Origins of the Tea Parties

Origins of the Tea Parties

he founding moments of the contemporary Tea Party movement were many. Several were grassroots in nature, developing outside the existing power centers in Washington, D.C. and in the more remote regions where conservative politics meets a more libertarian (right-wing and anti-statist) opposition. Others derived directly from elements within the Republican Party apparatus and began as proxies for the party itself.

The Tea Parties also had points of origin within established right-wing organizations hoping to draw a line of distinction between themselves and the views of Sen. John McCain, who had just lost the presidential election, as well as the discredited conservatism of the Bush era. In so doing, they planned to create an opposition to President Obama and the Democrats.

One of the earliest moments leading up to the Tea Party movement occurred in December 2007, on the 234rd anniversary of the original Boston Tea Party. Ron Paul’s supporters held a “tea party moneybomb” to raise campaign funds for his campaign in the 2008 Republican presidential primaries. A Republican Congressman from Texas who ran for president in 1988 as the Libertarian Party’s candidate, Ron Paul has long had one foot in the Republican Party and one foot in its far-right opposition. His Campaign for Liberty (CFL) is now a significant stand-alone, membership-based non-profit institution headquartered in Virginia. It has played a noteworthy role in the growth of the Tea Party movement, even if few CFL members have enrolled in any of the national Tea Party groups. [2]

During the period after the election of President Barack Obama but before his inauguration, the Libertarian Party of Illinois began formulating a concept they called the Boston Tea Party Chicago and advertising it through the Libertarian Party of Illinois Yahoo and “meetup” groups, through Ron Paul Meetup and Campaign for Liberty groups, as well as national anti-tax groups. Dave Brady of the Libertarian Party of Illinois even claimed, “we gave Rick Santelli the idea for the Tax Day Tea Parties.”

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Searchlight Magazine: Tea Party nationalism

Searchlight Magazine: Tea Party nationalism

The Tea Party movement as a whole is a multimillion dollar complex that includes for-profit corporations, non-party non-profit organisations, and political action committees. Collectively they have erased the advantage that Democrats once enjoyed in the arena of internet fundraising and web-based mobilisation. They have resuscitated the ultra-conservative wing of American political life, created a stiff pole of opinion within Republican Party ranks and have had a devastating impact on thoughtful policy making for the common good, at the local and state level as well as at the federal level.

These Tea Party organisations have given platforms to antisemites, racists and bigots. Further, hardcore white nationalists have been attracted to these protests, looking for potential recruits and hoping to push these (white) protesters towards a more self-conscious and ideological white supremacy. One temperature gauge of these events is the fact that longtime national socialist David Duke is hoping to find enough money and support in the Tea Party ranks to launch yet another electoral campaign in the 2012 Republican primaries.

Their self-designated spokespeople in Washington DC claim that their movement concentrates solely on budget deficits, taxes and the power of the federal government. Nevertheless, concerns about race and national identity and other so-called social issues permeate Tea Party ranks. It is inside the Tea Parties that an abiding obsession with Barack Obama’s birth certificate is often a stand-in for the belief that the first black President of the United States is not a “real American”. Rather than strictly adhering to the Constitution, many Tea Partiers challenge the provision for birthright citizenship found in the 14th Amendment. While Tea Partiers and their supporters are concerned about the current economic recession and the increase in government debt and spending it has occasioned, there is no observable statistical link between Tea Party membership and unemployment levels. And their storied opposition to political and social elites turns out to be predicated on an antagonism to federal assistance for those deemed the “undeserving poor”.

The incessant depiction of Obama as a non-American began before the 2008 election among those who regard him as a non-native born American who should not rightly (constitutionally) hold the presidency. The permutations have continued from there: Islamic terrorist, socialist, African witch doctor, lying African, etc. If he is not properly American then he becomes the ‘‘other” that is not “us”. Further, the oft-repeated Tea Party call to “Take it back, take your country back” is an explicitly nationalist refrain. It is sometimes coupled with the assertion that there are “real Americans”, as opposed to others who they believe are driving the country into a socialist ditch.

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Activism of Thomas’s Wife Could Raise Judicial Issues - NYTimes.com

Activism of Thomas’s Wife Could Raise Judicial Issues - NYTimes.com

RICHMOND, Va. — As one of the keynote speakers here Friday at a state convention billed as the largest Tea Party event ever, Virginia Thomas gave the throng of more than 2,000 activists a full-throated call to arms for conservative principles.

For three decades, Mrs. Thomas has been a familiar figure among conservative activists in Washington — since before she met her husband of 23 years, Justice Clarence Thomas of the Supreme Court. But this year she has emerged in her most politically prominent role yet: Mrs. Thomas is the founder and head of a new nonprofit group, Liberty Central, dedicated to opposing what she characterizes as the leftist “tyranny” of President Obama and Democrats in Congress and to “protecting the core founding principles” of the nation.

It is the most partisan role ever for a spouse of a justice on the nation’s highest court, and Mrs. Thomas is just getting started. “Liberty Central will be bigger than the Tea Party movement,” she told Fox News in April, at a Tea Party rally in Atlanta.

But to some people who study judicial ethics, Mrs. Thomas’s activism is raising knotty questions, in particular about her acceptance of large, unidentified contributions for Liberty Central. She began the group in late 2009 with two gifts of $500,000 and $50,000, and because it is a 501(c)(4) nonprofit group, named for the applicable section of the federal tax code, she does not have to publicly disclose any contributors. Such tax-exempt groups are supposed to make sure that less than half of their activities are political.

Mrs. Thomas, known as Ginni, declined through a spokeswoman to be interviewed without an agreement not to discuss her husband. In written responses to questions, Sarah Field, Liberty Central’s chief operating officer and general counsel, said that Mrs. Thomas is paid by Liberty Central, with the compensation set by the group’s board, and that the group has “internal reviews and protections to ensure that no donor causes a conflict of interest for either Ginni or her husband.”

Nonprofit groups with political agendas like Liberty Central are operating in this election cycle under evolving legal and regulatory standards, most notably the ruling last January by the Supreme Court in the Citizens United case, which eased restrictions on independent campaign spending by corporations and unions. In that case, Justice Thomas, long an advocate of dismantling campaign finance restrictions, was in the 5-to-4 majority. Wealthy individuals and some corporations, emboldened by the ruling, are giving to such groups to influence the election but still hide their tracks.

Unlike many other conservative nonprofit groups that are pouring donations into television advertising to benefit Republican candidates, Liberty Central has not done so, and it is not clear whether it will.

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• You: Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and His Wife's Controversial Tea Party Activism (newsweek.com)
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