MWHistorian wrote:
The Tea Party exists because many conservatives feel that the Republican Party is corrupt and has lost its vision and soul. (which it has) Whether the Tea Party is right or wrong is a different matter. But it is a reaction to what they view of a party that no longer represents their ideas.
(Don't think for a second the Democrats are any better.They aint.)

And no, it wasn't a response to Obama. It started off as a protest against higher taxes.

 whembly wrote:
Oh wow...

The GOP's establishment is panicking.

fething awesome and that their tears are tasty and life sustaining.

 sebster wrote:

 MWHistorian wrote:
The Tea Party exists because many conservatives feel that the Republican Party is corrupt and has lost its vision and soul. (which it has) Whether the Tea Party is right or wrong is a different matter. But it is a reaction to what they view of a party that no longer represents their ideas.
(Don't think for a second the Democrats are any better.They aint.)

I agree that the Democrats are just as much under the control of moneyed interests as the Republicans.

But the Republicans 'no longer' representing their ideas is a false narrative. The two major parties have been under the sway of moneyed interests for generations, so as a prompt for sudden outrage it makes little sense. Instead, you have to look at the sharp increase in fringe politics on the right, often poorly informed and highly idealistic these people seemed to somehow conclude that the Republican Party 'no longer' represented their ideas... when the reality is that the GOP never did anything more than throw those people the odd bone.

And no, it wasn't a response to Obama. It started off as a protest against higher taxes.

Complaining about taxes was certainly something they did a lot. It didn't make much sense, considering the tax rates. Instead you have to understand it as a combination of things - the failure and unpopularity of the Bush administration, the election of a president the right had convinced themselves was a socialist, the GFC and the sudden increase in the government deficit, all acting in concert with the increasing trend of a number of media voices willing to play to the fringe of the right wing.

That gives you a moment that's ripe for some element within the Republican Party, in this case Freedomworks, to galvanize all those dissatisfied elements in to a single protest movement, in order to both rebrand the party in to something people might still vote for in 2008, and in order to usurp power within the Republican party for itself and its own causes. Of course, being a dissatisfied fringe, the Tea Party proved harder to organise than cats, and the result was what we saw in 2010 and 2012, and are maybe seeing just a little more of in 2014.

 d-usa wrote:
The problem with too many new people all at once is that nobody knows how to politic anymore: aka congress after the tea party takeover.

whembly wrote:Seb... I think you're way over complicating this.

The Tea Party "responses" is really just a rebellious reaction towards the Establishment.

whembly wrote:
RINO Lindsey Graham won his primary handily.

 streamdragon wrote:

whembly wrote:Seb... I think you're way over complicating this.

The Tea Party "responses" is really just a rebellious reaction towards the Establishment.

Please tell me you dont actually believe this. You're smarter than that.

whembly wrote:
RINO Lindsey Graham won his primary handily.

Oh wow... are we still actually trying to pretend that RINO is a thing?

 motyak wrote:
RINO? He's (according to wiki) anti-gay marriage, has a strong pro-gun stance, believes that a ridiculous number of kids born near the border are illegals, and need to remain as such, voted against the ACA, thinks that "the science is in question" with regards to global warming and claims that Clinton "got away with murder" with Benghazi.

He seems to be pretty much the opposite of what the Tea Party and their ilk refer to as RINOs. Unless you were using that term to refer to those who hold the above beliefs as RINOs, in which case I agree with you.

And yeah, Tea Party are purely grassroots and anti-establishment? Right. Pull the other one.

 motyak wrote:
Well the gun rights thing is a matter of do not say, because those ratings come from your voting record I thought?

The climate change involves him pulling his support for bills, making them likely to collapse.

SSM, again, voting against it, and receiving a 0% from groups which rate people their support of LGBT rights in the US (so basically the opposite of those gun groups which gave him good ratings for his voting record)

Those all certainly seem to be doing, not saying. Unless he doesn't have a large enough collection of weapons at home, he uses energy efficient lightbulbs and is currently in the closet? Unless that's what you mean by 'saying, not doing', or I'm missing something critical in those points (which I well could, I've never looked up the bloke before), I think the 'saying not doing' is a bit of an inaccurate comment.

 whembly wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
The problem with too many new people all at once is that nobody knows how to politic anymore: aka congress after the tea party takeover.

What tea party takeover?

 d-usa wrote:

 whembly wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
The problem with too many new people all at once is that nobody knows how to politic anymore: aka congress after the tea party takeover.

What tea party takeover?

If we are going to prevent that reality didn't happen just let me know so that I can unsubscribe from the thread and not waste my time.

 whembly wrote:

 streamdragon wrote:

whembly wrote:Seb... I think you're way over complicating this.

The Tea Party "responses" is really just a rebellious reaction towards the Establishment.

Please tell me you dont actually believe this. You're smarter than that.

Wait... did I miss the memo that the "Tea Party" is actually a Political Party, ala Democrat/Republican/Green????

Dude... really?

whembly wrote:
RINO Lindsey Graham won his primary handily.

Oh wow... are we still actually trying to pretend that RINO is a thing?

Well... he's a Republican... but, he ain't very Conservative™.

 streamdragon wrote:

Well... he's a Republican... but, he ain't very Conservative™.

Their candidates are referred to as "Tea Party", not "Republican", yes?

 whembly wrote:

o.O

Aren't you describing "anti-establishment" anyway?

 Easy E wrote:
I admit, I was pretty surprised. I thought th emedia talk about the coming republican Civil War was just an attempt to make the primaries and off-year election interesting.

For the most part the Te aParty has had its head handed to it this year. Then they take a pretty big scalp in the form of Cantor and are also causing some disruptions in Mississippi.

There might be a bit more to this "Civil War" thing than I first suspected.

 LordofHats wrote:

 whembly wrote:

o.O

Aren't you describing "anti-establishment" anyway?

I consider anti-establishment as oxymoronic as non-conformist. They're not even trying to reinvent the system or anything. They just want it to do what they want. The sign of the Tea Party is that the GOP is slowly fracturing and unable to keep all of it's ends happy. This happens in politics. It happened back in the 1850's when the GOP was formed.

Now we have the conservative end of politics broken up into people identifying as multiple things. Republican, Libertarian, Tea Party, etc. The GOP is still going because it remains the banner under which all these groups fall nationally, but I think an astute observation of the current political scene suggests a real possibility that the Republican part will break up.

 LordofHats wrote:
I always find it funny when the Tea-Party is called anti-establishment. They're not. The Tea-Party just wants the establishment to do what they want it to do, which is what everyone wants.

 whembly wrote:

 d-usa wrote:

 whembly wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
The problem with too many new people all at once is that nobody knows how to politic anymore: aka congress after the tea party takeover.

What tea party takeover?

If we are going to prevent that reality didn't happen just let me know so that I can unsubscribe from the thread and not waste my time.

Again... what tea party takeover? (I thought you said it was dead as a movement)

Are you referring to the 2010 Republican takeover of the House?

 d-usa wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
I always find it funny when the Tea-Party is called anti-establishment. They're not. The Tea-Party just wants the establishment to do what they want it to do, which is what everyone wants.

I laugh people in the face when they try to tell me that the Tea Party is pro small government.

 d-usa wrote:
[
Are you referring to the 2010 Republican takeover of the House?

It's not dead yet, but it's dying.

And yea, I'm talking about the 2010 takeover of the house and the subsequent takeover of GOP politics even influencing the Senate.

A Tea Party candidate soundly defeated House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., on Tuesday, sending shockwaves through the Republican establishment and the Democratic Party.

And Dave Brat, the 52-year-old chairman of the Randolph-Macon College Department of Economics and Business in Ashland, Va., staged the huge upset without any help from major Tea Party organizations.

But this troublesome fact hasn't stopped certain so-called Tea Party groups from capitalizing on Brat's victory, declaring enthusiastically that Cantor’s defeat equals a Tea Party insurgency.

FreedomWorks president Matt Kibbe wrote: “Congratulations to Dave Brat on his huge upset. The statement from the grassroots could not be any clearer. It doesn't matter what office you hold or how powerful you are. If you lose touch with activists on the ground, then your seat is in danger.”

“The grassroots are taking their seat back at the table and returning accountability to Washington. Votes on Capitol Hill will be heard back in the district,” he added. “We are proud to stand with Dave Brat in his election and look forward to working with him to reform Washington, D.C.”

FreedomWorks has so far backed two losing primary candidates in 2014 and switched its endorsement in the Nebraska primary to Ben Sasse two weeks before the primary election. FreedomWorks later took credit for Sasse's victory.

Neither Club for Growth nor Heritage Action, two groups that "aim to pick off Republicans who stray from strict party orthodoxy," as the Wall Street Journal puts it, got involved with Brat's campaign.

The Madison Project also weighed in on Brat's win, saying, “just a few short weeks ago, the Establishment was working the media over trying to shut the coffin on conservatives and the Tea Party.”

The group added: “But first Mississippi, and now Virginia's 7th show that the people, and not the political class will not accept a growing government dead-set on expanding their power, and passing policies that do nothing but line the pockets of special interests,” he added.

And although Brat’s shocking victory can certainly be attributed to the tireless work of grassroots activists in his district, it’s important to remember that the aforementioned outside Tea Party groups offered him zero support.

Not one penny.

“Of the measly $4,805 in political expenditures against Cantor reported to the Federal Election Commission, none came from the big national tea party groups,” the Washington Post reported. “The bulk was spent by a newly formed super PAC called We Deserve Better PAC on an online ad that attacked Cantor as pro-amnesty.”

Meanwhile, outside groups spent nearly $366,000 on pro-Cantor ads.

Brat’s victory over the longtime Virginia congressman is even more impressive when you consider the fact that the self-identified Tea Party candidate spent a mere $100,000 on his campaign.

Cantor, on the other hand, burned through approximately $5 million trying to fend of his primary challenger, handing the House Majority Leader an obviously lopsided financial advantage. In fact, Cantor's office spent more money renting out steak houses for campaign events than Brat's office spent during the entire election cycle, according to FEC campaign finance data.

In short, conservative grassroots activists proved Tuesday that no entrenched politician is safe from a challenger with a strong, personalized ground game. That’s why Brat won. So-called Tea Party groups had nothing to do with Cantor’s defeat.

 d-usa wrote:


Then take a look at all the laws they pass that are pro big government and pro telling people what they can and cannot do and you realize that they either are lying to get people to vote for them or that they are dumb enough to actually believe what they are telling other people.

 Frazzled wrote:
His opponent ran against him on the immigration nightmare. This is a warning.

 Frazzled wrote:
His opponent ran against him on the immigration nightmare. This is a warning.

 Frazzled wrote:
His opponent ran against him on the immigration nightmare. This is a warning.

 whembly wrote:
Also... the Amnesty Dream Act is dead on arrival now.

Whoa...

 Frazzled wrote:
His opponent ran against him on the immigration nightmare. This is a warning.

The Tea Party movement is an American political movement known for advocating a reduction in the U.S. national debt and federal budget deficit by reducing U.S. government spending and taxes.[1][2] The movement has been called a mix of libertarian,[3] populist[4] and conservative,[5] persons. It has sponsored multiple protests and supported various political candidates since 2009,[6][7][8] and demonstrators at the U.S. Capitol celebrated the movement's five-year anniversary in February 2014. Various polls have found that slightly over 10% of Americans identify as a member.[9]

The name refers to the Boston Tea Party of 1773.[10][11][12][13] Anti-tax protesters in the United States have cited the original Boston Tea Party as their inspiration.[14][15][16] References to the Boston Tea Party were part of Tax Day protests held in the 1990s and before.[17][18][19][20]

CNBC's Rick Santelli is widely credited with launching the grassroots movement. While standing on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange on February 19, 2009, he unleashed what can only be called a rant against the Obama Administration's proposal to help homeowners facing foreclosure refinance their mortgages.