I think this picture pretty much express how I feel about the Tea Party movement. There is some dissatisfaction with the way the government is handling some of the "problems" we are facing, to me they are more of challenges than problems, but it seems to me the tea party has a common thread to it, this irrational dislike of the president. I can remember the days when Clinton was in office and there was also this dislike of him, but this time around it is absolutely irrational. There is a grasping at anything to make a rational reason to an irrational dislike, Obamacare, how can you dislike the idea that more people will be give an opportunity to receive medical care? The only rational reason would be if it make the country go deep into debt, and the only way for that to be a rational reason would be to have always cared about going into debt. The Bush years showed us this is not a big deal, so this cannot be the rational reason. Digging deeper it is inevitable the real reason for the dislike is racial sentiment. Glen Greenwald wrote in Salon on Friday 27 August,"It requires extreme blindness or extreme dishonesty to deny that our politics is more racially and ethnically polarized than it has been in a long time." This is the heart of the disagreement, this is what is at the heart of all the vocal opposition to the president and his policies, not a true political ideological, thought that has some to due with it. Rather a dislike that a black person, or a Bi-racial person occupies the White House. This dislike runs deeper, one in which the War on Poverty has become not a war to eliminate poverty in American, but rather a war on the poor of American. A war to prevent the poor from being give any sort of help, because someone else feels it is undeserved or unearned. I will share with you an anecdote from my life. For me both of these stories demonstrate the feeling of privilege some people have and how they feel it is being taken away from them. I was sitting at my cubical at work, when one of the ladies I work with came by me. Our conversation turned to the health care debate, at this time the legislation had not yet passed. As our conversation unfolded she complained about the idea that she heard that with the health care reform she would be forced to wait longer to visit her doctor. The reason she felt she would have to wait longer is because more people would now be able to see a doctor, and she implied it to be more poor people. As I pulled back I ridiculed her as I said loudly, she does not seem to be bothered that some people cannot afford to see a doctor, but it would bother her that she may have to wait a little longer to see a doctor. Her reaction lacked any sort of shame or embarrassment, rather she felt she has a privilege that she must preserve even at the expense of her fellow man. This coupled with her stories of why she voted for Regan, because of the welfare queens driving around in there Cadillacs living off welfare, paints a picture of who she thinks will benefit from the health care reform. This to me is the essence of a Tea Party member.
Deep down inside there is a racist element to the Tea Party, and I know Glen Beck has found a way to expose and exploit that very element. This movement though is dead and in it last gasps, the demographics of this country are shifting. Tea Party members want to take America back to the ideals that no longer exist, that the majority no longer believe in. The 1950s are long gone and soon Mad Men will be off the air and that decade will be gone from our collective memories.
