In The Aftermath Of Reform

I have seen some people on Facebook deny it, but the evidence is clear that "Tea Party" protesters used racial and anti-gay epithets, targeting Barney Frank and the civil rights movement figure John Lewis, among others. That doesn't exactly help them avoid looking like a party of crazy jerks. Nor does strolling around in public packing guns. Nor does the recruitment of Sarah Palin, for that matter.

But leaving aside that fringe element, and leaving aside the question of why Republican legislators were cheerleading them from the Capitol steps, fanning the flames that engulfed civilized debate--someone called Bart Stupak a "baby-killer" inside the House chamber--there is another factor that troubles me about the Tea Party.

Have you ever seen a Tea Party attendee in the news clips who didn't look like a suburban white person? That kind of limits its credibility in terms of being a 'grass-roots' movement. The haves not wanting to help the have-nots. It's hard for it not to look like that sort of picture, although I'm sure many of the Tea Party protesters aren't insane.

Yes, there is a responsibility on the part of government to spend money reasonably. But the Tea Party can't convince me that health care reform is evil if all they do is stand and scream at TV cameras like a herd of lemmings, if lemmings gave up their--probably mythological--suicidal tendencies and instead milled around screaming for no good reason because someone on TV told them to do so.

Furthermore, where is their alternative? Their credo seems to be "don't spend tax money." Where were they when the previous administration rushed into invading Iraq under shaky--and what proved to be unjustified--rationale? Getting bogged down into Iraq has devastated our economy, turning the surplus at the end of Clinton administration into a huge deficit.

In any case, all the existence of the Tea Party tells me is that people are still capable of being whipped into hysterics at the notion of change. But I already knew that.