I was watching The Ed Show a couple of days ago, and he said something about the Tea Baggers that I think really rings true.
Transcript of the part relevant to this diary over the jump
The polls show that this is nothing but an offshoot of the Republican Party. These are the disgruntled people. They're not Democrats. They're not disgruntled Progressives. They're not Liberals. These are the people that lost the last election that just can't stand the fact that Barack Obama has been successful when it comes to getting the stimulus package to work, to create jobs, to get healthcare, to get rid of the pre-existing condition, to jumpstart the economy. This crowd is disappoint we're not loosing 800,000 jobs a month anymore. This crowd is disappointed that this President has now got a dialogue with countries around the world that 'ya know, yeah, maybe we better reduce our nuclear stockpile'.* * * The President of the United States has led Progressives to change. We're not even 18 months into this new effort to change America and bring some corporate accountability to America, and who's out there screamin'? Old White Folks that are upset that they're gonna get taxed and that they're gonna lose their wealth. That's what this is all about. . .
Sure, I think a lot of the Tea Bag movement centers around racism. I've seen quite a few people say "well these people are just now getting active because they are against government spending" or something along those lines. Well, they didn't seem to be to worried about it when Bush was spending out of control. But suddenly we get Obama in office and we have crap like "tea partiers" running around screaming "we want our country back." What's that supposed to mean? But I digress.
I think the fact that he's Black and a Democrat certainly isn't helping matters, but I think what's really pissing them off is the fact that he's SUCCEEDING. What he wants, he tends to get. He wants a stimulus package? It's passed. Healthcare? I'm sure they thought they killed that, but we got a bill. Of course the relative merits of these two pieces of legislation are subject to debate, but if it were up to the Tea Baggers they wouldn't exist at all. If the Tea Baggers had their way, President Obama wouldn't have gotten anything accomplished.
The more he succeeds, the louder they yell and the more outraged they get. Just look at healthcare, the closer the Administration got to success, the harder the Republicans pushed and the more "outraged" the Tea Baggers got. I'm sure we all remember actual elected Congressmen and women going out and egging that crowd on before/during the House vote on HCR?
Is it any wonder that the Tea Baggers tend to line up along the Republican line of thinking? Yet when it comes time to put the money where the mouths are they are pretty silent. What exactly would they have us cut? Our Defense budget? Social Security? Medicare? They don't want to pay taxes yet if the government were to stop collecting taxes and stop doing all of the services that it provides, they'd probably have a fit.
President Obama has done some major things that either haven't been done, or haven't been done in a long time. If he were just a mediocre President, do you think all of these newly politically active people (this so called "grassroots movement" that seems to have a lot of corporate backing for what it's worth) would be out there now protesting? They knew he had big ideas from the election. They knew he wasn't coming in to be just a bench warmer President, and the fact that he's actually achieving some of those big ideals is driving them crazy.
I think on policy there could be some valid criticism in the Tea Party, but the fact of the matter is they don't want to talk about issues now, they don't want to debate issues now, they want to keep President Barack Hussein Obama from being a success (it certainly doesn't help that 92% of them consider Glenn Beck's Show "news" when not even FOX "News" does).
I don't normally talk about the tea baggers, but I thought Ed brought up an interesting point. What do you think?
Update [2010-4-17 19:43:33 by Muzikal203]: Note: I'm not saying it's NOT race at all, I'm saying it's not JUST race. I do believe a significant amount of it IS race (even if you just look at how many of them believe Obama only wants to help Black people), but I also believe that it's the fact that he's managing to get stuff done in spite of all of their efforts to stop him.
Update [2010-4-17 19:43:33 by Muzikal203]: Thanks for the great discussion in the comments everyone! This community is proof that it is possible to disagree without being disagreeable :o)