Grand Old Tea Party: A Strange Brew Of Populist Anger With A Triple K Flavor

The Grand Old Party and the so called Tea Party movement have become a strange hybrid. A political body with a vague agenda, a distorted torso harboring many harms, with many legs, moving in different directions, and a few talking heads and some silent ones.

The Architects And The Megaphones

The only GOP member which can have legitimate claims to be the inspiration behind the Tea Party movement is Ron Paul. The Congressman is by essence more a Libertarian than a Republican. His agenda of small government, lowering taxes, reforming the Feds and pulling out of Iraq and Afghanistan might be Utopian, but at least it is genuine and ideologically consistent.

The left and their favorite talking heads of the moment, Rachel Maddow and Keith Olberman, are missing the point with their constant and obsessive attacks on the two biggest megaphones of the right/tea party movement: Glen Beck and Bill O’ Reilly. By keeping the two political clowns of Fox News in the limelight, Maddow and Olbermann are not doing the left any favor. But of course and in more than one way, the pseudo political debate on cable news is not about advancing the political discourse of America but, more prosaically about ratings.

If they were more real political analysts and journalists as opposed to entertainers, Maddow and Olbermann would not focus their attentions on the megaphones/clowns Beck and O’ Reilly, but instead exposed the ones pulling the strings behind the scene; The puppet masters of the so called Tea Party movement.

When the Bush administration left Pennsylvania Avenue a bit more than a year ago, they decided to move to Fox News. It was the best place for them in their attempt to regain power in 2010 and ultimately in 2012. The two men orchestrating the propaganda and responsible for cleverly hijacking the populist movement are shrewd political operatives. They are, of course, former Vice President Dick Cheney and Bush’s “brain” himself, Karl Rove.

The Cover Girl Serving The Tea

The Tea Party has its media talking heads in the person of Beck and O’Reilly, and it has also a “political star” in the person of Sarah Palin. The former Alaska Governor is now part of Fox News’ line up, she has a wide appeal with “common folks”, and would be, if elected in high office, even easier to manipulate than George W. Bush.

Palin represents also the huge advantage to have around 20 percent of American voters behind her. Sarah Palin’s core electorate is of course the hard core white Christian conservatives. When it is time for Cheney and Rove to plan 2012’s “dream ticket”, she is likely to be on it. It would not be surprising at all if the other component on this ticket is GOP’s “rising star”, which successfully used the Tea Party movement in Massachusetts to beat a Democrat; it is Scott Brown. Brown/Palin or Palin/Brown? The order would be purely optional because the puppets masters Cheney and Rove would be the ones in power regardless.

White Only Protestant Brew With A Flavor Of Triple K

This is the dangerous dark side of the strange brew that is the Tea Party movement. Rove and Cheney have successfully managed to harvest the  populist angers of some Americans. The anger against government and politicians is fully justified, but it has a noxious racist undertone, which could explode at any given time. The racist ideology of this “white only” movement will surely manifest itself if the Obama administration decides to tackle the much needed immigration reform.

The Ku Klux Klan, which just a couple of years back seemed static and even moribund has experienced a surprising and disturbing resurgence due to the successful political exploitation of “hot-buttons” issues such as immigration, gay marriage and urban crimes.

The KKK, in the last year, has not only substantially increased its membership, but also its geographic reach across the land. Of course if Cheney and Rove managed to get back to power in 2012 by proxy of Palin and Brown, they will quickly try to make this dubious side of the “Tea Party coalition”, which could be called the “muscle” of the Tea Party movement go away, to maintain the corporate fascist status quo so dear to their hearts.

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