Teaparty Like It's 1953

I was thinking of taking the month of April off from writing on this blog. I’ve been uninspired, underwhelmed and under the weather. But yesterday I had a truly blog-worthy experience observing a tea party rally on the Boston Commons over my lunch break, so brace yourself for a long one!

While it wasn’t exactly the Neo-Nazis marching in Skokie, a tea party rally in the heart of Boston was a little like marching into enemy territory. So, I wasn’t surprised to see a thriving counter-tea party presence made up mainly of left wing college students from area universities. Some of my favorite signs from this camp: “I Hate Taxes and Government so I’m Moving to Somalia”, “bla bla bla SOCIALIST bla bla bla FASCIST” and the oh so subtle “MIT Nucular Engineers for Palin.” But it made for an interesting mix.

I was pleasantly surprised not to see any patently racist signs from the TPers. I know there’s been an effort to discipline that element or at least tone it down for the Boston run. In fact, there was a defensive posture against claims of racism and I saw one sign reading, “I’m not a racist. I just disagree politically.” Fair enough point.

I went to observe the rally out of intense curiosity and attempted an open mind. My political opinions aside, this movement has gained serious traction and I wanted to see who these people who take time from work and travel across the country and protest things like health care for all really looked like and what they thought.

I missed the headliner, Sarah Palin, but was in time for a rousing tirade by former SNL comedian turned nutjob Victoria Jackson. You remember her. She generally played a ditzy blond in the sketch comedy show, a role she has apparently adopted in real life. Palin’s rants against “Left Coast” celebrities staying out of politics notwithstanding, they’ve accepted Jackson into the fold as long as she parrots Limbaugh and Beck and sings songs with her ukulele (I wish I were kidding) about the communist takeover of America. Her speech had a “throw out the crooks” theme and she riffed on Barack Obama’s myriad communist connections and mimicked the outrageous claims that "Obamacare" would end up euthanizing grandma. It was a lot more laughable than anything she did with SNL.

But most of my time was spent in the middle of a heated debate between an earnest and not totally crazy TPer. He genuinely seemed willing to engage in a debate and conceded plenty of points and I did the same. He agreed that fiscal imprudence was also the providence of the Bush administration and I agreed that Social Security and Medicaid were on an unsustainable path.

But in the end, he had a surprising amount of detailed information on the evils of communism, a history lesson which seemed entirely beside the point. Yes, communism bad. And??? He wasn’t able to convincingly articulate how any Obama policies are taking us into that direction, despite that being the general conclusion of the TP movement.

The TP/Limbaugh/Hannity/Beck argument seems to rest on two points: 1) Obama actually is a communist, a claim supported by tenuous connections of friends of his grandfather’s, his study of Saul Alinsky, his work helping poor people in Chicago as well as some outright lies. 2) His policies, such as “taking over” the banks and the auto industry are the stuff of communism. This, despite the fact that Bush propped up our steel industry and the bank bailout was initiated under Bush and supported by economists on the right. But that doesn’t matter. It’s the fear and passion that such associations arouse.

And this is a smart strategy. Re-fight the cold war, since that really energized people, especially those on the conservative side of the culture wars. Let’s just make the new villain Barack Obama. Effective, but absolutely and entirely surreal. The “down with Communism” refrain was so pervasive that I wondered out loud if this rally was somehow happening in 1953? I thought the country was on to the War on Terror era, but apparently we are still fighting the Red Menace 30 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Anyway, back to my attempt at a civil debate. This was going well until two clearly incensed lefty college students entered the fray. One walked up to this guy screaming, “Oh, yeah? You don’t want taxes and government!?!? Why don’t you go to Somalia? They don’t have roads and everyone walks around with AK-47s. Looks pretty good there, huh?”

While I agreed with her on substance, the tenor of her argument actually made me want defend my hapless TPer. But he defended himself quite well asking her not to use sarcasm to make her point. This calmed things down enough to have one of the craziest debates I’ve ever heard.
These sides were so far apart on issues they cared about that they found themselves in large part talking over one another. I guess this shouldn’t be too surprising. People go to these rallies to shout and be heard, not to listen patiently to the argument of an opposing side.

Here’s an exchange that exemplifies this dynamic: TPer mentioned a recent TV ad in which Pepsi, Coke and Dr. Pepper proudly announce that they are pulling sugared drinks from schools. He used this as a weird example of the encroachment on our freedom of choice. His argument seemed to be that it all starts with these little infringements and pretty soon we’re living in a Communist state. Another TPer who had entered the fray to help tip the scales added her outrage that trans fats have been banned in New York and now she doesn’t have the freedom to eat an Oreo! It’s an outrage! (I reminded her that Oreo now makes a trans fat free cookie, but that didn’t seem to help.)

Lefty started with a reasonable counter that an individual’s choice to gorge on sugar results in the rest of us paying for their eventual diabetes treatment, so it’s not as “individual” of a choice as it might seem. But she heard the word “Coke” and couldn’t help herself from asking the TPers if they knew that Coke was now displacing 3 million people in China by building a damn. And, by the way, people are being raped and enslaved in the cobalt minds of Democratic Republic of the Congo so we can have cell phone batteries. Did you ever think about that?? Huh? It’s the corporations you should be fighting, not the government! TPer paused and said, “Well, I didn’t know that. Maybe I won’t drink Coke anymore...” This response really took me aback and I give him credit for an open mind. Maybe there’s an alliance in the making here?

But that was a blip. In general, crazy assertions that the environmental movement is bent on euthanasia and population control on one side dove unwittingly into diatribes on access to contraception in developing countries. Assertions of the coming cultural genocide in Europe due to Muslim immigration were met with discussions of unchecked corporate greed. Each side quickly turned into a predictable parody of itself. I guess I shouldn’t have expected any better.


On my walk home, I contemplate my original question: What animates these Tea Partiers? Other than their constant attention to the provocateurs at Fox, what is it about these arguments that ignites their passions?

Clearly the bad economy is fertile ground for scapegoating and finger pointing, and those in power are fitting targets. But the broadest underlying theme of their complaints appeared to be the following: We, the hard working Americans, don’t want to foot the bill for people looking for a handout. And that’s what “socialism” or “communism” means to them: taking away my freedoms or income so that some lazy undeserving poor person can get something for free.

This is really the only way you can argue against a basic right to health care (in essence, life itself) for all: if those rights somehow infringe on what you already have and those new beneficiaries are underserving. And if they don’t look like you or share your experiences, it’s even easier to make assumptions about their worthiness of “charity.” It’s this underlying belief in America as a pure meritocracy, in which people get what they deserve from an even playing field, that makes things like progressive taxation and securing basic needs for all so odious to the right.

That is, until those on the right start hurting and their argument falls on its face and the logical contradictions become head spinning. I saw one sign that read: “We want jobs and income, not bailouts for banks” Really? You want your government to ensure jobs and income? Then move to Russia, commie.