by Timothy Reaves

Created on: April 29, 2010

“Every generation needs a new revolution.” - Thomas Jefferson

Not to be trite, but that oft-quoted phrase rings stronger than ever in the burgeoning anger of the populist uprising.  The Tea Party movement is just the most visible and persistent arm of an amoebic political creature that has been growing in size since the government completely abandoned the rule of law and since the rising generation came of age during the Bush administration.

To set the record straight, the first Tea Party protests took place while Bush was still in office.  They were libertarians and Ron Paul republicans, mostly young, web savvy college students who had been "cured" of their cynicism by the prospect of genuine reform.  When it became clear that Barack Obama (Change™) and the Democrats would come to power, traditional conservatives, fueled by right-wing talk radio and waking up from the cognitive dissonance of their support of the Bush administration, started to lash out in fear of a radical regime (as if the Bush regime wasn't radical).

The economic crisis has forced many apolitical people into political discourse that they barely understand.  Powerful establishment politicians sense their sometimes blind anger and fear, and want to capitalize on it.  The Tea Party is a powerful creature, patriotic at its best, proto-fascist at its worst, but it is largely a cross-section of middle-class America.

Regarding the claim (spoken or unspoken) that the Tea Party is mostly white and therefore racist: that is intellectual laziness.  The people who shop at Whole Foods are mostly white.  Does that make Whole Foods racist?  The analogy is imperfect, but the point is clear.  Of course there are racists in the Tea Party movement.  Of course Christian nationalists are using the movement as a platform to gain new membership (they go after the people who are angry but ignorant).  That does not say all that much about the overall movement.  I went to an anti-war protest in Washington D.C., and a girl handed me a Communist newsletter.  If I used the logic being used against the Tea Party I could call the anti-war movement Communist.  Then I could do a demographics check and see that the marchers are disproportionately white.  “Well gee-golly, they're Communist and racist," I could say as I pat myself on the back.

I don't think the Tea Party is all good.  I'm just glad to see people standing up for their political beliefs.  The movement is being co-opted, but that is unavoidable in a lot of ways.  Really it's just refreshing to see debate, even anger from a population awakened to the awful excesses and abuses of its government. 

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