# Tea Partiers pissed at GOP **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [January 2, 2011, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tea-partiers-pissed-at-gop/566152 "2011-01-02T18:18:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![joebuck20](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/74df32/32.png) [@joebuck20](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joebuck20)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2011, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tea-partiers-pissed-at-gop/566152/1 "2011-01-02T18:18:27Z")
I’m loving it. These assholes manage to win some elections, which amount to less than 10 percent of the seats in Congress, and they think that automatically gives them a mandate. [http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/02/us/politics/02teaparty.html?\_r=1&hp](http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/02/us/politics/02teaparty.html?_r=1&hp) > [@](#): > > In their final days controlling the House, Democrats succeeded in passing legislation that Tea Party leaders opposed, including a bill to cover the cost of medical care for rescue workers at the site of the World Trade Center attacks, an arms-control treaty with Russia, a food safety bill and a repeal of the ban on gay men and lesbians serving openly in the military. > > “Do I think that they’ve recognized what happened on Election Day? I would say decisively no,” said Mark Meckler, a co-founder of Tea Party Patriots, which sent its members an alert last month urging them to call their representatives to urge them to “stop now and go home!!” > > “We sent them a message that we expect them to go home and come back newly constituted and do something different,” Mr. Meckler said. “For them to legislate when they’ve collectively lost their mandate just shows the arrogance of the ruling elite. I can’t imagine being repudiated in the way they were and then coming back and saying ‘Now that we’ve been repudiated, let’s go pass some legislation.’ ” > > “I’m surprised by how blatant it was,” he added. > > But Tea Party activists did not reserve their criticism for Democrats. “The Republicans, frankly, have been a disaster,” Mr. Meckler said. “They stood strong on some things, but the only reason they stood strong is because we stood behind them with a big stick.” Also > [@](#): > > Despite its victories in November — more than 40 candidates supported by the Tea Party were elected to the House and Senate — the Tea Party lost battles for important leadership positions. Tea Party Patriots, for instance, had backed Representative Jack Kingston of Georgia to be chairman of the powerful House Appropriations Committee. Mr. Meckler and Jenny Beth Martin, also a co-founder of Tea Party Patriots, criticized Republicans for choosing Representative Harold Rogers of Kentucky instead, saying he was likely “to continue the big-spending, pork-barrel ways that lost Republicans the majority four years ago.” ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2011, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tea-partiers-pissed-at-gop/566152/2 "2011-01-02T18:24:08Z")
Once the Tea Bagger idiots get kicked out, I hope Meckler would keep to his word and tell his candidates to not pass anything since they don’t have a mandate anymore ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2011, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tea-partiers-pissed-at-gop/566152/3 "2011-01-02T18:27:26Z")
They seem to think that _immediately_ after an election, the House and Senate should simply stop working and everyone should go home. Are they aware of how these institutions actually work? ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_C](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Captain\_C](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_C)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2011, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tea-partiers-pissed-at-gop/566152/4 "2011-01-02T19:48:40Z")
> [@Euphonious\_Polemic](#): > > They seem to think that _immediately_ after an election, the House and Senate should simply stop working and everyone should go home. > > Are they aware of how these institutions actually work? Of course not. If they were, they would realize how impractical their entire party’s views are. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2011, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tea-partiers-pissed-at-gop/566152/5 "2011-01-02T19:53:33Z")
> [@Euphonious\_Polemic](#): > > They seem to think that _immediately_ after an election, the House and Senate should simply stop working and everyone should go home. > > Are they aware of how these institutions actually work? “Get your government hands off my Medicare!” No, they don’t know how the government or much of anything else works. They are the Pig-Ignorant Party. ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2011, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tea-partiers-pissed-at-gop/566152/6 "2011-01-02T20:12:48Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > “Get your government hands off my Medicare!” > > No, they don’t know how the government or much of anything else works. They are the Pig-Ignorant Party. Yes, but that was simple-minded twits who were attending rallies after seeing them advertised on Fox. In this case, we’re talking about Mark Meckler, a co-founder of Tea Party Patriots. He apparently thinks that after an election, the House and Senate should not sit, and no legislation should be passed until the new members are seated. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2011, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tea-partiers-pissed-at-gop/566152/7 "2011-01-02T20:22:09Z")
They don’t seem to understand that they didn’t really win and the Democrats were not “repudiated” and did not lose control of the Government. Sure, the Dems lost the majority in the House, but they still have a slim majority in the Senate. I’m quite certain that if the situation was reversed, or worse for them, they would be pushing to pass as much of their agenda before walking out of the door. But as above, they don’t seem to understand that Life Goes On, and the Business of Government continues, just like any other day. I’ve voted for President 8 times. Five times I’ve voted for Republicans, twice I’ve voted for Democrats, and once I voted third party because I couldn’t stomach either. I’ve voted more often for Republicans in my life than Democrats. I call myself _Social Libertarian_, meaning more socialist in the running of society and more libertarian in personal rights. Neither party fits my ideal and as I say about both; Republicans, right arm Democrats, left arm. Same monster. But honestly, at this point I cannot fathom that I will vote for any Republican candidates from this point forward unless they solidly repudiate the Racist Idiocracy that is “The Tea Party” and work to take back their party for the Intelligent and Reasonable. ---
**Author:** ![fuzzypickles](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/9d8465/32.png) [@fuzzypickles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fuzzypickles)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2011, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tea-partiers-pissed-at-gop/566152/8 "2011-01-02T20:52:04Z")
The Republicans made a gigantic mistake by allowing the Tea Partiers to steer the ship. If nothing else, they’ve virtually guaranteed Barack’s second term. Now, the only hope for the GOP’s survival is to flip to the liberal side, as the Democrats did back in the FDR days. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2011, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tea-partiers-pissed-at-gop/566152/9 "2011-01-02T21:09:44Z")
How many official, bona fide, true blue Tea Parties are there? The Wikimonster gives a bunch of them: Nationwide Tea Party Coalition, Tea Party Patriots, National Tea Party Federation, and the Tea Party Nation. Do they all have roughly the same amount of political clout? And does it seem to anyone else that they’ve been awfully quiet since the election? ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2011, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tea-partiers-pissed-at-gop/566152/10 "2011-01-02T21:21:28Z")
I’m thinking that it will be most amusing television to see freshman teapartiers get bitch-slapped by the senior Republican house members when they try to implement their agenda. This is going to be some good Daily Show watching. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2011, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tea-partiers-pissed-at-gop/566152/11 "2011-01-02T21:21:51Z")
Wait a minute, I thought the Tea Party was exclusively about lowering the deficit. Now it turns out they’re angry about the new START treaty and repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Why didn’t anybody see this coming? ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2011, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tea-partiers-pissed-at-gop/566152/12 "2011-01-02T21:24:17Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > Wait a minute, I thought the Tea Party was exclusively about lowering the deficit. Now it turns out they’re angry about the new START treaty and repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. > > Why didn’t anybody see this coming? No one could have predicted this, and probably did. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2011, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tea-partiers-pissed-at-gop/566152/13 "2011-01-02T21:29:34Z")
You didn’t notice that they were also bent out of shape about having a black President? That they were intent on claiming that he was, of all things, a _Muslim_? That he wasn’t born in this country? (but obviously not a word about McCain, who clearly was NOT born in this country - no, the scorn is reserved for the uppity nigger.) No, the Tea Party is all about “reclaiming” this country to be the White Protestant Conservative Xenophobic Isolationist Theocracy that they want it to be, under the guise of repealing all taxes because we all pay too much and they don’t like them going to the places they don’t like them going to. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2011, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tea-partiers-pissed-at-gop/566152/14 "2011-01-02T21:40:25Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > You didn’t notice that they were also bent out of shape about having a black President? That they were intent on claiming that he was, of all things, a _Muslim_? That he wasn’t born in this country? (but obviously not a word about McCain, who clearly was NOT born in this country - no, the scorn is reserved for the uppity nigger.) > > No, the Tea Party is all about “reclaiming” this country to be the White Protestant Conservative Xenophobic Isolationist Theocracy that they want it to be, under the guise of repealing all taxes because we all pay too much and they don’t like them going to the places they don’t like them going to. And so, once again, the borrow & spend Republicans replace the tax & spend Democrats and we all take it in the shorts. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2011, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tea-partiers-pissed-at-gop/566152/15 "2011-01-02T21:55:23Z")
The unfortunate thing is that the Republicans have become Johnny One Note when it comes to their message. \*\*\*TAX CUTS!!! TAX CUTS!!! TAX CUTS!!! \*\*\*Thirty years ago when Reagan first ran on this, the top tax rate was 70%. Now it is half that, but the message has run away from all reality. Obama gets labeled a “socialist” for wanting to allow tax cuts to expire that might raise it a few percentage points. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2011, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tea-partiers-pissed-at-gop/566152/16 "2011-01-02T22:10:52Z")
Repudiate? I thought it was supposed to be “refudiate”. I think we have seen the peak of the Tea Party. They will make a lot of racket in 2012, and then we won’t hear much about them after that. ---
**Author:** ![Long\_Time\_First\_Time](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ad7895/32.png) [@Long\_Time\_First\_Time](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Long_Time_First_Time)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2011, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tea-partiers-pissed-at-gop/566152/17 "2011-01-02T22:23:21Z")
I read a very interesting article (sorry, can’t find the link) that traces the facet of American politics that is currently being occupied by the Tea Party back hundreds of years. The common thread is that they are the folks who side with the wealthy elites against their own interests because they’d rather go without than let some “hated other” get anything. Their stated reasons for feeling as they do are usually lofty, but on examination they are completely inconsistent with anything except with being against non-white non-Christians. This trend goes back at least as far as the Civil War, when poor Southern whites fought on behalf of wealthy land owners (a tiny, tiny percent of the population). You will notice that the current manifestations of the Tea Party are for tax policies that benefit large corporations and billionaires at their expense. Their incoherence undoes them. In my state, for example, they are dead set against a move to consolidate two rural school districts into one. Yes, it would save taxpayers money and lower the overall amount of government. The reason they give for opposing it is that it concentrates power in the hands of one mayor. ---
**Author:** ![pepperlandgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f17d59/32.png) [@pepperlandgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pepperlandgirl)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2011, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tea-partiers-pissed-at-gop/566152/18 "2011-01-02T22:34:16Z")
> [@Long\_Time\_First\_Time](#): > > I read a very interesting article (sorry, can’t find the link) that traces the facet of American politics that is currently being occupied by the Tea Party back hundreds of years. The common thread is that they are the folks who side with the wealthy elites against their own interests because they’d rather go without than let some “hated other” get anything. Their stated reasons for feeling as they do are usually lofty, but on examination they are completely inconsistent with anything except with being against non-white non-Christians. Hancock: Traitors, Mr. Dickenson? To what? The British crown or the British half-crown? Fortunately there are not enough men of property in American to dictate policy. Dickenson: Perhaps not. But don’t forget that most men with nothing would rather protect the possibility of becoming rich than face the reality of being poor. And that is why they will follow us to the right! Ever to the right! ---
**Author:** ![Mehitabel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8797f3/32.png) [@Mehitabel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mehitabel)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2011, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tea-partiers-pissed-at-gop/566152/19 "2011-01-02T23:00:38Z")
Heh. I love _1776_ references! I got something a little less elegant and set a little later in history: But it’s the early nineteenth century And we’re gonna take this country back For people like us, People who just don’t think about things But make things happen Sometimes with guns Sometimes with speeches too… Take a stand against the elite They don’t care anything for us And we will eat sweet democracy And let them eat our dust Populism yeah yeah! - BLOODY BLOODY ANDREW JACKSON, which I saw last night but closed on Broadway today ☹ ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2011, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tea-partiers-pissed-at-gop/566152/20 "2011-01-02T23:07:10Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > How many official, bona fide, true blue Tea Parties are there? The Wikimonster gives a bunch of them: Nationwide Tea Party Coalition, Tea Party Patriots, National Tea Party Federation, and the Tea Party Nation. Do they all have roughly the same amount of political clout? > > And does it seem to anyone else that they’ve been awfully quiet since the election? What you have there has a name: Astroturfing. [http://climateprogress.org/2011/01/02/what-were-up-against-tea-party-afp-climate-zombie-astroturfing-cancun/](http://climateprogress.org/2011/01/02/what-were-up-against-tea-party-afp-climate-zombie-astroturfing-cancun/) > [@](#): > > What we’re up against: Polluter-funded Tea Party climate zombie astroturfing > [@](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > Two years ago, [Gena] Bell was a floral arranger in Cincinnati with plenty of time on her hands (she used to trim five Christmas trees in her suburban house) and strong opinions about the direction in which the United States was going (down). > > > > ``` > > Now, she was a full-time political activist, the head of a fast-growing Ohio tea party group and an influential voice in the movement. Influential enough that **Americans for Prosperity, one of the most well-heeled tea party backers in the country, had invited her to help protest a U.N. climate change conference in Cancun. > > > > It bothered her that no one had told her why she had been invited, or just what she would be doing. But she hadn’t pushed too hard to find out before saying yes. It was tough to turn down a trip to Mexico in December.** > > > > ``` > > Assuming we destroy a livable climate for our children and countless future generations, future historians (and our other billions of victims) will have many decades (if not centuries) of misery to contemplate why the richest country in the world, one built on scientific and technological ingenuity, refused to spend a small fraction of our wealth to avert multiple ever-worsening catastrophes that science projected we risk on our current emissions path (see “A stunning year in climate science reveals that human civilization is on the precipice” and “ Why even strong climate action has such a low total cost“). > > They will no doubt study the failure of the Obama administration to seize the once-in-a-generation opportunity — the one brief shining moment where we had a Democratic president plus large majorities in the House and Senate (see “The failed presidency of Barack Obama, Part 2: He let die our best chance to preserve a livable climate and restore US leadership in clean energy — without a serious fight”). They’ll examine How the status quo media failed on climate change. > > But ultimately, they will focus on the most successful and immoral disinformation campaign in human history — the anti-science, pro-pollution lies of the Merchants of Doubt. They will marvel at how that disinformation campaign captured an entire political party (see National Journal: “The GOP is stampeding toward an absolutist rejection of climate science that appears unmatched among major political parties around the globe, even conservative ones”). > > Their review should include this stunning front-page Washington Post story from Saturday, “Tea-party activists question if rebel political movement has changed for worse” — yes the headline is oxymoronic: How could a movement that from the start was backed by big corporate polluters and helping to plunge the nation and the world into climate chaos possibly change for the ‘worse’? But I digress. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tea-partiers-pissed-at-gop/566152.md?page=2)