# What is the Tea Party movement, really?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-tea-party-movement-really/664271>\
**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")\
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**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")

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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:

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