Tuesday, May 21, 2019

There. Is. No. Tea. Party: The Epilogue Continues

Teaparty3


Funny story.  True story.

Once upon a time, about a fucking decade ago...
...millions of our fellow citizens who had cheered on the Bush Administration (and screamed "Traitor!" and anyone who dared question the infinite wisdom of George W. Bush) had a sudden and urgent need to completely disavow everything they had said and done for the previous eight years (without, of course, taking any responsibility for saying and doing it) so they could get on with the important business of hating America's first African American president with the heat of 1,000 suns.  In a normal, health democracy, the idea that millions of wingnuts could build a mile-high bonfire out of their Bush/Cheney lawn signs and then dance around it pretending they had never even heard of George W. Bush would be a problem for the nation's top mental health professionals.

But we do not live in a normal, health democracy, and millions of wingnuts really did leap almost overnight from relentlessly praising George W. Bush to deny!deny!denying! him harder and faster and more desperately than Peter denied Christ.

But that's not the story either, because really, Republicans lying en masse and in lockstep isn't even a story anymore: it's just another day in America.

No the real story is how massively well-funded and coordinated this lie was by Fox News and all the usual loathsome creatures of the Right (Media Matters has a sampling of Fox News' wall-to-wall barrage of "These are just plain folks rising spontaneously up again the Evil Gummit!" propaganda here.) The real story was how quickly and cravenly the "respectable" media went along with this transparent hoax.  In Washington D.C., David Brooks turned the act of jogging past one group of protesters into a deep, sociological proof that they were the salt of the Earth,  In Chicago, the local PBS affiliate went all-in with the "We've never even paid attention to politics before" teabagger line of bullshit, failing to do even the most minimal research to find out who they were actually interviewing and what their actual political affiliations really were.  Even the "liberal" New York Times could only manage a tepid, he said/she said, Both Siderist take on this "tea party" thing in which some people say it's a real movement full of awesome, while others say it's just ten square acres of Koch-funded AstroTurf, so who really knows?

And the only people straight up calling bullshit on the whole scam?

Surprise!  Those dirty, disreputable Liberals who no one listens to anyway.

By early 2010, it was absolutely clear to anyone who wasn't a Republican operative or enabler that the "tea party" was emphatically NOT a spontaneous movement of concerned citizens with no previous political affiliation, but was just one more, GOP-manufactured re-branding scam... 
But here's the thing.  There was absolutely no stomach in the Beltway media for reporting the obvious fact that these idiots in tricorner hats were nothing but the same old Republican wingnuts who, as one wag put it in 2009...
Like German soldiers after the fall of Berlin...have stopped running away from the catastrophe they created only long enough to burn their uniforms.
So here we are, a decade later.

And now that everything we dirty, disreputable Liberals had long since warned about has long since come to pass,  what story do I find running away with social media morning?  (From the WaPo)
“It turns out a lot of them were not in favor of limiting the size of government, they were just opposed to the president at the time,” said [Justin] Amash, who helped found the tea party-aligned House Freedom Caucus. “The tea party is largely gone. It was replaced with nationalism and protectionism and the general philosophy of the party now under Trump.”
Yet another Republican being elevated to the rank of Patriot Hero First Class by bravely noticing that his Republican party was full of Republicans all along.

So my question is, how the hell can I get myself graded on that curve?



Behold, a Tip Jar!


5 comments:

Robt said...

Excuse me,
There is a TEA party. are they simply a re branded (made up) marketing trick " Absolutely.

Not one TEA potter has been anything but a disenchanted republican after Cheney and GW Bush. Abused their anal regions with a baseball bat warped with barbed wire..

They retain approx. 1 forth of the House republicans. They formed their own Cock-us for power.
Are they a result of grasstooty independence? Hell no!.

The triggered every old John Bircher to rally republicans to vote for them.

Everyy step of the way was crated in the Right wing labs. Fully funded by theKoch Brothers. It paid well. it even paid to bus the elderly John Birchers to Wash, D,C, rallies to get in front of the cameras for the media. to promote.
Koch mostly exclusively funded and still does the TEA Party.
Taed Enough Already party that is one of the most extreme votes to ban Abortion? The Fredom Cocks stand for taking womens freedom of choice away.

The Koch Brothers now own that 1 forth of republicans in Congress. With the blessings of Citizens United.

Two wealthy brothers own the TEA Potter as slaves *not believers). These TEA potters do noting without orders and approval of 2 wealthy Koch Brothers.

How is that for Democracy.
The party of Lincoln was comprised of independent liberal politicians and over the years. Purged for the republican ranks giving way to the base of KKK, NAZIS and insane evangelical self proclaim nut bag prophets for profits.

It amazes me to this day, how the GOP and its white supremacy base continues to cite how they are the party of Lincoln (who fought the civil war to free the slaves). That plantation free labor. Free sex, free experimentation with inhumanity.

It is true the T-potters are just republicans. Every GOPer that is not a TEA potter stand together in lock step with each other under the closeted open umbrella with the Log Cabin Republicans.

In other words, I agree with you that there is NO TEA Party.

Lit3Bolt said...

"So my question is, how the hell can I get myself graded on that curve?"

It's simple, driftglass! Draw from the Well of Infinite Selfishness and drink from the Cup of Eternal Bad Faith, and find yourself renewed has a Chaotic Evil smug hack who everyone knows is a hack who does hackish things with hacky foreigners and hacky lawyers and hacky lobbyists and that's just the way the hacky world is!

Oh, I forgot that you need the Lenses of Perpetual Credulity +5 along with the Cape of Ahistorical Thinking +6. Now, the Cape of Ahistorical Thinking is very important because you forget all the BAD stuff that happened by Republicans in the PAST. With the Cape, the user automatically accepts any suggestion from an expert source at the Cato Institute or the Federalist Society in the most positive favor, while perceiving any history professor or graduate student in the most hostile light.

With these items, when you hear a report today about the march of drums of war towards Iran, or how Executive Privilege is like White Male Privilege, but more Priviliegier, you never say embarrassing words like "Gulf of Tonkin" or "Clinton investigation" or "Iran-Contra!" BOY, would THAT be embarrassing to remember that Ronald Reagan sold ballistic arc missiles to Iran in exchange for electoral help, while playing with the lives of US citizens! And besides, if you mention that to Tom Nichols or Rick Wilson or Eric Garland or Glenn Greenwald, you get blocky-blocked-triple-blocked on Twitter for mentioning the fact that Republicans seem to LIKE paling around with mullahs and bin Ladens and Saddams and the Soviets and the Chinese and the Likud party! But I'm sure they're just trading Magic: The Gathering Cards and comparing Pokémon Go! notes and just promoting realpolitik and free trade!

*WINK*

Robt said...

I think there is a tick on my back. Can someone help and get it off?

With Andrea Mitchell leading the Beltway marching band.

"But if you open impeachment inquiry. Republicans aren't going to like it".

Trump will use it to campaign as a victim to his base.

Sure Trump obstructed justice and continues to do so. The GOP Senate is going no where on it/

But the political risk of performing oversight. Doesn't meet republicans half way.

Dems won the house to get "things done".. Dems won the house to perform checks and balances on the Trump Adm and the Senate.. But if they do it, what will GOP voters (Trump's MAGA base feel about it).


This manure is drawing to many flies carrying the Beltway nail biting disease.

But wait, When a republican spots out something about some Democrat who he says is breaking the law. Well, Lock him up!

And of course,
" You know when it comes to Trump obstructing everything. It may not have been as drastic as Trump is right now. But you know, Both sides do this.

After AG Holder turned over everything to the GOP house they wanted. The GOP house voted to hold AG Holder in contempt anyways. For good GOP measure and then on public TV only said, Holder was withholding more documents. But never pursued it formally and legally.

See, Both sides engage in this.

The media exposure time is needed for all this. But the newsy Andrea's sem to wrestles with the notion they do not need to compete with the FOX.


As an Agnostic leaning Atheist
For the lords sake, Why do they continue to go to Sen Graham for anything serious.
If they want to go to him on Trump Tweet that Wind turbines cause cancer. Go for it. But this is the Judiciary chairman that publicly advises people subpoenaed with the heft of law. "Disobey it".

It is only a matter of time before Sen Judiciary Chairman will subpoena someone or documents.

What does he do when others do this to him?

Lit3Bolt said...

https://www.theonion.com/david-brooks-decries-incivility-of-modern-plumbing-afte-1834954527

You know you're a bad pundit when even Late-State-Simpsons The Onion has to go for the easy lay-up.

Meremark said...

You can take a month off now, Driftness, upon news of the demise of your whipped slave.
Try to flush the hate out of your system.

https://www.theonion.com/david-brooks-decries-incivility-of-modern-plumbing-afte-1834954527

He met his watery loo.
He gulped while bobbing for turdbites to put in his column.
The agency wiped him off the book tour.
Put the lid down.

...I can't stop myself...