Tea party more than a temper tantrum

[Derechos]

This country is in a world of hurt if the likes of Michele Bachmann or Rick Perry wins the next election. It might be in greater trouble if Barack Obama does.

snip

So here is how his thinking goes. The genteel, pragmatic Republicanism of the past has been supplanted by a pitchforks and torches mentality, a funhouse mirror distortion of traditional conservatism. Meaning, of course, the tea party.

These are folks who don’t just support the death penalty; they cheer for executions. They don’t just oppose health care reform, they shout “Let him die” to the uninsured individual who faces life-threatening illness. They are the true believers: virulently anti-government, anti-Muslim, anti-gay, anti-science, anti-tax, anti-facts and, most of all, anti the coming demographic changes represented by a dark-skinned president with an African name. They are the people who want “their” country back.

The old guard of the GOP doesn’t much like them, but it likes winning so it keeps its mouth shut.

You might think Obama’s re-election would solve this, offering as it would stark repudiation of the politics of panic, paranoia and reactionary extremism this ideology represents. The problem is, these folks thrive on repudiation, on a free-floating conviction that they have been done wrong, cheated and mistreated by the tides of history and progress, change and demography. So there is every reason to believe, particularly given the weakness of the economy, that being repudiated in next year’s election would only make them redouble their intensity, confirming them as it would in their own victimhood.


Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/09/27/2428178/tea-party-more-than-a-temper-tantrum.html#ixzz1ZCPumUtv

[Ohio Joe]

1. Well Duh... It is an outbreak of open racism - nt

[Maccagirl]

2. As much as we would like them to-the Teabaggers are not going away.

This is not a revolution-it's a Regression, and it's been going on since Reagan.

[Warpy]

3. Well, they've largely gone away outside Dixie

if attendance figures for their meetings and rallies are to be believed. The naked assault against Social Security has done that.

The teabaggers are just smart enough to figure out they've been screwed without getting kissed for the last 35 years. They're just not smart enough to figure out who's been screwing them and turn to talk radio and Pox News for answers because those two formats are just as angry as they are.

Had the GOP not tipped its hand about Medicare and then Social Security, the numbers would be growing, not shrinking.

[ThoughtCriminal]

4. Screw-em. Segregationists threw tantrums

murdered, blew up churches, burned crosses in front yards. The teabaggers are direct descendants from these goons.

You still have to do what's right.