Although I don’t think I would say I’m the last person who would defend the Tea Party, I would certainly be reluctant to do so under normal conditions. For starters, it seems that too many of them take the Fox News narrative of American politics without even the smallest grain of salt. Add to that a libertarian stance, a stance which I see as being as reductionist of the human spirit (because let’s remember, economics isn’t just about finance) as is communism. Top it off with their apparent celebration of a crime that even the Founders thought distasteful and you’ll have a good idea of why I tend to think poorly of their positions, without even getting to their warping of political theology (if what they do deserves the name).
But what is even more distasteful is the attempt from some members on the left to paint their political and economic critique, however otherwise ill-informed, as a racist platform. One of the more notable accusations came in the form of the website Crash the Tea Party, which seems to have thankfully gone down, although I hope not from web traffic. A few days ago I visited their forum and found examples of political rhetoric that would make Sarah Palin look like a modern day Cicero. Convinced that there is a deep and abiding racism in the Tea Party core, some Democrats are out to paint the grassroots movement as crypto-segregationists or worse. It’s there, the Left just has to find it.
Isn’t this the same kind of preemptive strike/WMD rhetoric we put up with for years? ”We know they’re there, let’s do all we can to expose it!” Hopefully members of the left are as dissatisfied with the Party Crashers as I am, and care about the morality of a method as well as the ends to which it is directed.
But I guess it’s politics as usual. And it’s not like Tea Party crazies don’t have their own dangerous heroes, from people who called in death threats to senators to that one guy who tried to bug a Louisiana senator’s office. I’d throw them all in jail for bad taste, but nobody takes me seriously on politics. Let’s not take any of these goofballs seriously either.
