“The Movement”

by Will on January 26, 2010

I know the “teabaggers” are supposed to represent some combination of incipient fascism and no-nothing economic sloganeering, but this New Yorker profile makes the whole thing seem awfully benign.

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Tagged as: New Yorker, tea party

Will writes from Washington, D.C. (well, Arlington, Virginia). You can reach him at willblogcorrespondence at gmail dot com.

{ 9 comments }

1 JosephFM January 26, 2010 at 11:11 am

Well yeah. This is just the classic radical participatory-politics model of the SDS, applied to the right instead of the left.

2 Bob Cheeks January 26, 2010 at 11:36 am

“Come Senators, congressmen, please heed the call,
don’t stand in the doorway, don’t block up the hall…
For the times they are a-changin’ ”
Bob Dylan, back in the 60′s

3 Katherine January 26, 2010 at 7:19 pm

Considering that he’s writing about the movement that valiantly elected a pro-torture Senator in Mass., I’m less positively disposed. If a mass movement doesn’t believe in the rule of law, it isn’t a democratic movement.

4 historystudent January 26, 2010 at 8:32 pm: Brown was elected by a lot more than Tea Party people. And I doubt that any voter, whether a Tea Party goer or not, agreed with Brown on all the issues. Finally, if support for the policies that allowed the torture disqualifies someone in your view, then please look to the many Democrats who supported it. There were many “sheep” (inside political parties and out) during the Bush/Iraq years. And quite a few of them are not yet willing to admit they were wrong.
5 Jaybird January 26, 2010 at 10:16 pm: I’m just glad that I didn’t support a guy who supports escalating land wars in Asia and who opposes investigations into torture.

I don’t know how those people look themselves in the mirror.
6 Art Deco January 27, 2010 at 5:05 am: Do you ever get tired of striking attitudes?
7 JosephFM January 27, 2010 at 7:35 pm: Do mass movements ever believe in the rule of law?

8 historystudent January 26, 2010 at 8:24 pm

Since you read this, does that mean your mind is open, or do you still “know” what the Tea Party movement represents?

I’m not a regular goer to these events, but it annoys me when bloggers claim they “know” what drives this movement and who is in this movement, etc. This is true of some so-called conservative bloggers and columnists too because they seem to enjoy acting all superior to the Tea Party folks. Anyway, most of what is “known” seems to be just second-hand blather from the regular media. And even Fox News has a tendency, in its “reports” about the movement, to fail to understand it as more than trite anger. I’ve studied the positions of many of the movement’s branches. I’ve attended a local group that was born out of the movement. And frankly, little of what I’ve read here or anywhere comes close to capturing the true heart of the Tea Party.