Posted on 10/04/2010 12:35:59 PM PDT by La Lydia
Boiling Mad: A surprising and revealing look inside the Tea Party movement—where it came from, what it stands for, and what it means for the future of American politics They burst on the scene at the height of the Great Recession—angry voters gathering by the thousands to rail against bailouts and big government. Evoking the Founding Fathers, they called themselves the Tea Party. Within the year, they had changed the terms of debate in Washington, emboldening Republicans and confounding a new administration's ability to get things done.
Boiling Mad is Kate Zernike's eye-opening look inside the Tea Party, introducing us to a cast of unlikely activists and the philosophy that animates them. She shows how the Tea Party movement emerged from an unusual alliance of young Internet-savvy conservatives and older people alarmed at a country they no longer recognize. The movement is the latest manifestation of a long history of conservative discontent in America, breeding on a distrust of government that is older than the nation itself. But the Tea Partiers' grievances are rooted in the present, a response to the election of the nation's first black president and to the far-reaching government intervention that followed the economic crisis of 2008-2009. Though they are better educated and better off than most other Americans, they remain deeply pessimistic about the economy and the direction of the country.
Zernike introduces us to the first Tea Partier, a nose-pierced young teacher who lives in Seattle with her fiancé, an Obama supporter. We listen in on what Tea Partiers learn about the Constitution, which they embrace as the backbone of their political philosophy. We see how young conservatives, who model their organization on the Grateful Dead, mobilize a new set of activists several decades their elder. And we watch as suburban mothers, who draw their inspiration from MoveOn and other icons of the Left, plot to upend the Republican Party in a swing district outside Philadelphia.
The Tea Party movement has energized a lot of voters, but it has polarized the electorate, too. Agree or disagree, we must understand this movement to understand American politics in 2010 and beyond.
Thanks for posting this. I myself heard this delightful “piece” and was astonished at how they STILL don’t get the Tea Party. In fact, it is rather humorous to see NPR attempt to understand the Tea Party any time they try.
I actually tried to poke around on the National Propaganda Radio website to find this piece, but I didn’t know the name of the show I was listening to, and I didn’t care THAT much. I’m glad others get to hear the same entertainment I did.
Boiling mad?.....
Putting it mildly!.....I don’t want radicals running my country!
Hmmm...does that apply to energy sector workers (read: coal miners) who voted straight party line Dem tickets despite the lefty-green agenda now part and parcel of the Dem platform?
They want to control us
we want freedom
the two concepts cannot “co-exist”,
and force will be used if one side doesn’t “give in”.
************
I agree with your analysis. I also believe that neither side will give in.
Hah, a NYT reporter pretending to be knowledgeable about the Tea Party. “We see how young conservatives, who model their organization on the Grateful Dead...”, did a computer generating random combinations of words come up with that part of the article?
“Tomorrow, one of those kids from ‘Tiny Beauty Queens’ will explain the National Electric Code.”
I've heard this same crap from leftists for YEARS.
Somehow, they think that we should vote for our "best interests" to empower THEM to steal from other people to [not] give it to us.
Sorry, lefties, we're not the thieves that you are.
He’s not black.
Any analysis of the tea party movement that assumes it has anything at all to do with race is missing the point. Race has nothing to do with it--never did; never will.
“Grateful dead” is what I call democrat voters!
We are people who made America great and who just want to be heard in our pleas for less government spending, lower taxes, less government control and a return to the principles that set our country apart from every other nation and made it the success it was.
What the devil is so darn hard for anyone to understand?
.....I believe this was some sort of story loosely connected to Francis Scott Key....
I’ve always the the SSB, taken in that context, was very moving. Key knows the country is young and under attack by superior forces. He has real doubts in his mind that it will survive. He is on the edge of hopelessness, The one thing he has to hang on to is the fact that he can still see the American flag flying.
It was made available by PRI (Public Radio International), not NPR, hence the difficulty. You know PRI: the even-farther-to-the-left version of NPR.
Ive always found that line from the left "vote against their own interests" intriguing and reveal..
Because we are suppose to be the selfish taker yet the "selfish taker" ... "vote against their own interests"? ...does the left ever get these two stereotypes they have of the right contradict each other
” The Man without a Country” “No man ever lived that loved his country more, or deserved less at her hands”
” The Man without a Country” “No man ever lived that loved his country more, or deserved less at her hands”
‘there was a story about an American who renounced his country and was perpetually remanded to different warships off-shore as a punishment - never to see his homeland again.’
The story is ‘The Man Without a Country’, by Edward Everett Hale, written in 1863 about fictional incidents surrounding the treason trial of Aaron Burr in 1807. It was meant as an attack on ‘traitor’ confederates. It has no connection to Francis Scott Key.
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