by Josh Gloe

Created on: April 11, 2010

The basic idea of the Tea Party movement is to protest the general trend of government expansion and out-of-control government spending. This group of conservatives has been gaining momentum since soon after the election of President Barack Obama. The movement has taken off and gained lots of media attention, especially since recent health care reform debates. Popular politicians such as Sarah Palin have supported this conservative movement.

The purpose of Crash The Tea Party is, quite simply, to stop the Tea Party in its tracks.

An excerpt from the Crash The Tea Party describes their group as, "a nationwide network of Democrats, Republicans, and Independents who are all sick and tired of that loose affiliation of racists, homophobes, and morons; who constitute the fake grass-roots movement which calls itself 'The Tea Party.'"

They plan "to dismantle and demolish the Tea Party by any non-violent means necessary." To do this, they plan on operating (or rather, continuing to operate) within the Tea Party itself as an attempt to infiltrate the movement. Essentially, they are trying to make the Tea Party look like, as their website describes (quoted above), racists, homophobes, and morons.

They believe that they can make themselves look like they are part of the Tea Party, participate in their gatherings, and do different things to get the attention of the media in hopes that it will make the Tea Party look bad.

As their website says, "Whenever possible, we will act on behalf of the Tea Party in ways which exaggerate their least appealing qualities (misspelled protest signs, wild claims in TV interviews, etc.) to further distance them from mainstream America and damage the public's opinion of them. We will also use the inside information that we have gained in order to disrupt and derail their plans."

It is now difficult to know whether or not the racist comments, for example, that were supposedly shouted by Tea Party protestors on the day of the House vote on the health care reform bill, were shouted by actual members of the Tea Party, or by plants from the Crash The Tea Party movement.

This question must also be asked about other rare extremist Tea Party behaviors that have happened in the past, and that may happen in the future.

One must wonder why Crash The Tea Party is attempting to spread the word about their scheming. If they truly want the American public to be convinced that actual Tea Partiers are acting in such ways (stupid, redneck, racist, extremist, etc.) then it should be inquired why they have a website trying to publicly recruit so many followers. If the media catches wind of their own plot, then it very likely will fail.

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