The political season of wackiness

A while back the T.E.A. party started, and the rank and file were an amazingly representative slice of the US.  Many of the members of that party even proudly proclaimed that they did indeed represent Americans.  And perhaps they did.  However, it is now another election season, and let's look at the teabaggers now?  In 2008 there started to be some ugly groundswells in that movement that were basically ignored.  Now, I don't think you can ignore it.  Instead of being representative, they have turned into the actual caricature that some started to make of them.  Now they really are a bunch of redneck, theitard, racist, wackjobs...  (and yes, I realize theitard and wackjob is redundant!)  Not that this hasn't been mentioned before.

For a short but accurate take on “tea party” and religion, just see:

http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2011/08/the-tea-party-as-a-christianist-force.html

And for both the far-right and religious aspects, just see:

http://digitaljournal.com/article/289821

Sullivan quoting the NYT:
“Next to being a Republican, the strongest predictor of being a Tea Party supporter today was a desire, back in 2006, to see religion play a prominent role in politics. And Tea Partiers continue to hold these views: they seek “deeply religious” elected officials, approve of religious leaders’ engaging in politics and want religion brought into political debates. The Tea Party’s generals may say their overriding concern is a smaller government, but not their rank and file, who are more concerned about putting God in government.”

But there’s no lack of details – data, facts, in fact, but also explanations, even hypotheses – that further support the characterization as both “far right” and “mired in a radical religious agenda”, of which these links are just smatterings:

http://www.npr.org/2010/11/22/131512631/culture-war-brewing-within-tea-party

http://colorado.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2010/12/the-fourth-tea-party/

http://www.alternet.org/teaparty/149572/new_study:_tea_partiers_three_times_more_likely_to_say_violence_is_warranted._exhibit_a:_glenn_beck

http://www.theatlantic.com/daily-dish/archive/2011/01/the-tea-party-more-anti-gay-than-all-seniors/177062/

http://www.theatlantic.com/daily-dish/archive/2011/01/the-tea-party-on-prohibition-lovin-it/177056/

http://www.alternet.org/economy/150097/tea_partiers_have_a_very_mixed-up_notion_of_what_the_american_revolution_was_about

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2011/0324/Planned-Parenthood-showdown-could-reveal-true-nature-of-tea-party

http://www.theatlantic.com/daily-dish/archive/2011/03/race-the-tea-party-and-conservatism/173650/

http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2011/04/ygl.html