Stay classy, teabaggers

IMG_0032, originally uploaded by myglesias.

Matt Yglesias snapped this picture at the 9/12 march in DC today.

The march was sponsored by Freedomworks, a lobby/astroturf advocacy group led by former GOP congressman Dick Armey, the March Hare of the tea party movement. (Glenn Beck is the Mad Hatter.)

Many of the ostensibly independent groups that signed on to the march are connected to, or managed by, Freedomworks.

A Think Progress reporter reminded Armey that his corporate-funded advocacy group Freedomworks administers the listerv for the Tea Party Patriots. Armey called the reporter a juvenile delinquent. Snappy comeback!

Comments

[Eric Jaffa]

What makes one the March Hare and one the Mad Hatter, instead of the other way around?

[Lindsay Beyerstein]

Glenn Beck is the more floridly deranged of the two.

[Rob]

I don't believe the socialist Obama on ANYTHING, and I hope he fails in everything.

NOBAMA!

[Nospin]

Face it kids...your boy has failed and will soon be impeached. There is nothing you can do to stop it! Van Jones...Acorn breaking more lies...Obama is a mixed racial fascist!
Enjoy his last 6 months in office...even the far left has turned on him and the DNC is preparing to run a candidate against him in 2012.
hahahahaha! we tried to warn you!

[Lindsay Beyerstein]

A mixed race fascist, eh? Careful, your agenda is showing.

[ed]

Who the hell says "juvenile delinquent" these days? Who was President the last time someone said that without a shred of irony, Jack Webb?

[Communist Organizers Unite!]

You label them teabaggers and then say stay classy in the same sentence. Wow. You are full of your liberal self aren't you?

[carly]

The Republican party has devolved into the tea party. Good luck with the next elections representing the fringe right wing. There is a related post at http://iamsoannoyed.com/?page_id=588

[John]

What's that? The Birther-Truther convergence?

[Mad Hatter]

Hey....wait a minute.....I'M the Mad Hatter. Glenn Beck is obviously an imposter and a poor one at that. He's not floridly deranged like me.....he's just plain stoopid.

[Lindsay Beyerstein]

Excuse me, but they called themselves tea baggers--cf. this photo.

[nepalnow.blogspot.com]

Breathtakingly objective reporting, Lindsay.

The irony of the "tea party" movement is that while they decry liberalism through their new rallying label of "socialism," in America, it is that same liberalism that not only allows their trite, often uninformed opinions to be expressed, but gives them a national media to promote their views. America is a liberal democracy and the U.S. constitution (of which I am a fan) is quite the liberal document, designed for debate, discussion and revision. Yanks are fools these days and do not always adopt the Jeffersonian path of constructive revisionism. This is not a call for alarm however; America usually scrapes out a compromise of some sort.

Anyway, Lindsay, you are a fighter and you seem to ask the right questions. Interested in a movement?

[email protected]

[Walter in Denver]

All the middle schoolers laugh when someone says 'teabagger.'

[Lindsay Beyerstein]

As well they should, Walter. It's a ridiculous name for a ridiculous pseudo-movement. It's proof the brand was hatched in a corporate boardroom by people who are completely out of touch and handed down by fiat. A real grassroots movement would never have converged on anything so absurd.

[Alon Levy]

Lindsay, some movements have names they get from how the media refers to them: the Grand Old Party, donkeys and elephants, the Orange Revolution, the March 14 alliance.

[cfrost]

Amazing and scary that a great many Americans, perhaps somewhere in the low millions, actually believe their own rabid hysteria and have evidently completely convinced themselves that Obama is a (pick any or all) socialist, communist, terrorist, fascist, illegal immigrant, tyrant, criminal, islamo-baby killer, ad nauseam who's agenda is the deliberate destruction of America and enslavement of its citizens. The maniacal frenzy of the fringe right has an obvious explanation that I was about to go into, but Maureen Dowd has beat me to it.

(TypePad for some reason apparently doesn't allow a link to the NYT inserted here, so You'll have to go to the New York Times Sept. 12 OpEd page. - TypePad: getting more annoying every day.)

[Alon Levy]

Wait - is that an original MoDo story, or should I just read the original at TPM?

[cfrost]

I'm hardly one of Dowd's fans, but she's right on this one. I don't think there's much doubt that this guy speaks for the majority of the people at the rally.

[Fleas correct the era]

TypePad for some reason apparently doesn't allow a link to the NYT inserted here
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Simple good taste would explain it, afaic.

[Doyle Saylor]

This sort of protest seems weak to me. When counter pressure comes up this disburses the people who participate in these actions. i.e. the protests stop. Similar things happen on the left and have no consequence. The dynamics of how public opinion are mobilized via the sentiments on the protest signs are what's interesting. Clearly this is a racist movement. Most of these people aren't likely to fight for much.

These people also don't seem to rest upon xstian fundamentalist base of the Republicans. A sign of the decline in influence of religious support. While opinion polls are generated to indicate relative fixed or fluid opinion I doubt there is much tie to street demos. The point of Lindsey's comments and photos tell me that. These opinions are self isolating.

However, this protest legitimates polarization which is important politically. A bigger gulf to bridge is harder to compromise with. Making both sides more unstable ... until a stable position forms.

[Mike Licht]

It was hard to estimate DC Tea Party crowd size with so many walker-wielding Medicare recipients protesting government healthcare.

See:

http://notionscapital.wordpress.com/2009/09/17/march-of-the-disgruntled-in-dc/