The basically want to legalize everything from smoking weed
Yes
killing gays and owning people.
No
The people that say stuff like that are probably 16 years old and didn’t actually observe the Tea Party movement as it occurred. They only know what the social media comments tell them to think about it. It was basically a “tired of gov’t bullshit” movement that wanted taxes lowered and freedom increased.
I knew insiders in the early Tea movement (not leaders, but those with contact with them). They largely combined a few members of the ultra-wealthy with some of the fringe Libertarian elements. The whole goal was about manipulating politics for profit while giving one of the Third Parties with a lot of potential “a way in”.
Deep down inside, I think some of the early Tea folks thought it would be a fair deal if they got richer by negotiating a deal between the Chomskys and the Pauls since deep down they wanted a lot of the same things.
But that wasn’t enough. Chomsky and Paul didn’t buy a majority when the Republicans were getting sick of Chomsky and Libertarians were getting sick of Paul. So they had to find another marginalized group that was “tired of gov’t bullshit”. The problem is, that marginalized group was the secular extremist. Proud Boys, KKK, UDC, etc.
No. I’m not 16. I was in college when Libertarians hit their early ceiling. The Libertarians were “tired of gov’t bullshit”. And I didn’t like them, but I could look them in the eye and respect them. But Tea was never Libertarian. That’s what they want you to think. Classic Libertarians would never support “States Rights” like Tea. You know why? They were “tired of gov’t bullshit”.
To be CRYSTAL clear. The Tea Party has always been reactionary and populist. Neither of those things jive with “tired of gov’t bullshit”.
Per Pew. 64% of Tea party members oppose gay marriage (they couch it as government growth, but they don’t actually support dismantling CIS marriage or deregulating the things that gay marriage legally solves). 59% of Tea Party members support a federal ban on abortion (small gov’t, YUP). 51% of Tea Party members want stronger border security. Members of Tea or Christian Conservative parties only disagree between 5% and 10% of the time.
The Tea Party never really had anything to do with being “tired of gov’t bullshit”.
And if I can say all that at “16 year old”, boy wait till I hit 40…
NOTE: Yes I was exaggerating on slavery position. I’ve only seen one or two members of Tea defend it actively, but boy did they passively defend Confederate Identity for years.
The Tea Party never really had anything to do with being “tired of gov’t bullshit”.
You wrote all that to just be wrong, what a waste of time. Is it not common knowledge that TEA in Tea Party was commonly used as an acronym for Taxed Enough Already? That and a number of their other stances were just like I said they were.
I met members of the Tea Party too when they were active in my area. They told me what they were in it for, and what they told me is as I described. So I said “Cool, man, keep it up.”
