The National Tea Party Convention, which wrapped up Saturday night with a televised speech by Sarah Palin, offered an outlet for some of the fouler strands of modern conservatism that had long been bubbling beneath the surface of the Tea Party movement.
Tea Party leaders had worked hard to keep the public face of the movement focused tightly on a small government, anti-tax message, largely steering clear of social issues, and appeals based explicitly on race. But this weekend, from the podium at Nashville’s Gaylord Opryland Hotel, convention speakers espoused birtherism, anti-immigrant nativism, homophobia, Christian fundamentalism, and an apparent nostalgia for racially discriminatory barriers to voting. …
To some extent, the expansion into wider territory was due to the nature of the convention itself. Since details of the confab were announced, numerous Tea Party activists have complained that the event’s organizers aimed to co-opt the Tea Partiers’ energy for the benefit of the broader conservative movement and the Republican Party. It was perhaps inevitable that those more organized interests couldn’t be kept at arm’s length forever. In her speech, Palin even began grafting an aggressive national-security policy onto a movement that has shown strong isolationist tendencies, to the extent that it has had a foreign policy at all.
Still, this wasn’t an entirely hostile takeover. It’s true that overt Christian fundamentalism has always been firmly on the margins of the movement. But it’s never been hard to detect an element of right-wing cultural grievance lurking beneath the surface — even on ostensibly economic issues like health-care or government spending — as several observers have noted. “Where’s the birth certificate?” signs — and worse — haven’t been hard to spot at Tea Party rallies, and some more radical anti-government activists have been welcomed at movement events.
So maybe what we saw this weekend was something more like the dark underbelly of the Tea Party movement rising to the surface. Not that Sarah Palin seems to mind.
Hello everyone. I am announcing here now on 02.07.2010 that I, Lucas Daniel Smith, and Charles Edward Lincoln III, have canceled our plans (plans posted here on the forum on 02.03.2010) to run for Lieutenant Governor and Governor of California.
Upon a more precise review of qualifications for candidates we have ascertained two things: (1) Charles Edward Lincoln III is not eligible to run for said office. (2) I, Lucas Daniel Smith, might be eligible to run for said office but it would entail much “stretching” of the law.
I don’t know that I should “stretch” the law when running for government office all the while demanding that Barack Obama needs to demonstrate? that he is eligible to hold Office of President of the United States of America.
I’ll keep my eye out:
InspectorSmith
I want to thank everyone that has notified me that they have sent personal checks to me. I have not received any of the mail yet but will when it arrives I will leave the mail unopened and will place it in a priority mail flat rate envelope and mail it back to the return address. Signature confirmation will be attached to each priority mail envelope.
Dr. Orly Taitz, Esq., in an interview with what some regard as the Russian propaganda services network, “Russia Today,” speaks for the American Tea Party movement before patriotically denying the legitimacy of the head of the United States government:
Fortunately, the interviewer was better informed than Orly on that matter.
In the interview, Taitz also claims that 99% of ‘Baggers are Birthers. That’s even higher than indicated by a recent California poll. But she also said the 9/12 ‘Bagger protest in DC could have had as much as 4.5 million people, which is entirely false. So, you always have to keep in mind that Orly Taitz says anything that pops into her empty head.
