What the HuffPo writer is trying to do is revive the epithet “reactionary”, which was applied through most of the 20th century to opponents of progressivism from the time of Theodore Roosevelt through the Johnson administration.
In other words, liberals feel that there is no intellectual basis to conservatism whatsoever, and that conservative opposition to the various liberal agendas is purely kneejerk and thoughtless.
Therefore, the Tea Party exists only for what it opposes, blah blah blah. The writer dredges up the John Birch Society to tar the Tea Party. Why stop there? Throw in the KKK while you’re at it.
Above all, delegitimize those who disagree with you. Then, if it’s like Germany in 1933, start rounding them up.
The German volk of 1933 had already been mostly disarmed by the Weimar Republic and then the NDSAP. We have not.
I’m not linking the people who call themselves part of the Tea Party movement with a group like the Birchers. I think it’s quite a bit different. I think the Birchers were a whole heck of a lot more organized. But that’s another story.
These people in the Tea Party movement do have a legitimate basis for their complaint. And the way I see it, it is a “reactionary movement” too. It definitely came about “in reaction” to this very great liberal trend across the board.
However, I’m not sure how effective this Tea Party movement will be, because it’s really no more than a certain segment of the population who opposes these liberal trends and they simply vote independently and act independently. It’s a “grass roots movement”. We may need more than a grass roots movement to offset this behemoth of liberalism moving across the country.