Does anybody else roll their eyes when they see “tea party” capitalized, as if it’s a real, trademarked organization with “leaders”, etc.? I swear the rats are hard at work through their newsrooms (and with a lot of help from clownish political wannabes and libertarian malcontents) to turn the effective tea party protests of 2009 into “The Tea Party”, until it becomes the same kind of marginal laughingstock the “Move On” campaign evolved into ten years ago.
“Tea partiers” are individuals from across the nation who briefly “organized” a few times in order to shout as one at a corrupt and disgraceful government agenda of communist health care and the drunken waste of tax dollars. The “tea partiers” are still out there and they will vote because they are inspired to do so, but I doubt 95% of them give a rat’s behind about being called “tea partiers”. I know I sure don’t.
This effort by some people to turn the “tea partiers” (aren’t we all “tea partiers” here?) into a real live, ongoing “organization” with a convention and “leaders” and all the rest of the bells and whistles is stupid. It’s old already - - time to put the phrase “tea partiers” to rest. The battle has been joined and “tea partiers” will continue to shout (and vote!) for a return to sanity, and they need no label to do so.
I agree—and the point is that we keep getting hit by these National “TEA Party Organizations” that attempt top-down control.
TEA Party Patriots.org has become a libertarian rubber stamp... and their “leaders” are said to be making six-figure salaries. They are constantly sending me crap in the mail—which promptly goes into the round file.
There are now several “organizations” and they seem to miss the point that the TEA Party is nothing more than activist citizens uniting under a common cause and working at the local level.
This is what angered all the TEA Party groups here in Nebraska—or at most of them. Many of these groups are dealing with local issues, some are involved at the state level, attempting to bring reform into a corrupt “good-old-boy” system, and a few focus on national issues when the opportunity is presented. We do not want to be placed under some collective national banner—and that is exactly what TEA Party Express did to us. Most of us are pissed off, but the media does not report our disagreement.
You make a good point about capitalizing tea party. It just contributes to the twin problems of lazy citizens looking for others to do their work for them and self-seeking “leaders” putting themselves at the head of a leaderless movement.