# The Word "teabagger"
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-word-teabagger/511160
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [September 23, 2009, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-word-teabagger/511160 "2009-09-23T00:08:26Z")
**Posts on this page:** 18
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)
#### Post date: [September 23, 2009, 9:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-word-teabagger/511160/21 "2009-09-23T09:09:27Z")
It simply identifies them as out of touch with American culture, what’s going on with our language, and our values, over the past half-century or more. They might as well hang signs around their necks: “Clueless, addled, self-righteous idiot imposing my narrow values on others.”
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### Author:  [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)
#### Post date: [September 23, 2009, 9:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-word-teabagger/511160/22 "2009-09-23T09:23:45Z")
I’ve often wondered who thought “MoveOn” was a good name for an activist group- to me, it suggests an organisation devoted to telling people to stop caring about unimportant issues (ie, “Move on and find something more worthwhile to devote your energies to”), not… whatever it is they actually do.
And whenever I hear the term “Teabagging”, I think of immature (typically teenage) online FPS gamers… it’s certainly not a term I’d associate with any credible political movement.
Having said that, I agree with the posters who have said the political sorts describing themselves as “Teabaggers” would have no idea at all of the sex act/online gaming connotations of the term.
Somehow I doubt they’d care, instead saying that it was proof of how far society had fallen or something equally silly…
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### Author:  [@Drain\_Bead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drain_Bead)
#### Post date: [September 23, 2009, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-word-teabagger/511160/23 "2009-09-23T12:34:41Z")
> [@Martini\_Enfield](#):
>
> I’ve often wondered who thought “MoveOn” was a good name for an activist group- to me, it suggests an organisation devoted to telling people to stop caring about unimportant issues (ie, “Move on and find something more worthwhile to devote your energies to”), not… whatever it is they actually do.
I think it was coined for people to move on after the Bush/Gore fiasco and start working on returning Democrats to power.
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### Author:  [@C3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C3)
#### Post date: [September 23, 2009, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-word-teabagger/511160/24 "2009-09-23T12:45:45Z")
> [@Drain\_Bead](#):
>
> I think it was coined for people to move on after the Bush/Gore fiasco and start working on returning Democrats to power.
No, it was named in reaction to the Clinton impeachment.
From their website:
_[MoveOn.org](http://MoveOn.org) Civic Action was started by Joan Blades and Wes Boyd, two Silicon Valley entrepreneurs. Although neither had experience in politics, they shared deep frustration with the partisan warfare in Washington D.C. and the ridiculous waste of our nation’s focus at the time of the impeachment mess. On September 18th 1998, they launched an online petition to “Censure President Clinton and Move On to Pressing Issues Facing the Nation.” Within days they had hundreds of thousands of individuals signed up, and began looking for ways these voices could be heard._
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### Author:  [@Apollyon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apollyon)
#### Post date: [September 25, 2009, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-word-teabagger/511160/25 "2009-09-25T02:50:30Z")
> [@Cat\_Fight](#):
>
> Better saddled than [saddleback](http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=saddleback).
:eek:
> [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](#):
>
> Great galloping cats, I’m tired of this… So now someone else is using the term? To mean something else?.. Well, har de har. Let’s point and laugh.
Political neutral here – well as far as US politics goes – was this just a case of a particular person (wiki says Fox News reporter _Griff Jenkins_) inadvisedly using a word that had another meaning, and then opponents not letting it die? Or have the supporters claimed the term as their own? With or without realizing its other – and with respect to **Hilarity N. Suze** – older meaning.
But I’m still left wondering: why tea_ **bag** _? I get the Boston Tea Party allusion, but teabags post date that by 130 odd years.
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### Author:  [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)
#### Post date: [September 25, 2009, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-word-teabagger/511160/26 "2009-09-25T02:53:14Z")
> [@C3](#):
>
> No, it was named in reaction to the Clinton impeachment.
>
> From their website:
> _[MoveOn.org](http://MoveOn.org) Civic Action was started by Joan Blades and Wes Boyd, two Silicon Valley entrepreneurs. Although neither had experience in politics, they shared deep frustration with the partisan warfare in Washington D.C. and the ridiculous waste of our nation’s focus at the time of the impeachment mess. On September 18th 1998, they launched an online petition to “Censure President Clinton and Move On to Pressing Issues Facing the Nation.” Within days they had hundreds of thousands of individuals signed up, and began looking for ways these voices could be heard._
That explains a bit, but now that issue is no longer relevant, their name does seem a bit… ill-fitting, for want of a better term.
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### Author:  [@waterj2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/waterj2)
#### Post date: [September 25, 2009, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-word-teabagger/511160/27 "2009-09-25T22:30:53Z")
> [@Apollyon](#):
>
> :eek:
> Political neutral here – well as far as US politics goes – was this just a case of a particular person (wiki says Fox News reporter _Griff Jenkins_) inadvisedly using a word that had another meaning, and then opponents not letting it die? Or have the supporters claimed the term as their own? With or without realizing its other – and with respect to **Hilarity N. Suze** – older meaning.
>
> But I’m still left wondering: why tea_ **bag** _? I get the Boston Tea Party allusion, but teabags post date that by 130 odd years.
I think one of the first protests that the group organized was to encourage like-minded people to mail teabags in attached to their tax returns as a symbolic gesture.
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### Author:  [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2009, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-word-teabagger/511160/28 "2009-09-26T02:45:40Z")
> [@waterj2](#):
>
> I think one of the first protests that the group organized was to encourage like-minded people to mail teabags in attached to their tax returns as a symbolic gesture.
[http://teabagcongress.com/teabag/SendTeabag.html](http://teabagcongress.com/teabag/SendTeabag.html)
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### Author:  [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2009, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-word-teabagger/511160/29 "2009-09-26T03:05:22Z")
> [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](#):
>
> So now someone else is using the term?
Do you know who **ELSE** enjoyed teabagging? :eek:
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### Author:  [@emcee2k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emcee2k)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2009, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-word-teabagger/511160/30 "2009-09-26T04:35:28Z")
It seems like the teabagging jokes started up as soon as the protests did. I’m a little surprised there’s still people saying, “Hey, did anyone else notice that name sounds dirty?”.
The truth is, if it didn’t sound dirty, we wouldn’t be calling them that. Yes, there were protests that involved sending teabags to Obama and Congress, but there wasn’t widespread use of the word teabag as a verb to describe those protests.
Instead, there were a few websites and a few misguided people with signs saying things “teabag Obama before he teabags you”. So liberal commentator latched on to this because they saw an easy joke. The whole thing blew up and the name stuck.
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### Author:  [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2009, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-word-teabagger/511160/31 "2009-09-26T05:54:13Z")
Well, of course. If they’re just going to hand us the pies, we might as well throw them.
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### Author:  [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)
#### Post date: [September 27, 2009, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-word-teabagger/511160/32 "2009-09-27T22:30:11Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#):
>
> Well, of course. If they’re just going to hand us the pies, we might as well throw them.
No dammit, we’re _DEMOCRATS_!
We have to work to _get along_.
We have to put our efforts into _losing_!
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### Author:  [@Apollyon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apollyon)
#### Post date: [September 28, 2009, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-word-teabagger/511160/33 "2009-09-28T22:57:55Z")
> [@waterj2](#):
>
> I think one of the first protests that the group organized was to encourage like-minded people to mail teabags in attached to their tax returns as a symbolic gesture.
OK, thank you, that makes a bit more sense to me now.
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### Author:  [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)
#### Post date: [September 28, 2009, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-word-teabagger/511160/34 "2009-09-28T23:05:00Z")
> [@](#):
>
> I think one of the first protests that the group organized was to encourage like-minded people to mail teabags in attached to their tax returns as a symbolic gesture.
The original idea of throwing rocks at British people didn’t clear legal.
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### Author:  [@yanceylebeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yanceylebeef)
#### Post date: [September 29, 2009, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-word-teabagger/511160/35 "2009-09-29T00:22:35Z")
Crimeny, I hope **Big T** never finds out about what “Santorum” means.
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### Author:  [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)
#### Post date: [September 29, 2009, 9:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-word-teabagger/511160/36 "2009-09-29T09:22:05Z")
It occurs to me to wonder if some of those folks in the opposition might take exception to the First Lady’s vegetable garden project. Maybe on the grounds that it looks like she’s trying to be all holier-than-thou with her _home-grown salad fixin’s_ and her _healthy lifestyle choices_.
The could start a movement of bringing salad greens to Mrs. Obama’s public appearances, and making a big show of tossing them out.
And I know just the perfect name for them…
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### Author:  [@yanceylebeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yanceylebeef)
#### Post date: [September 29, 2009, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-word-teabagger/511160/37 "2009-09-29T12:44:19Z")
I’m not sure where I read it, but someone was talking about gathering the collected works of Marx, and having a bon fire. The tentative name would be the Hot Karls.
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### Author:  [@Taber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Taber)
#### Post date: [September 29, 2009, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-word-teabagger/511160/38 "2009-09-29T21:17:23Z")
As a protest of illegal immigration, someone planned to take a bunch of mud…no sorry, I can’t go through with it.
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