# What is the Tea Party movement, really? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 23, 2013, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-tea-party-movement-really/664271 "2013-07-23T01:13:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**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:** [July 23, 2013, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-tea-party-movement-really/664271/41 "2013-07-23T15:33:21Z")
> [@Werekoala](#): > > Did you read the quote from the article I posted? It specifically states that within two months of Santelli, protestors said it was TEA Party, not just the Tea Party. It was also the first nationwide rally, April15, 2009, where this became prevalent. > > So pretty much everything you said, so not sure why you said it? I’ve seen the claim before about _some_ protesters creating the backronym, but I cannot find any contemporary cites. Nevertheless, the Tea Party _was_ named after the Boston Tea Party, any backronym claims by anonymous protestors notwithstanding. ---
**Author:** ![Werekoala](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/7993a0/32.png) [@Werekoala](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Werekoala)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2013, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-tea-party-movement-really/664271/42 "2013-07-23T15:36:35Z")
Hey, if Encyclopedia Brittanica isn’t good enough for you, then whatever. ---
**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:** [July 23, 2013, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-tea-party-movement-really/664271/43 "2013-07-23T15:42:35Z")
> [@Werekoala](#): > > Hey, if Encyclopedia Brittanica isn’t good enough for you, then whatever. From the link: > [@](#): > > [O]n February 19, 2009… Rick Santelli, a commentator on the business-news network CNBC, referenced the Boston Tea Party (1773) in his response to Pres. Barack Obama’s mortgage relief plan… Santelli… proposed a Chicago Tea Party to protest government intervention in the housing market. The five-minute clip became an Internet sensation, and the “Tea Party” rallying cry struck a chord… So the Boston Tea Party origin came a couple of months before the ‘Taxed Enough Already’. ---
**Author:** ![Werekoala](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/7993a0/32.png) [@Werekoala](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Werekoala)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2013, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-tea-party-movement-really/664271/44 "2013-07-23T15:51:59Z")
Yes, of course - ANY tax protest is going to invoke images of the Boston Tea Party - that’s been true in America for over 200 years. The point is that it WAS originally a tax protest movement, acquired the acronym TEA party, then mutated over time into something else entirely. We were talking (I thought) about the origins and people seemed confused as to what it was all about when it started - I was trying to clarify the confusion by stating that from the earliest days (2 months after Santelli) it was becoming popularly known as the TEA Party by it’s members, not just another Tea Party, and that the reason for it’s existing was right there in the newly acronym’d name. It was a tax protest movement that has since been hijacked. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2013, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-tea-party-movement-really/664271/45 "2013-07-23T16:01:20Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > What happened is that he found what he wanted to find, and tailored his methodology to guarantee that he’d find what he wanted. And you know that how? ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2013, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-tea-party-movement-really/664271/46 "2013-07-23T16:11:34Z")
The Tea Party formulation happened at least 6 months prior to Santelli’s (IMO scripted) rant. The whole “movement” was a well-financed and planned thing, not a grassroots movement as it’s backers would have the nation believe. Zack Christenson, a producer of conservative Milt Rosenburg’s radio show, registered the domain [ChicagoTeaParty.com](http://ChicagoTeaParty.com) in August 2008, for instance. As I asked in another thread: was he somehow psychic and just “knew” that a spontaneous grassroots movement with the same name (and that shared his own political goals and ideology) would appear soon afterward? :dubious: :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Werekoala](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/7993a0/32.png) [@Werekoala](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Werekoala)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2013, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-tea-party-movement-really/664271/47 "2013-07-23T16:14:12Z")
Well, normally I hate to see this but I must ask - cite? ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2013, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-tea-party-movement-really/664271/48 "2013-07-23T16:17:14Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > And you know that how? Because that’s what the Republicans do? ---
**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:** [July 23, 2013, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-tea-party-movement-really/664271/49 "2013-07-23T16:21:01Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > From the link: > So the Boston Tea Party origin came a couple of months before the ‘Taxed Enough Already’. Even earlier: > **[Study Confirms Tea Party Was Created by Big Tobacco and Billionaire Koch...](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/study-confirms-tea-party_b_2663125)** > > A new academic study confirms that front groups with longstanding ties to the tobacco industry and the billionaire Koch brothers planned the formation of the Tea Party movement more than a decade before it exploded onto the U.S. political scene. > [@](#): > > A new academic study confirms that front groups with longstanding ties to the tobacco industry and the billionaire Koch brothers planned the formation of the Tea Party movement more than a decade before it exploded onto the U.S. political scene. > > Far from a genuine grassroots uprising, this astroturf effort was curated by wealthy industrialists years in advance. Many of the anti-science operatives who defended cigarettes are currently deploying their tobacco-inspired playbook internationally to evade accountability for the fossil fuel industry’s role in driving climate disruption. > > The study, funded by the National Cancer Institute of the National Institute of Health, traces the roots of the Tea Party’s anti-tax movement back to the early 1980s when tobacco companies began to invest in third party groups to fight excise taxes on cigarettes, as well as health studies finding a link between cancer and secondhand cigarette smoke. > > Published in the peer-reviewed academic journal, Tobacco Control, the study titled, ‘To quarterback behind the scenes, third party efforts’: the tobacco industry and the Tea Party, is not just an historical account of activities in a bygone era. As senior author, Stanton Glantz, a University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) professor of medicine, writes: > > ``` > "Nonprofit organizations associated with the Tea Party have longstanding ties to tobacco companies, and continue to advocate on behalf of the tobacco industry's anti-tax, anti-regulation agenda." > > ``` > > The two main organizations identified in the UCSF Quarterback study are Americans for Prosperity and Freedomworks. Both groups are now “supporting the tobacco companies’ political agenda by mobilizing local Tea Party opposition to tobacco taxes and smoke-free laws.” Freedomworks and Americans for Prosperity were once a single organization called Citizens for a Sound Economy (CSE). CSE was founded in 1984 by the infamous Koch Brothers, David and Charles Koch, and received over $5.3 million from tobacco companies, mainly Philip Morris, between 1991 and 2004. > > In 1990, Tim Hyde, RJR Tobacco’s head of national field operations, in an eerily similar description of the Tea Party today, explained why groups like CSE were important to the tobacco industry’s fight against government regulation. Hyde wrote: > > > [@](#): > > > > ``` > > "... coalition building should proceed along two tracks: a) a grassroots organizational and largely local track,; b) and a national, intellectual track within the DC-New York corridor. Ultimately, we are talking about a "movement," a national effort to change the way people think about government's (and big business) role in our lives. Any such effort requires an intellectual foundation - a set of theoretical and ideological arguments on its behalf." > > > > ``` > > The common public understanding of the origins of the Tea Party is that it is a popular grassroots uprising that began with anti-tax protests in 2009. > > However, the Quarterback study reveals that in 2002, the Kochs and tobacco-backed CSE designed and made public the first Tea Party Movement website under the web address [www.usteaparty.com](http://www.usteaparty.com). Here’s a screenshot of the archived U.S. Tea Party site, as it appeared online on Sept. 13, 2002: > [@](#): > > CSE describes the U.S. Tea Party site, “In 2002, our U.S. Tea Party is a national event, hosted continuously online, and open to all Americans who feel our taxes are too high and the tax code is too complicated.” The site features a “Patriot Guest book” where supporters can write a message of support for CSE and the U.S. Tea Party movement. > > Sometime around September 2011, the U.S. Tea Party site was taken offline. According to the DNS registry, the web address [www.usteaparty.com](http://www.usteaparty.com) is currently owned by Freedomworks. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2013, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-tea-party-movement-really/664271/50 "2013-07-23T16:22:29Z")
> [@Werekoala](#): > > Well, normally I hate to see this but I must ask - cite? [http://cqcounter.com/whois/domain/chicagoteaparty.com.html](http://cqcounter.com/whois/domain/chicagoteaparty.com.html) > **[Whois Lookup Captcha](https://whois.domaintools.com/chicagoteaparty.com)** ---
**Author:** ![Werekoala](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/7993a0/32.png) [@Werekoala](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Werekoala)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2013, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-tea-party-movement-really/664271/51 "2013-07-23T17:00:40Z")
Ah, I see now - so anyone who is against high(er) taxes is a puppet of the tobacco companies and the Koch brothers. Very nice. ---
**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:** [July 23, 2013, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-tea-party-movement-really/664271/52 "2013-07-23T17:04:34Z")
> [@Werekoala](#): > > Ah, I see now - so anyone who is against high(er) taxes is a puppet of the tobacco companies and the Koch brothers. > > Very nice. Nobody said that. Care to actually dispute the cites that _you_ asked for? ---
**Author:** ![Werekoala](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/7993a0/32.png) [@Werekoala](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Werekoala)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2013, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-tea-party-movement-really/664271/53 "2013-07-23T17:13:17Z")
Well not really - wasn’t directly responding to you, but the gist of the HuffPo article cited before you is that because the Koch brothers and the tobacco industry started funding anti-tax initiatives 20 years ago, and since any anti-tax initiative is going to automatically draw comparisons to the original BTP (and use the name and imagery of the event - after all, it’s cultural shorthand for anti-tax movements because that’s what it was, we learn that in school), that anyone from that time forward who associates themself with any anti-tax group who uses the name (or is given the name by outside interests who want to paint them as such) “Tea Party” is automatically an astroturf shill for Big (fill in the bank). It very neatly allows people who want to do so to “hashtag” anyone against higher taxes, or wanting lower taxes, as some mindless dupe who’s buying what their masters are selling instead of people who might actually have a genuine problem with the size of government and the amount of taxation they face. Brilliant, really. I always wondered why leftists scream “Koch” anytime someone mentions the Tea Party (I’d never heard of them before then, actually - amazing how they were able to use their mind-control rays on me decades before they even started their sinister plan, actually), and now I know. ---
**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:** [July 23, 2013, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-tea-party-movement-really/664271/54 "2013-07-23T17:18:27Z")
> [@Werekoala](#): > > It very neatly allows people who want to do so to “hashtag” anyone against higher taxes, or wanting lower taxes, as some mindless dupe who’s buying what their masters are selling instead of people who might actually have a genuine problem with the size of government and the amount of taxation they face. Not really, as I can see protesting taxes is very American, what it is not is when suddenly it is targeted to prevent tobacco and fossil fuels taxes. If you ponder just a little bit, one can see that the ones funding the movement do not care much about other things the Tea Partiers oppose, they only care that the Tea Party do oppose the taxation of their domains. > [@Werekoala](#): > > Brilliant, really. I always wondered why leftists scream “Koch” anytime someone mentions the Tea Party (I’d never heard of them before then, actually - amazing how they were able to use their mind-control rays on me decades before they even started their sinister plan, actually), and now I know. Of course that does not deal at all with the evidence, **so it stands.** ---
**Author:** ![Werekoala](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/7993a0/32.png) [@Werekoala](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Werekoala)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2013, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-tea-party-movement-really/664271/55 "2013-07-23T17:20:37Z")
Well of course it stands - any person or gathering or organization that at any time from now until the end of time uses, says, displays, or in any way references (including being labelled by their detractors as) “Tea Party” in their anti-tax efforts is at the very least guided (if not outright controlled) by Koch, Big Tobacco, Freedomworks, et. al. So say we all. You guys must have exausting lives, fighting against these monolithic entities trying to destroy the world by seeking to implement policies you don’t agree with. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2013, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-tea-party-movement-really/664271/56 "2013-07-23T17:22:32Z")
> [@Werekoala](#): > > Well of course it stands - any person or gathering or organization that at any time from now until the end of time uses, says, displays, or in any way references (including being labelled by their detractors as) “Tea Party” in their anti-tax efforts is at the very least guided (if not outright controlled) by Koch, Big Tobacco, Freedomworks, et. al. Cite? ---
**Author:** ![Werekoala](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/7993a0/32.png) [@Werekoala](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Werekoala)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2013, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-tea-party-movement-really/664271/57 "2013-07-23T17:27:22Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > Cite? See the HuffPo article - the gist is that the “Tea Party” movement is the result of a two-decade-old plan rather than spontaneous outrage among the citizenry. Any future “spontaneous” outrage will be hand-waved as just another example of the unseen (well, very clearly seen I guess) masters twitching their puppet’s strings. It’s a done deal - just ignore those poor misguided fools, they don’t really want lower taxes and smaller government, they just think they do. It’s even better, because now they can just be pitied instead of having to hate them. Gives a far better feeling of moral superiority that way. 🙂 ---
**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:** [July 23, 2013, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-tea-party-movement-really/664271/58 "2013-07-23T17:33:21Z")
> [@Werekoala](#): > > Well of course it stands - any person or gathering or organization that at any time from now until the end of time uses, says, displays, or in any way references (including being labelled by their detractors as) “Tea Party” in their anti-tax efforts is at the very least guided (if not outright controlled) by Koch, Big Tobacco, Freedomworks, et. al. > > So say we all. Nah, the way I see it many are glad to be controlled, after all they do support people like Koch and big corporations. However, I do think that many would be in the end upset to learn that they would be just a footnote like many other environmental grassroots groups if it wasn’t for all that economical support. And as I do remember from a past discussion many early Tea Partiers that did minded the environment were filtered out because they found out that it did not fit the narrative of the group. (If global warming is a hoax, then there is no problem and the EPA should back off) ---
**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:** [July 23, 2013, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-tea-party-movement-really/664271/59 "2013-07-23T17:35:25Z")
> [@Werekoala](#): > > See the HuffPo article - the gist is that the “Tea Party” movement is the result of a two-decade-old plan rather than spontaneous outrage among the citizenry. Any future “spontaneous” outrage will be hand-waved as just another example of the unseen (well, very clearly seen I guess) masters twitching their puppet’s strings. It’s a done deal - just ignore those poor misguided fools, they don’t really want lower taxes and smaller government, they just think they do. > > It’s even better, because now they can just be pitied instead of having to hate them. Gives a far better feeling of moral superiority that way. 🙂 Which facts in the cites that have been provided do you dispute? Bonus points for skipping the hackneyed hyperbole. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2013, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-tea-party-movement-really/664271/60 "2013-07-23T17:43:57Z")
I’d be surprised if there _weren’t_ anti-tax groups in existence long before the advent of the Tea Party rising in 2009 (hell, how long has Grover N been banging his particular drum?). That doesn’t mean the movement wasn’t seriously hijacked by political and corporate interests for their own purposes when Obama came to power. The two facts are not mutually exclusive. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-tea-party-movement-really/664271.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-tea-party-movement-really/664271.md?page=4)