# Tea Party: the hippies of the 00's? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 3, 2012, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tea-party-the-hippies-of-the-00s/630288 "2012-08-03T13:37:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2012, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tea-party-the-hippies-of-the-00s/630288/21 "2012-08-03T18:18:32Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > They originated the name. It’s what they called themselves. I don’t think that’s accurate. [http://theweek.com/article/index/202620/the-evolution-of-the-word-tea-bagger](http://theweek.com/article/index/202620/the-evolution-of-the-word-tea-bagger) says that they sent tea bags to people and had signs referencing “teabagging”, but nothing like “we’re all Teabaggers” or “you should call us the Teabaggers”. That appears to have started with MSNBC and spread to the rest of the media. I think it’s pretty clear that many of them would prefer to be called something like “Tea Partiers” and never embraced the label “Teabagger”. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2012, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tea-party-the-hippies-of-the-00s/630288/22 "2012-08-03T18:19:35Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > Insults of people who are not posters (or of groups of people that may include posters, like political parties) are generally kosher. Thanks for the clarification. ---
**Author:** ![nogravity](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/9d8465/32.png) [@nogravity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nogravity)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2012, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tea-party-the-hippies-of-the-00s/630288/23 "2012-08-03T18:40:26Z")
> [@TreacherousCretin](#): > > Hippies wore sillier costumes. I’d rather wear tie-dye than tricorn hats. > [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > They originated the name. It’s what they called themselves. They originated the name before somebody told them what it meant. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2012, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tea-party-the-hippies-of-the-00s/630288/24 "2012-08-03T19:01:32Z")
> [@nogravity](#): > > They originated the name before somebody told them what it meant. Where? When? The only references I’ve found were to performing the act on people they don’t like. That’s pretty good evidence that they knew what it meant. They didn’t call themselves “Teabaggers”. MSNBC did. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2012, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tea-party-the-hippies-of-the-00s/630288/25 "2012-08-03T19:08:28Z")
I’ve been calling them Teapers lately, but my question remains: When did hippies ever have as large an influence of the Democratic Party as the Teapers now do regarding the Republican Party? ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2012, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tea-party-the-hippies-of-the-00s/630288/26 "2012-08-03T19:19:57Z")
> [@nogravity](#): > > I think that the tea partiers are the antithesis of the hippies. If you look at the demographics a large number of them aged 60+ would have been the ones back in the 60-70’s who weren’t the hippies of that generation. They would have been the young republicans back then and felt they had no voice. And now, with the tea party, they won’t shut the fuck up. At least the ones I know. It’s typically Teahadist to feel that if anyone _but_ you has a voice, then _your_ voice will not be heard. It’s often expressed in First Amendment terms: intolerance is defended as free expression, whether it’s in the form of speech, action, or policy. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2012, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tea-party-the-hippies-of-the-00s/630288/27 "2012-08-03T19:20:46Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > They didn’t call themselves “Teabaggers”. MSNBC did. They created the verb form. Griff Jenkins, FOX News, March, 2009. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2012, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tea-party-the-hippies-of-the-00s/630288/28 "2012-08-03T19:25:41Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > Where? When? The only references I’ve found were to performing the act on people they don’t like. That’s pretty good evidence that they knew what it meant. They didn’t call themselves “Teabaggers”. MSNBC did. Would the facts really matter? [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qu0UYvVm0yY](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qu0UYvVm0yY) And yes, MSNBC did call them teabaggers. That is what they called themselves. The Youtube video clearly shows that they adopted teabags as their icon. Some of their signs also clearly show that some of them thought “teabag” was a derogatory thing to do. [http://voices.washingtonpost.com/right-now/2010/05/a\_peoples\_history\_of\_teabag.html](http://voices.washingtonpost.com/right-now/2010/05/a_peoples_history_of_teabag.html) So yes, tea bags and “tea bag Nancy Pelosi” were symbols and slogans devised by the people who now deny they did exactly that. They pretty clearly did not understand that this would result in them being called “tea baggers” by people who knew what it meant and laughing at them for their ignorance. And that is the real snark being directed their way: that they are uninformed and ignorant. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2012, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tea-party-the-hippies-of-the-00s/630288/29 "2012-08-03T21:22:08Z")
I might say the Tea Party is more comparable to the Democratic Party from about 1968 to 1992 when they constantly nominated tired out liberal suits (men like McGovern, Carter, Mondale, Dukakis) until they wised up and nominated Bill Clinton. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2012, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tea-party-the-hippies-of-the-00s/630288/30 "2012-08-03T22:11:49Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > I don’t see the parallels. Hippies didn’t try to take away people’s voting rights, they were all about expanding voting rights and the 18 year old vote came about during that time. Hippies weren’t about denying others the rights they sought for themselves- free love didn’t mean you were forced to participate, nobody tried to force anyone else to take drugs, etc. The Teabaggers are all about making the whole of society conform to their religious views. Equating the two groups is an insult to the flower children of the 1960s. Perhaps a nearer equivalent would be the radical-by-American-standards New Left of the time, the Students for a Democratic Society et al, that eventually mutated and gave birth to the Weather Underground and the Symbionese Liberation Army – but, those were **not** hippies; the hippie counterculture really was not very political-activist at all. Both sets might have joined in the same Vietnam-War protest marches – sometimes – but they were very different groups. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2012, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tea-party-the-hippies-of-the-00s/630288/31 "2012-08-03T22:14:29Z")
> [@Dave\_Hartwick](#): > > Um, Occupy Wall Street? Did we forget about that already? Not terribly hippie. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2012, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tea-party-the-hippies-of-the-00s/630288/32 "2012-08-03T22:18:50Z")
> [@Clothahump](#): > > That’s because the hippies of the 60s were simply spoiled brats whose parents were messed up by reading Dr. Spock and believing his bullshit. [Bullshit.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Spock#Claims_that_Spock.27s_books_led_to_the_Anti_Vietnam_War_movement_and_Permissiveness) > [@Clothahump](#): > > The Tea Party is people who are responsible, have jobs . . . Well, **had,** in many if not most cases. > [@Clothahump](#): > > . . . and pay way too damn much in taxes to support lamebrain social programs. And would be dead by now without their Social Security and Medicare. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2012, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tea-party-the-hippies-of-the-00s/630288/33 "2012-08-03T22:24:03Z")
The “swing back” towards Conservatism took place in the 80s. By the 90s, we were over the tipping point into something new, & quite frankly, flatly crazy. The Yuppies were the opposite of Hippies. ---
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2012, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tea-party-the-hippies-of-the-00s/630288/34 "2012-08-04T00:36:41Z")
Iraq War protesters were the hippies of the '00s. Tea baggers and Occupiers are the hippies of the **'10s**. But seriously. hippies were mostly anti-political. Real hippies lived in communes and stayed out of the square community. Of course, if you think every 60s teenager with shaggy hair and bell-bottoms was a hippy, that means all those gelled up Limp Bizkit fans in black wife-beaters and iris-hiding contacts were the hippies of the 00s. Even more seriously, it doesn’t make any sense to compare several-generations-apart social movements like that. The entire world was different. The place in society that the hippies occupied doesn’t even exist anymore. Come up with your own counterculture, man. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2012, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tea-party-the-hippies-of-the-00s/630288/35 "2012-08-04T00:39:22Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > When I think of Mitt Romney, the GOP’s current standard bearer . . . But definitely not the Tea Party’s. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2012, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tea-party-the-hippies-of-the-00s/630288/36 "2012-08-04T00:43:40Z")
I think a lot of people are confusing the extremnist antiwar leftists of the '60s with hippies… ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2012, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tea-party-the-hippies-of-the-00s/630288/37 "2012-08-04T00:49:24Z")
Despite the demographic differences, I get what the OP is saying and have often thought the same thing. I don’t know how much of an indication of the times it is, but I’m definitely seeing more right-wing expats than before over here. Except for maybe some of the retired servicemen, it used to be pretty much overwhelmingly left-wing-ish expats you’d see if not outright hippies. There are some flat-out Tea Partiers here now. ---
**Author:** ![florez](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b9e5f3/32.png) [@florez](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/florez)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2012, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tea-party-the-hippies-of-the-00s/630288/38 "2012-08-04T01:00:52Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > I think a lot of people are confusing the extremnist antiwar leftists of the '60s with hippies… “Peace” was the centerpiece ideal in the otherwise apolitical hippie philosophy from what I understand, and they were anti-war by and large IMO. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2012, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tea-party-the-hippies-of-the-00s/630288/39 "2012-08-04T01:13:02Z")
You know who the hippies of today are? The hippies. They’re still around. ---
**Author:** ![TreacherousCretin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/treacherouscretin/32/476_2.png) [@TreacherousCretin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TreacherousCretin)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2012, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tea-party-the-hippies-of-the-00s/630288/40 "2012-08-04T01:31:57Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > You know who the hippies of today are? The hippies. They’re still around. No we aren’t. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tea-party-the-hippies-of-the-00s/630288.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tea-party-the-hippies-of-the-00s/630288.md?page=3)