The teabaggers are hardly a majority (as evidenced by their anemic turnout, not to mention the ass-kicking they took in November), and they’ve sure as hell never been silent.
The teabaggers were not newly active individuals, by the way. They were the exact same tards we saw screaming “kill him” at Palin rallies. This was not any kind of new movement. It was just a tantrum by the losers of the last election.
What “liberal actions” ? Letting torturers walk ? Sucking up to the homophobes even before he was in office ? Obama’s no liberal; he’s a moderate conservative, as opposed to the outright lunatic conservatives in the Republicans.
Oh, fucking come on. There are people calling him a fascist and a communist simultaneously, as well as plenty of other ridiculous statements. And nobody kisses the ground he walks on. Nice strawmen, though.
I never said they were a majority. I simply stated that the opinion of the larger % of the demonstrators…
As for your “kill him” reference - IMHO, if that ever happened, it was from the mouth of a dem plant.
Frankly, I’m glad you don’t think there are new people involved in the political process. The people that were there know better, and that’s all that really matters.
You said “Silent Majority.” The teabaggers are neither. They are minority of whiny losers.
Yeah, right.
Opinion polls do not support assertions of any newly active people. What percentage of people at the teabaggings (children excluded) do you believe either voted for Obama in November or did not vote at all? Can you show any empirical support at all for your contention that any significant number of teabaggers (let’s say more than 5%) had never been engaged in politics before (or had changed from pro-Obama to anti)?
You can’t because this event (as flaccid as it turned out to be), did not come from the ground up, but was organized, coordinated, promoted and sponsored by conservative media outlets. It was a fan event. The people who went were fans, just like people who go to Sci Fi conventions or jazz festivals. These were not newbies.
Limbaugh, Malkin, Hannity, O’Reilly, Beck, K-Lo, Coulter, Brietbart, and Savage have finally stirred from their slumber.
In a sense, there is some truth that conservatism has awakened in the GOP, though. In three short months, American conservatives have rediscovered fiscal discipline and limits on executive power.
The difference IMO is the timing. Obama just got into office and the panic button is being pressed. I know there’s loonies on both sides. I gave Bush a chance and figured , like most presidents, he’d do some good things and some bad. {based on my perspective} When he used a national tragedy mixed with a shit load of lies to start another war that kinda pushed me over the edge.
Obama has barely gotten started and the fires of fear, anger, and outright hatred seem to be purposely being fanned and encouraged. Where does it go from here?
This raises an interesting question in my mind (although it is one I don’t wish to test). What if the economy fails to recover quickly enough and Obama loses the 2012 election to the GOP. Will the GOP then act on these “new-found” ideals of fiscal discipline and limits on executive power, or will they return to the Bush-era tactics?
first, I don’t believe there’s a chance in Hell Obama will lose the 2012 election, based upon the utter disarray of the GOP at the moment. This could obviously change, but it doesn’t look good for them at all now. Second, in my opinion, the GOP has lost any claim to fiscal discipline and, I will go so far to contend, they never really had it in the first place, and certainly not within the last 30 years. The fiscalist cry was simply an effective weapon with which to bludgeon the Democrats. Repeat a claim enough bla, bla, bla… you know the mantra. We have ample evidence what the Republicans do fiscally when in power.
As far as the tea party participants, as someone alluded earlier, in large measure, these were the same racist, homophobic, xenophobic, factually impaired (and proudly so) folks who were the face of the McCain/Palin rallies. They have not, and will not, get over that we have a black president, and are absolutely consumed with being outraged at every breath Obama takes.
It doesn’t matter to GOP true believers what Obama actually does. He’s black, and so must fail, at all costs. “This is not the America I used to know” is not just a platitude to the faithful. If Obama’s plans ultimately achieve success, as it seems they may, and the economy pulls out of its tailspin in the next 6 to 12 months, even if the rabid, hate-filled conservative hoards benefit, as it seems they will, Obama will not only not be credited, he will be castigated for handling the recovery poorly and delaying its progress, along with any other minutiae they can blow out of proportion to tar him with.
That’s not even close to true. I didn’t see a single sign expressing any emotion at all towards previous administrations, apart from the one guy who apparently hated all politicians. Everyone who was there (although there were also some piss-takers, like the “I shaved my balls for this?!” guy) was there because they uncritically swallowed Fox’s bullshit about how Obama will raise your taxes and take your guns and make illegal immigrants gay marry your children.
Doesn’t matter. After everything that happened, they still whine about “tax and spend” Democrats. How many teabagger signs said “Obama is just as bad as Dubya”?
It doesn’t matter whether or not it’s a fact, because it’s TRUE. TRUTH overcomes facts in their eyes. Numbers lie - if they’re the wrong numbers.
And on the off chance someone does accurately defame Junior Ronny Dubya, the correct response will be, “Sure, but the libruls would have been worse”.
It only took a few political operatives, a PR firm, corporate funding, and a media blitz to convince people to protest a nonexistent tax policy. I found the entire staged protest a little creepy. When commercialization becomes part of the democratic process and deceives the public this effectively, it should be a concern for everyone. People were willing to protest an issue that didn’t exist.
Some participants must have decided it looked a little nutty to protest nonexistent tax increases and tried to change the reason for the protest, but it’s hard to claim the protest wasn’t about taxes when it was called the Boston Tea Party or tea parties and took place on April 15. Participants had teabags on their shirts or dangling from hats and signs ridiculing Obama’s oppressive taxes.
You didn’t see it because the media chose not to show it. There’s an enlightening clip floating around youtube of a CNN reporter who actually engaged in a heated argument with the craziest guy she could find. Then the cameras went off, but some other people videotaped the aftermath, in which she was asked why she singled that guy out. She said it was ‘newsworthy’, to which the questioner said, “And you don’t think THAT sign might have been newsworthy?” - and point to a guy standing about ten feet away with an anti-Bush sign.
Look at this video: CNN Video. This was a ‘tea party’ process. At the :39 mark, you can see a large sign which says, “Republicans Suck Too!”. A person being interviewed has a sign which says, “ALL politicians are the same.”