Tea Party a Shadow of its Former Self

No, lady, you don't. If you even know where Benghazi
is, you just want it to be bad for the President.
Image from source, Salon.

 

I really like the story below for several reasons. The reminder that the Tea Party movement is only 4 years old, and that it pretty much flamed out fairly quickly. Now, I'm sure that actual tea baggers (yes, I will continue to use that phrase when I'm 90) would find much to squawk about in the article. But the Salon piece is actually fairly mild and respectful. For instance, they didn't use the phrase "tea baggers."

They also don't go into the astro-turfy, faux grass-roots nature of the Tea Party, the fact that as a group, they were just re-branded conservatives, or the inherent, barely concealed racism of the whole enterprise. Yeah, I said it. Tell me a group that rose up immediately after President Obama was inaugurated, wanting to "take their country back," were fighting the policies of a man who'd barely enacted any yet. Sure, what else've you got?

[Excerpt]

The Tea Party’s sad, nostalgic reunion tour 

Remember way back to 2010? When the Black Eyed Peas’ “Boom Boom Pow” was tearing up the charts and a hot new upstart political movement called the Tea Party was striking fear into socialists everywhere? What began on Tax Day in 2009 hit a high-water mark just 18 months later with a massive rally on the National Mall organized by Glenn Beck (which later proved to be the beginning of the end of the Tea Party’s purpose for existing: massive anti-government rallies of colorful, flag-waving patriots). There’s no question the conservative revival in the GOP has remade the party inside Washington, but the Gadsden flags were rolled up and the tricorn hats put away as the outsider movement honed its insider game. . .

Read more at: Salon