Time For The Tea Party To Raise the Bar

In the wake of the United States electing its first African American President there was another phenomenon being birthed, or more accurately, reinvented: the Tea Party. This group cleverly linked its existence to that of the Boston Tea Party, but without much investigation, one can see that the correct connection would be to any run of the mill racist organization with a highly skilled spin team. The Tea Party represents a United States that is set on oppression, social inequality, xenophobic reactionary views with this president being the adversary.

I know there will be those who cringe at the idea that I am willing to “discount” anyone’s political views as simply monomania. To that, I need only point to the inconsistences of the Tea Party organizations stated missions and their actions.

Let us quickly deconstruct this loose relationship between the current Tea party organization and the Tea Party of old. The letters T.E.A., as used by the Sons of Liberty, the group that exacted the Boston Tea Party, meant Taxed Enough Already. Undoubtedly this meaning is an important reason the current organizations adopted the name, as it is reflected in all of the organizations mission statements. However, this fact alone raises my false-meter to a point of great discomfort because if this were truly their belief, then President Obama should be their hero. According to an analysis completed by the Tax Policy Center, federal taxes are lower under President Obama than when President Reagan was in office. Every Tea Party member I’ve spoken with raves about life under Reagan, with no mention, of the fact, that Reagan raised taxes more than eleven times. With these facts in hand, one is left, no pun intended, wondering what is really at the core of the Tea Party organization. We shall revisit the “core” in the final part of this article.

Another principle the Tea Party organization claims as important is the idea of small government. I would simply point out the unrelenting praise Tea Party members like Bachman, West, Palin, Cruz and etc. shower on the Reagan administration. The contradiction here is glaring. On one hand, the notion of small government is worth resisting payment of the country’s bills, sacrificing the country’s credit rating, and even closing Yosemite, which we have witnessed a couple times under this presidency. On the other hand, the same crowd screams all hail Reagan even though his administration nearly tripled the national debt. It is also worth mentioning that under President Obama the federal spending has grown slower than under any president for the past forty years, with only one exception: President Clinton.

The final point to be made is not so much as concerned with fiscally responsibility, but more with preserving a perceived fleeting privilege: whiteness. The Tea Party of now spends much time talking about “taking our country back,” or restoring the country to one envisioned and articulated by the founding fathers. Note that sixty-seven percent of the founding fathers owned slaves. For the most part, we have given the Tea Party a pass on this thought. This thought is unspoken racism or implied racism. These are the most inclusive days (in America’s history), these are the best days, and if our brothers and sisters who make up the ranks of the Tea Party organizations have forgotten, then it is our duty to remind them.

In conclusion, it should be said that Boston Tea Party bares no resemblance to its namesake, other than spelling. The current Tea Party speaks of supporting lower taxes, but criticizes the very person who offers up said benefits. The new Tea Party rants about small government, but rails against the one person who submits to said wishes. The Tea Party of today prays for the country to return to a time when only white men had rights. With this information, I proclaim that the Tea Party is carrying on in monomaniacal, extremist, oppressive and xenophobic manner, and it seems that Obama’s presidency seems to be the father of this irrational child, and for no other reason than the preservation of things of old, said another way, the preservation of white privilege.

W. Mondale Robinson
828.261.5552
wmondale@conyersinstitute.org
Twitter: @williamrobinson
“We must busy ourselves with the work of equity” wmr