What is your gut feeling when you hear the words 'Tea Party?'

[BurtWorm]

Poll question: What is your gut feeling when you hear the words 'Tea Party?'

[rox63]

1. Outraged that these nincompoops have despoiled my favorite beverage

With their inane, wingnut viewpoint.

[Whisp]

27. and a band my daughter used to like back when, Tea Party.

they had some good shit working for them.

[hamsterjill]

2. "Tea Party" used in 2010

The words "Tea Party" as used in 2010 by the uber-right-wing NUTS, to me, is a pitiful ploy to try to make society equate these nuts with a group of gallant and valiant patriots immortalized in history.

While the Boston Tea Party is a well known event in American history, the "tea partiers" of today are fanatics and IMHO do not deserve to use those renowned words to describe their whacko movement.

Their message is nothing more than "hate".

[aquart]

3. I think delicate cups and shabby chic, actually.

[rox63]

5. And watercress or cucumber sandwiches with the crusts cut off

:)

[aquart]

39. And perhaps some cake in a three-tiered dish.

[TexasObserver]

4. Disdain. Same old KKK-John Birch-Johnny Rebs as always.

[old mark]

6. Don't really care very much - it gives them something to do,keeps them

from getting into worse trouble, and if nothing else, thay can later be ID'd from their photos with those incredibly stupid signs.

Harmless activity for RW pinheads - I don't care.

mark

[OHdem10]

7. Impending danger.

[dchill]

11. Actually, me too. n/t

[dchill]

8. Tea is Un-Amurkin.

There is NO TEA grown in Amurka.

Who ARE these traitors?

:puke:

[Sebastian Doyle]

9. Pathetic fools being duped by the likes of Glenn BecKKK and the Koch brothers.

Even the ones among them that are correct in their estimation that something is seriously fucking wrong with this country (there definitely IS) are completely delusional about where to place the blame for that, because they are being deliberately misled by corporatist tools.

[JitterbugPerfume]

10. I know these people

I am even related to some of them . They are low information people who think they know all of the answers .You can NOT reason with them.They KNOW that God is on their side.

[Oceansaway]

12. Modern Day KKK...n/t

[no limit]

13. Something little children with a undeveloped mental capacity and a wild imagination do.

[csziggy]

14. What does Alice and the Mad Hatter have to do with politics?

Then I thought of Palin and McCain and all was clear.

[Earth Bound Misfit]

15. The same 27 percenters who gave Chimpy a favorable approval rating

near the end of his 2 terms.

[muffin1]

16. I'm afraid the words that come to my mind

are not very ladylike.

Fucktards. Shitheads. Moronic Shitheads. Mother-fuckers. Shitstains. Lying assholes. Racist assholes. Shit-for-brains. Then there are a couple of words that start with 'c' that probably can't be spelled out here. :evilgrin:

[Wwagsthedog]

17. Totally Pointless

[SPedigrees]

18. There is no tea party. There are teabaggers carrying idiotic signs and

spouting uninformed vitriolic babble. It is an ugly collection of rabble, not a party, and nothing to do either with my favorite drink or my ancestors who dumped the stuff into Boston harbour.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

19. Ann Coulter's balls in someone's mouth. nt

[cleveramerican]

20. Rage

I think the tea party is about Rage, plain and simple.

I think that there might just be a way for dems to tap into this rage and benefit from it.

[damntexdem]

21. Other: I hate raspberry jam.

And Teabaggers nauseate me.

[lamp_shade]

22. Other - in my mind (not gut) I think "Jim Jones"

[SoCalDem]

23. Racist buffoons who like free bus trips & box lunches

:)

[gleaner]

24. I chose "I knew these people ..."

I have relatives in Utah and Arizona who probably embrace these beliefs fervently. I heard it all my life from the church I was raised in, which is why I left it at age 15. That is when many of the relatives stopped speaking and most of us lost touch. My parents, thankfully lived in California and so we were exposed to a better world view through our day to day living, and I can't say it too often, a good public school system.

My relatives are poor, scared, easily led and always ready to embrace hate and violence as the only solution to their problems. They are not stupid but they choose to be ignorant and held in the thrall of their church which tells them that women and anyone who is different is inferior and to be mistrusted. They are also told to embrace right wing ideas and never to question those in authority unless they are not conservative. Then all stops are out. They have a lot of guns, and their big sport is hunting. They don't have much of a life and so they are casual about preserving and protecting life. Humans who are different are not regarded as much more than objects of suspicion.

This is hard to write because I still love them. They are my aunts and uncles and cousins and when I was a child they were kind to me. When I became an adult and a political person who questioned, demonstrated and spoke out they excused it at first. When I would go to visit the few who still spoke to the heretic who left the church, they would say, "Don't mind her. She's from California and it did something to her brain." Everyone would have a good laugh, but I was "kin" and they assured themselves that I would straighten out and come back to the church and the fold one day.

Hasn't happened yet, and never will. The world is too big and there is a much better life to be had out here. I don't do well trapped in a small box, which is where the tea baggers want us to be.

[BurtWorm]

29. That was brave of you to write.

Thanks for that. I think a lot of us DUers have relatives like yours. I know I do. I was lucky my parents moved from the suburbs of New Jersey to a New England college town at the start of the social revolution of the 1960s. It probably sealed my fate as a lefty.

[gleaner]

38. Thank you ....

I'm glad your life as a lefty takes you here.;) I know that I have benefited by California and the atmosphere of increased tolerance that exists here in the big cities. We are not problem free, but most of the time people accept and respect differences and we all benefit.

[moondust]

25. Goobers on parade. n/t

[B Calm]

26. A small group of little girls with a tea set and playing house. . .

[Bitwit1234]

28. I never like tea and is despise it more now ...but KKK comes to mind

every time I see the two words. NO ONE ABSOLUTELY NO ONE will ever convince me that they do not believe one and the same as the KKK>

[GoCubsGo]

30. Ignorant bedwetters

They are a bunch of uninformed, close-minded people who are afraid of everything that is different or unknown to them.

[Stevenmarc]

31. That they are the canaries in the coal mine to the day Idiocracy is more than just a movie

[handmade34]

32. I think how poorly

our educational system has done in educating the citizens of the United States. These are people who don't know History, nor English; the tea party leaders sure know psychology though. I think that unless rational people get out there and vote and get to work in their communities, we are in for a lot of sad times and troubles.

[DailyGrind51]

33. A mob of frightened ignorant people.

[HopeHoops]

34. THIS is my "gut" feeling...

:puke:

[CANDO]

35. Other.... Stupid fucking disgruntled Republicans!

Who've destroyed their brand and are attempting a "right-flank" maneuver.

[ima_sinnic]

36. ignorant no-minds, the new Know-Nothing Party

so I guess my gut feeling is disgust mixed with incredulity that anybody could be so pathetically, incredibly stupid. I also feel total disgust at the amount of press they get--as though they were "somebody" or anybody at all besides a bunch of total morons. There is also some trepidation about the way publicity and propaganda can be used to turn an entire segment of the population stupid and reactionary.

[cherokeeprogressive]

37. Who?

[Skittles]

40. facism

[SmileyRose]

41. I have these people in my family

From what I see of the group as a whole they are primarily the elderly and lower to middle middle class whites who have been getting screwn on all sides for the better part of 30 years. They have worked their asses off and can't seem to get ahead. Retirement is here, or is looming in the next 10 years and they are scared shitless about ending up sick, worn out, and so poor they are at the mercy of the government and/or a hired low wage caretaker with brown skin and barely speaks English. They are tired. They are angry. They don't know who to blame. They don't know where to turn for relief.

The preachers in their Churches and the talking heads on their TV and radio tell them life would be a utopia if all Democrats, union employees and brown people would just die or move to Mexico or Canada. Some teabaggers believe that, some don't. Mainly they are just plain pissed at everyone.