19 Comments

1. Scott Jacobs  •  Feb 10, 2010 @5:04 pm
   

   I really wish I could tell when you're being sarcastic…

2. Andrea  •  Feb 10, 2010 @6:11 pm
   

   It's up to 69% now.

3. Doug  •  Feb 10, 2010 @6:47 pm
   

   Assuming you are not being sarcastic, when they are wrong, they are wrong.

4. zarathud  •  Feb 10, 2010 @6:50 pm
   

   It's not fruitless but fruit-filled. You can almost taste the crazy.

5. Chris Berez  •  Feb 10, 2010 @9:18 pm
   

   No, Ezra's right.

   The tea party movement started out with many people reacting in anger to big government. It's now become a clone of the GOP under a different name. It is indeed full of racists and conspiracy nuts. It's also full of people that seek to marginalize someone like Ron Paul– a person to actually practices 99% of what they preach– while they worship someone like Sarah Palin.

   No matter what intentions the tea party movement started under, anyone who doesn't recognize what they are now is in serious, serious denial.

   And I say this as a libertarian.

   These people are a joke.

6. Chris Berez  •  Feb 10, 2010 @9:21 pm
   

   Sorry for the double post, but I just realized I should probably make it clear that I do not like Ron Paul, nor do I consider him a libertarian. I in no way support Ron Paul. I was just using him to illustrate the ridiculousness intellectual bankruptcy of the tea party movement.

7. Ken  •  Feb 11, 2010 @10:08 am
   

   I like many elements — or, at least, purported elements — of the movement: a wish for reduced taxes and reduced government spending, an ambition to downscale government dramatically, a deep-seated suspicion of politics and politicians, and a demand for openness and accountability.

   I just think that the timing of the movement is utter bullshit. The concept that the Obama administration represented a qualitatively new and different threat requiring frequent references to revolution, but the Bush administration didn't, is bullshit. The righteous intolerance of some forms of infringement upon liberty (such as the Nanny State and over-regulation and over-taxation) clashes badly with the indifference to or even support of other forms of tyranny (the security state, the war state, the government as an enforcer of Christian morality, etc.).

   I think there are many, many sincere people at the Tea Parties. But I think the organization of it is astroturf. And despite the occasional swipe at John McCain, it's difficult to see it as much more than a stalking horse for traditional Republican politics.

8. Bob  •  Feb 11, 2010 @12:24 pm
   

   At least they seem to have stopped calling themselves teabaggers.

9. Ezra  •  Feb 11, 2010 @12:33 pm
   

   I'm fascinated by the context of this poll. I mean if you look at the rest of the polls on Fox, they tend to manage the questions to get the answers they want. So, is Fox intentionally bagging on the teabaggers (thanks for reminding me Bob!)? I didn't see a lot of other polls where one would think that people like me were voting to skew the results. So, what was Fox trying to do with this poll?

   For the record, if the teabaggers want to convince me they aren't racist/conspiracy idiots maybe they should not have cheered like mad when the guy from Hawaii held up his birth certificate and said "this is what a real Hawaiian birth certificate looks like."

10. Al  •  Feb 12, 2010 @10:34 am
    

    Wasn't it Glen Beck who outed their gubernatorial candidate in Texas as someone who's in the "9/11 truth" movement? (Kids! Make your own "When Glen Beck is the voice of reason" joke here!)

11. Bob  •  Feb 12, 2010 @2:15 pm
    

    http://rawstory.com/2010/02/marvel-apologizes-screw-up-linking-tea-parties-racists/

    Apparently, Captain America hates teabaggers.

12. Scott Jacobs  •  Feb 12, 2010 @6:25 pm
    

    "For the record, if the teabaggers want to convince me they aren’t racist/conspiracy idiots maybe they should not have cheered like mad when the guy from Hawaii held up his birth certificate and said “this is what a real Hawaiian birth certificate looks like.”"

    So my affiliation with the Tea Party movement automatically makes me a racist?

    Take a wild guess as to what finger I'm holding up right now.

    And the one on my other hand? That's for the horse you rode in on.

13. Ken  •  Feb 12, 2010 @6:49 pm
    

    Scott, since you're a reasonable guy, I'd be interested in your take as someone who self-describes as affiliated with the movement — do you see it as something with a central set of ideas — a platform, if you will — or do you see it more like a loose affiliation of different groups with some interests in common?

14. gbasden  •  Feb 13, 2010 @2:29 am
    

    If I might add a question, how did you feel about the recent Tea Party convention? Do the speeches by Tom Tancredo and Sarah Palin capture the spirit of the Tea Party movement, and if not, why were they so warmly received?

15. Mark  •  Feb 13, 2010 @12:52 pm
    

    It's impossible to get the pulse of the Tea Party, because it doesn't exist in any real way. There's no platform, structure, membership or theme song. The event held was called the Tea Party convention but was organized under no authority whatsoever. The entire thing had a racist/xenophobic vibe to it; however, I don't know what this means for the 'movement'. Why am I giving the movement a pass for the shameful convention? Am I a teabagging apologist?

    Self-selection bias. The crowd was full of people who grossly overpaid to attend an event where Tom Tancredo and Sarah Palin were the headliners. They clapped because they got the product they paid for. People not enthusiastic for birth certificate/immigrant/terrorism hysteria wouldn't pay $500 to hear it. None of us did – proof positive.

    The media put a label on numerous actual trends out of laziness. I could host an event, call it Tea Party Convention. Could call it the True Tea Party, Tea Party (reform movement), or the People's Front of Judea. Any theme I want. Could invite Glenn Beck. Kim-Jong Il. Snooki from 'The Jersey Shore'. First night focuses on knitting; second night revolves around coke-fueled gay sex. As long as there's some anti-Obama rhetoric mixed in, the media reports it as Tea Party canon. Because they're lazy.

    And there is no Tea Party!

16. Mark  •  Feb 13, 2010 @1:10 pm
    

    Should add:

    I don't really support the teabag crew, but bad econometrics (as re: convention) provokes in me incandescent rage.

    Ken's right. People who started walking the limited-government road to Damascus on 1-21-2009 are not to be trusted. They're pants.

17. Paul  •  Feb 14, 2010 @10:07 am
    

    The problem with the Tea Party "movement," which as many have pointed out is a very loosely stitched coalition of groups, is the lack of a real, actionable set of solutions. As has been mentioned, there isn't any platform, because once you get past the generalized complaints that find common support ("less government", "lower taxes") this stuff always falls apart when it gets to the specifics — like WHERE do you start cutting. Then the subjectivity and turf protection kicks-in and if there's a real attempt to slash budgets, these same people always fight to save their own special program or cause that they feel government should do, and suddenly it's death [to the principle of small government] by a thousand cuts. Or failures to cut, as the case may be!. Beyond the racism and conspiracy theories, the Tea Party folks have a really adolescent sounding whine: "I like living at home, using my folks car, eating their food, but f**k those chores, that's bullshit!."

18. Ian  •  Feb 16, 2010 @12:51 am
    

    I consider myself a tea party American. By that I mean that all the current political parties have grown fat and corrupt, complacent with their yoke on power, and I am sick of them. The real tea party has no groups or members or conventions. We endorse no candidate with blind willfulness. It is an ideological movement, not a party structure. Where I live some "tea partiers" got together and formed a group and laid out ground rules for governance of the the group and who in the group was allowwed what and so on……they just didnt get it. They were establishing all the same old crap thats created this countries problems in the first place, a political infrastructure designed to be gamed. The republican party should acutally be more terrified at the tea party movement then the DNC, because the tea party exists out of sheer exasporation at their complete greedy incompetance and self-serving politics. The tea party movement has lost its name to radical groups from all over who mistake a dislike for big goverment with a dislike towards specific groups within the goverment. Any racists, xenophbes or other easily labeled and pre-packaged hate groups have no true teeth in the movement and anyone on the outside attempting to bring the two together is doing so with the intent to deceive and mislead. Tea Partiers care about your character and mettle, not your skin color, sex, place of birth or religion. Tea partiers believe in the right of self-determination over collective central planning. that last statement is the single best description.

    Anyone saying that all the people who joned the movement arent to be trusted just screams out their blatant hate and small minded arrogance towards anyone who challenges their opinion. Any "incandescant rage" no matter what its towards, is a clear indication of a persons inability to reason their way through an issue, falling back on ingrained and undefendable platforms, kicking and screaming without any substance to back themselves up.

19. Mark  •  Feb 16, 2010 @12:48 pm
    

    I feel like you didn't read what I said. I was defending you people. Your entire first paragraph restates my premise.

    If you're referring to my second comment when you mention "blatant hate and small minded arrogance towards anyone who challenges their opinion", I'll ignore the irony and propose a simple test:

    Who did you vote for in 2004?