You mean… They’re nothing but a slightly rebranded Republicans?!! well, I never!

It says something about people’s attention span that it was necessary to commission this poll in the first place, I think.

Here is an amusing/scary Matt Taibbi article on the Tea Party

You don’t need to misquote him – he’s a homophobe

So they’re a bunch of reactionary people with strong religious beliefs. So what?
They could attract all kinds of people who are actually mainstream Americans.

I know that this link I’m about to do is terribly unpopular with some of the people on LC – but it makes more sense to me than most of the stuff I hear on here.
Though I don’t have E4 at the moment so I can’t watch Jon Stewart’s Daily Show.
And because of that I realise that I’m out of the loop.

In the Tea Party debate, who’s really acting crazy?
Liberal activists’ dismissal of the Tea Party as ‘insane’ only shows how cut-off they are from the American masses.

http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/9657/

And they’re highly principled folks – Sharron Angle has railed against Government mandated health care, while being in receipt of … Government mandated health care!

As for Christine O’Donnell, well, every week Bill Maher plays another clip of her on his late 90s show Politically Incorrect. He’s got 40+ of them I think (Sunny has already shown one of these, the one with Eddie Izzard).

Nearly two-thirds (63%) say abortion should be illegal in all or most cases…

Among the more than 8-in-10 (81%) who identify as Christian…

They’re surely not religious fundamentalists, then.

Sunny,

Considering the growth of the movement in the US, is there any polling to show whether the religious/social conservative/downright loony elements of the movement are growing, stable or shrinking as a proportion? Because my reading is that they are gaining momentum, that they are cooperating with the real radical right in the US (you know – the non-religious, non-socially conservative loonies ) and that they are making inroads into mainstream Republican and Democrat territory (note that Democrat’s are not generally particularly left wing by our standards, and can be very socially conservative).

Also note that the Tea Party (like most US political movements) seem to revere the Constitution – and therefore may have illiberal views themselves, and may oppose certain laws (and certainly federal laws) but this does not mean they assume their views override the Constitutional rights of others. Indeed, much of their complaint is against federal government overriding their rights and especially state rights.

The tea party and the religious right are merging into one. Not very difficult since most of the tea party voted for Bush, and hold right Christian fundi views.

The whole tea party movement is a wonderful far right wing astro turf out fit that is funded by corporate America and organised by Dick Armey a former Republican politician, and now big corporate lobbyist.

The tea party activist wants govt to stop interfering in their lives Err, except when they want the govt to ban gays, and abortion, and force prayer on school children. Oh, and most of them want to keep social security and Medicare which are not govt programmes apparently. The stupid it burns.

“Nearly two-thirds (63%) say abortion should be illegal in all or most cases”

There are plenty of libertarians who are anti-abortion on the basis that it harms the unborn child. This isn’t really a libertarian/authoritarian issue but a “at what stage is a human alive” issue.

The Matt Taibbi article was hilarious. The only thing that motivates the Tea Party is a Democrat is in the White House and a non-white one just to up the rage a notch. They are the John Birchers of this generation. Their grandparents went to lynchings and they go to Tea Party rallies. The Christian Right can’t coalesce with the Tea Party, they are the fecking Tea Party all manipulated by billionaires. This is a good blog post pointing out they are only a modern manifestation of an old story.

http://motherjones.com/politics/2010/08/history-of-the-tea-party?page=1

Watchman @7

and especially state rights

This is the part about various US libertarians that baffles me, they seem to hold the position that if the federal government overrides the rights of individuals, it’s bad, but if a state does it, it’s fine.
The cynic in me wonders if it has anything to do with the political machinery of the individual states being easier to manipulate than the federal government as a whole.

“In Kentucky, tea party Republican Rand Paul, a candidate for Senate, opposes …. a proposed mosque near ground zero in New York City.”

Erm, I thought it wasn’t a mosque but a cultural centre. Have you fallen into their trap here that if they say something often enough then we all start to believe it, even though it’s wrong?

@12 Gaf the Horse: Mosque versus cultural centre.

Initially, I thought the same thing. But Sunny is just cut and pasting from the original AP article. There is an attribution, but the fact that the bullet points are “quotes” could be clearer.

I like the one who started her election run by saying “I’m not a witch” America you are headed for shit street.

Progressives still haven’t got a clue and are going to find out just how much normal people hate their extremist and overreaching control freak policies on Nov 2.

Richard W I find your post abusive considering this blog has a ‘tight comments policy’… I am offended. Highly.

hey Richard, your all right. Shine on.

@4 damon

Sadly it does seem that the Tea Part movement DOES represent a fair proportion of the American masses, and that many more on the mainstream right (even if not on the wingnut level) sympathise with at least some of the Tea Party platform.

The challenge for those on the progressive left here, or even concerned “liberals” in the US who wouldn’t self-identify as left of centre, is how to deal with the undoubted threat such a movement poses.

Of course if the Tea Party movement splits the right wing vote, it could work in the Democrats favour.

Beware however of falling into the lazy, morally neutral position inherent in the quote that liberal opponents of the Tea Party movement are simply out of touch, or don’t understand what “ordinary” Americans want. Ordinary Germans voted the NSDAP into power. Some political movements are just wrong; the Tea Party movement may not be as loathsome as the NSDAP but it certainly seems to be fishing in the same waters.

“the Tea Party movement may not be as loathsome as the NSDAP but it certainly seems to be fishing in the same waters.”

The Tea Party movement contains a large number of libertarians who want the state to bugger off and leave them alone. Don’t see how that’s similar to the NSDAP which was all about state control and regulation.

19

I somehow doubt the NSDAP membership (still less all of those who voted for them) consisted solely of convinced and fanatical believers in “state control and regulation”.

I’m sure there are many libertarians within the Tea Party movement, but many also probably view the ideology as something of a pick and mix buffet, and would quite happily susbscribe to libertarian ideals in areas where it suited them (such as those “who want the state to bugger off and leave them alone”), and those which are anything BUT libertarian and wouldn’t have been out of place in a Nuremberg rally.

They say they are pro life but it seems they are anti human. How can they say they are pro life but on the other hand deny certain sections of humanity not to have a life or a happy one at that.

21

Pro-life and pro death penalty no doubt? So life is always sacred…except in general in the case of those too poor and non-white to afford decent defence counsel to get them off?

What happened to the Coffee party?

Steve M,

Check carefully – you’ll find that there are Tea Party supporters who support and oppose abortion (it is worth pointing out there are Democrats and even Labour party members who oppose abortion also – this is a personal view not a political label to all but a few feminists and (who are a lot more stupid and dogmatic) religious nutjobs). Likewise the death penalty.

But, the point here is that the Tea Party is united in seeing Federal government making decisions about such things as wrong – as taking power that is not rightly in the hands of federal government into their own hands. The unifying factor is neither racism (some are undoubtedly racist, others are undoubtedly not – Ron Paul for example) nor religion (there is no prayer ceremony at Tea Party meetings – although I believe they sing the National Anthem and would probably bow in reverence to the constitution – being an American patriot seems somewhat religious to me) nor hatred of others. It is simply that they oppose federal control because it is less responsive and less democratic. To see the Tea Party as racist and religious, simply because many of its members are white and religious is not only offensive but stupid – it ignores their arguments, when those they try to win over are not ignoring them.

If you really do not like what the Tea Party represents than you should engage with their ideas, not try to make assumptions from opinion polls to denigrate the movement. But then again, that might require engagment and argument, and increasingly I wonder whether the left still have arguments to make.

What happened to the Coffee party?

I can see this happening – it would be a handy label for the coffee-drinking metropolitan elite that the tea partyers like to see as running the US (or the UK for that matter).

Although it would immediately faction into hardcore (expresso) and moderate (latte) factions, with an awkward and inexplicable hazlenut syrup movement confusing everyone.

‘ The unifying factor is neither racism (some are undoubtedly racist, others are undoubtedly not – Ron Paul ‘

Err, Ron Paul is a racist.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x408cr_ron-pauls-racist-quotes_news

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/5/15/124912/740

http://newsone.com/nation/casey-gane-mccalla/ron-pauls-racist-newsletters-revealed/

24

“If you really do not like what the Tea Party represents than you should engage with their ideas, not try to make assumptions from opinion polls to denigrate the movement. But then again, that might require engagment and argument, and increasingly I wonder whether the left still have arguments to make.”

Hmmnnnn… I wonder. If it walks like a duck, and it quacks…. then…?

You don’t have to be the US equivalent of a Kremlinoligist to see that the Tea Party movement is diffuse, and represents different opinions. That being said, it’s a bit of a stretch to expect those outside the USA already horrified by the neo-con excesses of Bush and the supposedly “mainstream” Republicans to take a sanguine view of the rise of the Tea Party movement.

No doubt there are plenty of well meaning (if in my view misguided) people in the Tea Party movement…but much the same could be said of many who became involved in movements which can’t be seen as anything other than deeply sinister.

As others have pointed out, US history is replete with “know nothing” movements who gloried in their narrow, individualistic interpretations of democracy… frequently at the expense of their bogey man de jour, whether the Irish, Italians, Catholics, Blacks, Socialists, Jews, Federal government, Liberals etc, etc.

Engage with them by all means, but never forget that however much they try to sugar coat their ideology, it is deeply flawed.

25

Waht about the “ristretto” wing of the Coffee Party

Galen10,

I’m quite happy to accept this is a know-nothing movement in a glorious US tradition. And as such it is worth admitting that it will probably end up hijacked by one particular interest group – my guess is that it will be the religious right – but that this will not happen immediately. Most of these movements go through the first electoral cycle with their purpose and anger pretty much unappeased, then get bogged down and fall into the hands of the extremists.

So if you say the Tea Party is likely to be in future an extremist organisation (assuming that unlike say the Jacksonite Democrats or the Republicans, both of whom originate in the same sort of popular movement, it doesn’t become mainstream) I would agree with you. If you say it is now, I would say you are too early on the evolution of a know-nothing movement.

What’s ironic is that I’ve seen analysis which says that TP members see the social conservatism as taking a back seat to the fiscal conservatism yet the leading candidates elected in the primaries are being defined by their extreme social conservatism. This may cost the RepThugs Senate and even House majorities as this turns off many independents and many Democrat candidates are zeroing in on it – particularly with women.

Ron Paul is not a racist. Nor is he representative of the Tea Party candidates mentioned on this page.