against Reconstruction," Branch writes.
Bunch notes in his book that John Birch Society founder Robert Welch, "called ex-president Dwight Eisenhower a possible conscious, dedicated agent of the Communist Conspiracy."
In other words, what we are seeing today is not new. The Tea Party, the Tea Party Patriots, and probably more groups than we even know about, have been angry for a long time and their anger mounts when changes come that benefit people of this society whom this party feels have been given preferential treatment.
At the heart of it all is race; as President Abraham Lincoln mused, it is always, somehow, about race. "Our country" is a euphemism for a country where white people, primarily white men, were in power and everyone else was in their place. These Tea Party advocates are not interested in "the least of these." Their values seem not so steeped in the Gospels of Jesus the Christ, but rather in racial and sociological ideology, couched as religion.
Religious writer and historian Karen Armstrong said that whenever a religious group feels threatened, when change comes too quickly or abruptly, when the power of this group is too deeply challenged, there is always a backlash, a return to fundamentalism.
Fundamentalism represents a nice, tight box where everyone fits in designated slots. It is no surprise, then, that Tea Party advocates would latch onto and become partners with, the values component of the Republican Party. There is an African American man in the highest office of the country who was able to push through a law that will help more of "the least of these." His actions are seen as socialist; he is called a Nazi, and the only protection to be had is "our country," the country of the previous century.
This group of angry people is, again, no new thing. New Gingrich capitalized on the spirit of anger, calling out the "angry white men." The difference between the anger that erupted when FDR or Eisenhower or Johnson introduced legislation that sought to level the playing field between the haves and have nots is that now there is the internet and there is Fox News.
The angry have a voice and a platform on which to have their voices heard.
It would be a mistake for Americans to dismiss the Tea Party of any of the angry Americans as a fringe group. No, they are mainstream, and this changing America will have to change yet again, in spite of being called socialists and worse.
The values voters will not stand up for "the least of these," whom they deem to be a drain on the American economy, and the Tea Party will certainly not lift a banner to help them. There will have to be a New American Party, a party where all these components of change deal with each other...and again, America will never again be the same.
By
Susan K. Smith
|
September 22, 2010; 3:32 PM ET
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Posted by: billolson6 | September 27, 2010 3:19 PM
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The tea party has no answers to our problems, the tea party IS our problem. The tea party is just a sad group of old, white, racist bigots who are all going to die naturally very soon so they have NOTHING to say about our future. They can't stand the fact that we have a black president and when they howl "TAKE BACK AMERICA!!!" they mean to take it back from the minorities. They represent only the top 3% richest Americans so they are our cultural enemies. Barrack, don't dignify those low lifes by asking them for suggestions. Mark Montgomery boboberg@nyc.rr.com
Posted by: boboberg | September 24, 2010 3:50 AM
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I'm sorry, but you have to do better than that. People have stood up to say they're being taxed into oblivion and the best you can do is call them racists. They demand accountability of their representatives, and adherence to the constitution, and that translates to bigotry in your mind? Sorry, but I can't connect those dots.
Posted by: 72whiskeyyankee | September 23, 2010 2:48 PM
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I'm so happy that you have pointed out that this is not a new thing; whenever there has been forward progress and/or change to help 'the poor' (or whatever you want to call this group), there has always been backlash.
I'm reminded that despite not having the full support of everyone things like the Transatlantic Slave Trade and the Holocaust still happened. We can claim that that was the past... that we have all transcended... that those were the actions of an 'ignorant' people etc. all we want.
HowThe truth remains that unlike what some headlines announced when President Obama was elected, we have not reached a post racial society. This is clear from the outright racialized comments made about President Obama and the First Lady; it is apparent in the rhetoric of exclusivity within the Tea Party and also by the overwhelming silence of all others. It's as if we're all waiting for someone else to say something.... so we don't have to. yeah...well... Evil happens when good people (say and) do nothing...
The angry retorts and catch phrases of the tea party are all over the media and the rest of 'us' are curiously silent.
what does that say about 'us'?
Posted by: patois2 | September 23, 2010 1:49 PM
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Well said.
Posted by: jaeschbury | September 23, 2010 1:39 PM
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Susan has totally missed the point of the Tea Party. Race has nothing to do with our government spending being out of control! Bush, Obama they are all the same. I don't care if they are black, white, or purple! Giving hundreds of billions of dollars to crooks in the banking industry, out of control government pensions, states issuing bonds under fraudulent financial statements and the SEC doing nothing about it (New Jersey), and on, and on, has nothing to do with race! It seems those who do not want to deal with the hard issues of government financial responsibility are using race as a smoke screen. Our government spending out of control hurts us all regardless of color, creed, or sexual orientation.