They’re racists! They’re rednecks! They’re thugs, holding up passersby, chainsawing zombies engaging in massacres, hostage-takers holding guns to the head of an innocent government, homegrown versions of terrorists, bombs strapped to fat, flabby midriffs, set on blowing themselves and all others to hell. And what have they done? Nothing but follow the civics book rules to the letter: exercise their rights to speech and assembly; campaign, vote, win office, and vote their own minds.
It’s not that the Tea Party should not be critiqued for its personnel, tactics or strategies, but that the attacks on it have seemed to not stem from such matters, but from the numerous bats, trolls and warthogs that teem without resting in liberals’ minds.
For two years now, the left has been waiting for the Tea Party to show its true colors, trying to goad it into racist or vicious actions, and lying about it when it refused.
MSNBC cried racism when a Tea Partier showed up bearing arms at an Obama rally, and cropped the picture to avoid showing that the man with the rifle was black.
It tried to tie Tea Party supporters to the rampage in Tucson, and sure enough, it found two of them, parents of one of the doctors who saved Giffords’ life.
It accused Tea Partiers of shouting the n-word at members of Congress, accounts which never were verified, and were probably lies.
When liberal bloggers boasted of plans to show up at Tea Party rallies with offensive placards, Tea Partiers ejected offenders, or surrounded them with signs reading “Plant.”
For all the fears of incipient violence, only two such incidents were ever reported: one when a liberal bit off a Tea Partier’s finger, and one when three goons from the Service Employees International Union beat up a black man.
For racists (and sexists), the Tea Party’s record of heroes is curious: women (Susana Martinez, Nikki Haley, Kristi Noem, Kelly Ayotte), Hispanics (Martinez and Marco Rubio), Indians (Haley and Bobby Jindal) and blacks (Allen West and Tim Scott, who won election by defeating a son of Strom Thurmond).
It has been the channel into the GOP not only of energy, but of “diversity,” expanding the possible reach of the party. Its inclusion credentials appear to be flawless. Which may drive the liberals mad.
But this cuts no ice in the Party of Reason, to whom facts on the ground are as naught. Howard Fineman calls it a drive for a “slow-motion secession,” and Michael Lind ratchets it up a few notches further:
“It should be called the Fort Sumter movement … merely the latest in a series of attacks on the American democracy by the white Southern minority, which for more than two centuries has not hesitated to paralyze, sabotage, or, in the case of the Civil War, destroy American democracy in order to get their way.”
The Civil War was fought over unfunded entitlements? Happily, some cooler minds have their say.
“They played hardball politics in pursuit of their politics,” said Charles Lane, a New Republic alumnus. “Tea party members … ran for office, got elected, and are now casting votes … according to what they promised, and what their constituents want.”
“They played by the rules of American politics,” said Tom Brokaw. “They got angry, they got organized, they got here, and they got what they wanted. … If you want to change Washington, that’s what you have to do.”
They do it too well for the likes of some people. “It was a thug attacking a victim. It was a mugging,” said Chris Matthews of the debt ceiling agreement.
“The reason for the repetition is lack of intelligence,” Charles Krauthammer replied.
Examiner Columnist Noemie Emery is contributing editor to The Weekly Standard and author of “Great Expectations: The Troubled Lives of Political Families.”
