What’s Going On In The Tea Party Movement Is Stronger Than Just Palin
By Susan Thompson on February 16, 2010, 7:23 amThe US economy has been pretty grim for the last couple of years. Many people are unemployed and many are also becoming aggravated with the way that their lives are going. The Tea Party Movement is much stronger than just Sarah Palin. Sarah Palin has to cater to this movement because if she does not then she will lose her appeal to her base. Palin makes a lot of money speaking at Tea Party related functions and needs to make them happy to stay in the limelight.
Is Race The Motivation For This Tea Party Movement
Many speakers at tea party movement functions have made comments about President Obama that seem to be somewhat racially motivated. Many protesters talk about wanting their country back. They throw out word like traitor, radical, and Muslim to scare others into thinking that the president is an evil man who is threatening their way of life. Making people afraid causes mass hysteria and makes people join the cause out of shear panic. Most people who join the movement have never even done any homework on the actions that the Obama Administration has taken since entering office over a year ago. Being educated on matters of policy does not seem to be a crucial element to this particular grassroots movement.
Nothing Has Really Changed That Much For Consumers Since Obama Took Office
Many tea party protesters keep talking about how bad things have become and how they are afraid that President Obama is too much of a socialist. They call him a socialist and even compare him to Adolf Hitler who ordered the death of millions of Jewish people. President Obama has tried to pass legislation to reform the health care system. Most tea bag movement protesters are middle class people who say that they do not want the government running their health care system. However, these same people want to keep their Medicare which is a government run program. They then accuse the president of being a socialist or a radical for wanting to offer these same health benefits to others who have no insurance. In order for the Tea Party Movement to lessen its hold on the ears of US citizens, more needs to be done to educate the public on legislation. Most people have never even read one page of a bill yet they believe everything that they read on blogs and hear on talk radio. When people stop believing everything they read and hear then they can make an informed decision on political issues instead of just joining a group.
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Sarah Palin is an opportunist. Why can’t people see that. She couldn’t even serve out her term at Governor of Alaska, and to think she could have been a heartbeat away from the President of the United States is beyond me. Please, Americans, pay attention to those that have their own welfare above the welfare of the public.
Until this party starts criticizing BOTH parties ( and not just Democrats) it will be seen as the rabid-dog wing of the Republican Party.
Having Palin as the head also shows a lack of credibility.
Hey, we understand the anger, but what, exactly, DO they stand for?
Hmm… I like how this piece is full of facts and how in depth the author researched this piece.
How many disjointed sentences does it take to say that Tea Partiers are bigoted, fear mongering hypocrites? Wow I just did it in one.
“Most people who join the movement have never even done any homework on the actions that the Obama Administration has taken since entering office over a year ago. Being educated on matters of policy does not seem to be a crucial element to this particular grassroots movement.”
What?…. Mommy always taught me not to spend money you don’t have. Why is not blowing the Taxpayer money on crap we don’t WANT or NEED a difficult concept for Obama to grasp? Them dumb Tea Party people seem to haveno problem understanding that. Common sense isn’t a God given right or Taught in the Most Liberal Universities, and it is clearly the most elusive quality that anyone in the Obama Adminstration has yet to latch onto. Average people with common sense “live within their means” I’ve yet too see a liberal democrat who isn’t trying to spend Other Peoples money on more entitlement programs and hit those nasty job providers (Rick Folk) with more taxes. We can’t Tax and punish our way back to Fiscal Health.
This mis-characterizes the Tea Party movement. Many have not only read, but analyzed the health care bills – both the house and senate versions -and had third party validations that they were job killers, will raise taxes, and decrease quality of health care for many.
Other issues of importance include the economy – something of extreme importance to most citizens, but only recently to Obama and Congress. Tea Party members believe we need a policy that encourages lending, reduces taxes and props up small business. Current legislation penalizes banks and small businesses and increases taxes in hidden ways (by taxing businesses who pass costs on to consumers).
What this country needs is open political discussion and leverage against a two party system. Movements like the Tea Party provide that. You should encourage any effort that brings balance to the polarized political atmosphere in Washington, not degrade it.
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The real problem is that people are scared. they see our government bailing out the banks, Wall Street, automobile companies and yet they have nothing but higher unemployment to show for it while Wall Street and the large banks are giving record bonuses to the same people that heavily contributed to this mess. Would it have been any worse to let these greedy institutions fail and spend the money on its citizens? No wonder the Tea Party movement is getting so much attention. Legislation and the way it is done with all of the included pork is probably another reason. Many of us have a very sound knowledge of the legislative process are are sick of our elected officials acting like selfish little children!!
What do you mean “most people have never even read one page of a bill?” What bill are you talking about?–the one Obama said would be published on the internet for the public to review or the one he said CNN would publically
discuss? Or the one Obama, Pelosi,and Reid discussed behind closed doors with this “transparent” administration?” Which version are we to read to make an “informed decision?”
Give me a break!!!!
Susan Thompson, I don’t believe everything I read on blogs or in the news.
I don’t believe all that you have written here either, you certainly don’t know much about the Tea party people.
One important point touched on here is the fact that the left seems to be managing an intellectual argument while the right is waging an emotional argument. Belief vs. imperial evidence is an age-old argument that is not easily reconciled. Anti-intellectualism is rampant and logic is not playing to the people. There is a vague and amorphous enemy here, and he is not just a Tempest in a Teacup. Unfocused anger is a powerful force and the natives are getting restless. The only consolation is that History shows us that the future will happen anyway, and the reactionaries always lose in the long run. So far, we have seen evidence of what they stand against, but what vision are they striving for? What America is their ideal? I can only hope that the Tea Party agenda will remain too vague to produce any results at all.
There is definitely a racism involved here when the strong distain for a multicultural nation is evident in the Tea Party Movement. Likewise, an oxymoron shows up regarding the distain for government involvement when they don’t want it running their health care but want to keep their Medicare!
With a 14+ trillion debt how can ANY POLITICIAN be trusted?
I think you’re living in a different world. What I’ve been hearing is the legislators are the ones that don’t read (don’t have time to)the bills before they are forced to vote on them. We the people are asking for a copy to be put on the internet so that we CAN read it. How else could we know what is in it or discuss it logically?
The only reason that I can see this health care bill was on the front burner all last year (instead of focusing on the economy), is because they knew it would never pass after the president was in office past the ‘honeymoon’ period.
Your name is misleading. You are not a news organization, but a poor attempt at trying to seem like one. It’s obvious you’re as bad as everyone else out there trying to push your left leaning political agenda. You are also making unfounded accusations which are no more than opinions, just like those you criticize.
The tea party movement started as an unorganized mass of people who were fed up with both major parties and looking for leadership.
Instead of opening a dialogue with them and finding out what legitimate complaints they may have, the Democrats (in their elitist arrogance) chose to ridicule them and/or call them racists.
The various third parties failed to see the opportunity to increase their base.
Is it a surprise that the Republicans are commandeering the movement.
The democrats need to realize that in a country with a “government of the PEOPLE, by the PEOPLE, for the PEOPLE” populisty is NOT a dirty word (or at least it SHOULD NOT be a dirty word).
Your name is misleading. You are not a news organization, but a poor attempt at trying to seem like one. It’s obvious you’re as bad as everyone else out there trying to push your left leaning political agenda. You are also making unfounded accusations which are no more than opinions, just like those you criticize. Once this comment is moderated I will be surprised if you let it appear.
Susan, WOW are you ever out in left field!! I would suggest that you take some of your own advice and read the bill and digest it. This bill would severely hinder our economy if not totally collapse our monetary system. You are totally wrong on your left wing comment about the tea party movement being racially motivated. The people who are involved in this movement are people who are tired of big government trying to run every aspect of our lives. The makeup of this movement comes from and consist of every class, color, race, education and age group across America. These are people who want to see the constitution (as it was meant to be) be the supreme law of the country. If you get time look up some information on socialism and you will find that is is basically the government running everything, if that doesn’t fit with what President Obama is all about I will buy you lunch. Real conservative constitutionalists don’t care what color or race the leaders are, it’s their policies and motives that concern us.
Yeah, because whining about the government is really ground-breaking.
What comes to mind when I think of the the tea party movement is ignorance, homophobia, racism, Christian fascism, xenophobia, and just plain old hate. Demagogues such as Glenn Beck, Bill O’reilly Laura Ingraham, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and more recently Sarah Palin, have learned how to churn, channel, and further amplify all of this toxic energy for their own profit. These hucksters of hate embolden the masses to act out their basest instincts.
The current economic situation is a perfect environment for rabble-rousers to do their damage. The situation is eerily similar to what was going on in Germany in the mid to late 1930′s. Discontent with the status quo, simmering nationalism, a world-wide recession, high unemployment, and a growing resentment for minorities and non-Germans. It took one man, Adolph Hitler, to harness all of that negative energy and change the world forever.
I believe the same thing could happen here.
It is always easier to attempt to dismiss or marginalize the new, inexperienced anything. The Tea Party is no exception. But this is not the point. We must look at this as a consensus process of unmet needs and deep frustration with peoples’ current realities. And this same reality is causing deep changes in both of the major political parties at the same time.
We need to first agree that no one sees themselves as bad. Each of us may disagree at many levels, but no one that I know of maliciously takes a stand that they do not feel is consistent with their own view of themselves as a good person – except the person who no longer holds any personal convictions – say the “career politician”.
Therefore, it is useful to look at the facts, and perceptions of facts, that underlie peoples’ concerns and frustrations.
As a country are creating debt for generations to come, while families’ credit and room to maneuver financially is being torn away – by the same people who were begging us to borrow so recently – by the same people who are being bailed our by our tax dollars – by the same people earning bonuses that most of us will not earn in our lifetimes. Anger, contempt and frustration are realities.
Those who advocate government-directed solutions seem to act as though they were not here for the past 200 years, during which every attempt at government direction of large swaths of anyone’s economy have resulted in failure, lower standards of living and, ultimately, repression of the citizenry. Americans know that government is not the answer.
The elephant in the room is that globalization, bringing 3 billion workers into the labor market (40% of the world’s population), has tectonically shifted labor and investment patterns away from the US towards Asia.
The Tea Party movement is a reflection that neither Republicans nor Democrats have answers that the they see as addressing this new reality.
Both parties have been using the Federal Reserve, by printing money and devaluing the dollar, to lower the value of the dollar and thereby help make American workers more cost-competitive. The normally inflationary policies that the Fed is pursuing are offset by the deflationary pressures of globalization.
No one argues that this strategy one that is tried and true, except that China’s currency (yuan) is pegged to the dollar. This means that, even if the US wages remain flat, the Chinese wage will not rise when the dollar falls. This means that our debt to China also falls, but this is not felt directly in China’s labor market. So Ross Perot’s “sucking sound” goes now to China with pollution and products wafting back over the Pacific.
Even a fool knows that our strategy is unsound.
Republican desires to have government stay out of the markets, while sound policy that is understood by most, do not seem up to the task of rebuilding American competitiveness. This results in fear that we are in a race to the bottom.
Democrats, who finally have the power to create the second “Great Society” movement, are faced with the reality that we are not as rich as we think; that we have so heavily borrowed against our future that we can no longer afford their grand plans. This results in failure.
Jobs, jobs, jobs…American worker jobs that pay for a nice home, schools and enough to save for a rainy day. This takes honesty, humility, and hard work…the American work ethic.
Barack Obama is a one-term president, unless he puts his entire great society plans on the back-burner, develops a truly bi-partisan agenda, and becomes the great leader that he is intellectually capable of becoming.
Most people in the Tea Party movement have little faith that this is likely. So, until either party can step up to today’s realities, expect Tea Parties to emerge everywhere.
As a site labeled as “America’s News Online”, I am saddened by the attempt to misrepresent the Tea Party movement.
It stands for limited government, fiscal responsibility and taking back America to what our constitution has founded and has no party affiliation whatsoever.
Now I want to dissect the majority of statements backed by no fact whatsoever.
1. Sarah Palin has to cater to this movement
- Please show how she is catering when she has only been representing what they do with what she has done / wants to do. Yes, she has bashed the president, but that is her same tone since she was running as a VP.
2. Palin makes a lot of money speaking at Tea Party related functions
- Please post what she has done with the money and where it has gone. Obviously you know that as this has not gone into her pockets…
3. comments about President Obama that seem to be somewhat racially motivated
- Can you elaborate on who and what they said? Nice blanket statement, but I believe if any racial comments have been made, any news organization would have posted them
4. They throw out word like traitor, radical, and Muslim
- Once again, who is they? On the left and right are far reaching fringe elements, just because one person does something, doesn’t mean they ALL do it…
5. Most people who join the movement have never even done any homework on the actions that the Obama Administration has taken since entering office over a year ago
- Most… Another blanket statement. Please identify the polling or factual data you have on this.
6. They call him a socialist and even compare him to Adolf Hitler
- Are his programs socialistic in nature? Who is this army of they you speak of again? Are they comparing them to Hitler or some of the policies to the ones Hitler had?
7. When people stop believing everything they read and hear then they can make an informed decision on political issues instead of just joining a group
- What a great statement as this entire article is made up of finger-pointing and blanket statements.
For a site to call itself News, there sure is a lack of fact. Sad to say if you believe this dribble you are too far left. If you hate this dribble you are too far right. If you are a normal person looking for information, obviously this writer / site is not one to glean any information from that would tell it to you as a news agency would, just the facts, nothing more, nothing less.
Interesting how I put up a page of comments in regards to this writer’s posting on how un-newsworthy this topic is because of the content containing blanket statements and no facts has been completely removed.
I am sure this one will disappear as well. Probably just racist as I am of Polish decent and you think of me as someone who cannot think coherently such as yourself. “Americas News”… I think not.
Tea Party’s working well.Liberals have a problem with the Tea Party but the way we see it Liberals are the problem.TAKE OUR COUNTRY BACK,VOTE A LIBERAL OUT OF OFFICE.