We've all seen it. Tea Partiers and Republicans denying that there is any racism in the Tea Party, employing a pay-no-attention-to-the-man-behind-the-curtain move-along-nothing-to see-here approach to dealing with the issue.
Case in point:
But why? Why not at least acknowledge it, urge the local organizers that none of it, not the signs with the swastikas or the Obama witch doctor or the birther or Kenyan/muslim slanders be kept out of the demonstrations?
Of course, we all know by now that Mr. Williams and his organization, The Tea Party Express, was "kicked out" of the National Tea Party Federation (the significance of which escapes me as I've understood their are multiple corporate lobbyist-funded astroturf Tea Parties out there anyway). This doesn't change the central fact, however: There have been numerous, vile, racist incidents emanating from the Tea Party sewer since its inception, and only now has something been done to denounce a member of that movement.
I've wondered a bit about this and come to a preliminary bit of reasoning. A good clue for me comes from a column in The Nation by Princeton professor Melissa Harris-Lacewell, writing about going to a Memorial Day tribute in New Orleans for soldiers of the Confederacy:
The celebration of Confederate traitors as American heroes, the whitewash of school curriculums and the conservative reinterpretation of national history are weapons in America's decades-long culture war. These policies reflect an impulse similar to the Cultural Revolution of Communist China: an attempt to gain authority by controlling the very definitions of truth available to young people.
After all, it is among young Americans that conservatives are losing this war, and if they are serious about taking back their country, the education of American youth is the critical terrain where they plan to make a stand.
Think about it. The Tea Party "movement" -- which may have begun with scattered and sparsely attended groupings in those ugly protests early in the Obama presidency, but which has since been co-opted by corporate lobbying interests (Freedomworks, Americans For Prosperity, e.g.) and Fox News (a.k.a. the Republican National Committee's free political advertising arm) and is thus no longer a real movement (if it ever was such a thing) but a get-out-the-vote mechanism for the Republican establishment -- is overwhelmingly older and whiter than it's leaders want us to believe.
And they are up against this fact (again, from Professor Harris-Lacewell):
Barack Obama garnered two of every three votes cast by people under 30. Across parties, ideologies, regions and religions, young people are less likely to subscribe to racial stereotypes, more likely to support legal equality for gay Americans and more likely to believe tolerance is an important ideal. These enduring generational trends have prompted some observers to question the long-term viability of the GOP—which seems to be growing older but not grander.
And there it is. The oft-referenced "Southern Strategy" has had limited appeal among younger voters. The problem as I see it for the Republicans is that this is how they built their base and to abandon it now, when they need every vote to try and pull off another 1994-like erasure of Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress.
Why do I see this as a problem? Well, as I've stated, they've put considerable time and effort to recruit and mold the Tea Partiers to serve their own ends. But to do so, they had to take the Tea Party as they found it. Thus the new attempts to -- pardon the pun -- "whitewash" the unmistakable racism that continues to show up at Tea Party rallies and in Tea Partier speeches and interviews. It becomes a trifle inconvenient to have Tom Tancredo, for example, address a Tea Party convention and get applause for his slurs against Latinos and his blunt endorsement of the notion of literacy tests for voting, particularly when you know to accomplish the Congressional takeover requires more than the sort of voter who agrees with Tancredo's remarks.
Thus the renewed emphasis on a quasi-Libertarian emphasis on economics, at least verbally. This would only be undermined by pointing out the clear racism in Tea Party rhetoric as it would demonstrate that the "free" market may not be exactly a haven to those seeking justice for past -- and all too often continuing -- injustices motivated by race and ethnicity, because it points out that such issues as employment and credit depend on the good graces of those doling out such necessities. Pointing this out leads to suspicions about the exact motivation behind such free marketism: Markets, left to their own devices, may not be the best guarantors of personal liberty and unaleinable rights in that they are designed to only secure "rights" pertaining to the pursuits of money, profit and trade, which then points to the need for a democratically-elected and -monitored government hand to secure and defend human rights.
I see a three-prong strategy, beyond just getting out the vote, supporting progressive candidates, and contributing money, as valuable and necessary as these activities are. You might see it as one strategy: Being visible.
You might think of something to add to the following points, either by way of filling in details, or of coming up with other ways to make ourselves known. Fell free to help out in the comments section -- assuming this diary draws any attention, of course ;-)
First, to counter this attempt to polish the image of the Tea Party, continue to point out the all-too-readily identifiable and continuing racism lying behind the lies spread by and on behalf of the Tea Partiers. Of course, we all know by now that the man in the video in the intro, Mark Williams, and his organization, The Tea Party Express, was "kicked out" of the National Tea Party Federation. (Not even sure what that means as the TP has always seemed to me to have more than one "official" national organization. Be that as it may, it doesn't change the central fact: There have been numerous, vile, racist incidents emanating from the Tea Party sewer since its inception, and only now has something been done to denounce a member of that movement. This shows that shining a light on these rats sends them scurrying for cover, puts them on the defensive, makes them actually have to respond as civilized human beings. It's a good first step, and thanks to Keith Olbermann for the big assist in getting this word out.
But it's only a first step. Pressure must be kept up. For example, Representative Brad Sherman, (D, CA) was recently confronted by the whole "dismissal" of the New Black Panther Party case, allegedly by the Justice Department, and for, again, allegedly "racist" reasons. Was this guy a Tea Partier? Very likely. And the allegation is one couched in race: An African-American president and his African-American attorney general dismissed it because the victims were white.
The facts must be circulated, widely. Not just here on Daily Kos, or on other blogs sympathetic to Democratic politics, but in the MSM. Make a stink: Call and/or write your local paper. Answer the lies and point out the clear racist motivation behind them -- and it is racist, whether held out of conviction, or cynically manipulated to capture votes to get Republicans back in power.
Second, point out that even when stripped of its racist element (the fuel for its vitriol and rhetoric, and, very likely, organizational successes, such as they are) the economics of the Tea Party is mere warmed-over Bush 43, and the havoc that has wrought to the nation's economy, security, and to the security of its individual citizens in the struggles to get through their daily lives. And that is something I'm beginning to see more of from the Democrats: Keep it up guys! We need to show just what we can expect from such a "movement" in a real position to get exactly the kind of policies they want issuing from Washington: A politics that doesn't unite the nation, doesn't bring us together, but weakens us in disunity and hatred from economic ruin.
Again, call and write. Shout it out loud. Don't be afraid to confront. The facts are obvious, hiding in plain sight, and simply need to have attention drawn to them.
And third, counter demonstrate. It's well-past time we got out in the streets, people, in big numbers. Let's see some real fire out there to tell them, "You want the country back? The way you ran it? Hell no!"
They play Us versus Them. It's bad for politics and bad for policy. It's time to point out that the "them" they are really against is the whole of our country. It's Us for Our Country. They want to "take it back"? I say, let's keep it and make it better.