"Tea Party" Is a Phrase That Means "Conservative Republican."

[babylonsister]

http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/tapped_archive?month=08&year=2010&base_name=tea_party_is_a_term_that_means

"Tea Party" Is a Phrase That Means "Conservative Republican."

TAPPED readers will not be surprised to know that I share Monica's concerns about Alaska's new abortion parental notification law. In practice, these are terrible policies that place great burdens on young women in the worst domestic situations -- with little to no discernible benefit.

In an interesting piece at the Daily Beast, TAP alumna Dana Goldstein points out that the passage of this anti-young woman abortion ballot measure isn't unrelated to Tea Party candidate Joe Miller's surprisingly strong showing in Tuesday's primary. Despite some claims that Tea Partiers are focused primarily on "fiscal irresponsibility," Miller cultivated anti-abortion activists and staked out strong anti-choice positions. And he has plenty of company among Tea Party darlings.

The attempt to bill Tea Partiers as some kind of distinctive quasi-libertarians reminds me of similar wishful thinking in 2008 about Sarah Palin; they're just orthodox conservative Republicans. Occasional, hypocritical "get the government off our backs" rhetoric notwithstanding, Palin is of course statist in all the ways you would expect a conservative Republican to be statist. And, in this, Palin is definitely a prophet of the Tea Party.

-- Scott Lemieux

[derby378]

1. Actually, it means "Member of the He-Man ######-Haters Club"

That ###### can be filled in with any word you want. This year, it's "Muslim."

[ladjf]

2. To me it means "Tea Bigots" . nt

[mzteris]

3. Nope. It means racist mysogynist @ss... n/t

[LiberalAndProud]

4. Honestly, conservative isn't the word.-- Radical Right.

yeah. that's the ticket.

[mike r]

5. They're mindless puppets of the Koch brothers

[pnorman]

7. Hey, that's good!

I'll be "borrowing" it pretty soon!

[McCamy Taylor]

6. Sad thing is I tried to get the left to co-opt Tea Party in the wake of the 2004 election.

The point of the original Boston Tea Party was not that folks did not want to pay their taxes. They wanted to have a say in how their taxes were levied. I.e. it was about voting.

Here is a link to the graphic for my idea.

http://www.grandtheftelectionohio.com/051210.htm

[derby378]

8. You actually employed the imagery for the right reasons

No taxation without representation. You done good. :hi:

[Poboy]

9. This is the great FAILURE and stupidity of the left.

They refuse to employ the ready-made imagery and reverance America has for its founding fathers and their ideals.
Why? I don't know, but the shit WORKS. The right has been twisting that and wraping themselves in this blanket for years.