A thoughtful and insightful posting on the Tea Tantrum and their ‘anger’. I have always regarded the ‘Take Back America’ rhetoric as coded language that belies a certain masked bigotry. It appears that I am not alone in that thought.
Tea Party supporters repeatedly assert that they are not racists and that their strong dislike of President Obama is not racially motivated. The Tea Party is clearly not a hate group like the Ku Klux Klan or the various militia movements on the fringes that openly advocate hate, hostility or violence toward those they do not like. Their income, education and political influence place the vast majority of Tea Party supporters much closer to the establishment than to any such fringe groups. And in 21st century America you cannot be a well respected member of the establishment and openly advocate racist positions.
But, while not overtly racist, their vision for America does not seem to include people who are not like them as full-fledged members of the same establishment of which they are a part. Tea Party supporters seem to strongly resent the educational, economic and political advances made by women, blacks, Hispanics and other minorities over the past few decades, so concretely symbolized by the election of Barack Obama.
The concluding paragraph pretty much knocks it out of the park:
Groups like the Tea Party will continue to rise, rally against these changes and try to Take America Back, egged on by the demagogues of their day looking to exploit their fears for their own power and riches. But the end is always the same. No one can Take America Back, because what they are really fighting is the fair, inclusive and democratic character of the country, a character that gets reaffirmed and strengthened generation after generation.
Technorati Tags:
ideas, politics, racism, teatantrum