Tea Party is Crazy

The actions of the über Tea Party groups are so crazy that they give all Americans a bad name – like how most people in other countries think of Americans only as obnoxious and loud tourists, because that’s all they ever see. The polite and responsible Americans never get noticed. The Tea Party is embarrassing. It’s the responsibility of the rest of us to teach them things like “facts” so that they behave like adults.

Yes, I said it: the Tea Party is crazy! I know that’s not a nice thing to say, and I shouldn’t be adding to the polarization in American politics by calling anyone or any group of people names… But you know what? Sometimes I don’t care! The Tea Party is crazy! There, I said it. It feels good to say it. Besides, they call liberals and democrats worse things than that. Crazy is almost too kind a word to describe the extreme right-wing in American politics.

And I ain’t afraid to say it. The Tea Party is crazy. How much crazier do they need to be before the Republican Party disowns them? Is the state of the Republican Party so desperate that they have to hang on to the Tea Party faction in order to have enough numbers to win elections? That’s the only reason I can think of.

How did the Tea Party become the center of republican Crazy?

We already have a general agreement that the Tea Party got pulled into the Republican Party as a result of the GOP effort to beat Barak Obama and the democrats. Back when it started they were OK. They wore goofy hats, but so do we all sometimes. They didn’t like taxes.  OK, that’s an acceptable message. Nothing new. Put on the news an move on. But what the heck happened to these people? With a blink it turned into birtherism, and a convoluted definition of “freedom” that would make any dictionary shudder. Hate. Anger. It went off like a rocket, didn’t it?

There were two or three astroturf PACs like ,”Tea Party Express” which were all run by rich people to exploit the original Tea Party. That messed up some of it and those organizations intentionally encouraged anger at town hall meetings and what not. They are partially to blame for the escalation, I guess.

From that point it got stirred. Now it’s turned into so many various factions that the only common bond among the Tea Party groups is a combination of anger, hatred, shouting, bad information, and terrible manners. It’s like they’re stuck in a cyclone of bile and are angry at everything from the sky to ladybugs because the propaganda that was force fed them by right wing media worked a little too well.

Some of these people, I think, really are crazy. I mean, I saw a group of retirees waving their Medicare cards outside a CVS with signs of Obama looking like the Joker shouting about getting government out of Medicare! Really!? Fine if they don’t understand what socialism means or what Medicare really is, I can let that go. But the imagery and language these people use is horrible. So much hate. I’ve never seen so much hate in this country and it is entirely centered inside the Tea Party. Granted, these high-octane people represent a small number, but the problems is that those around them are allowing it to continue. The GOP has to get them under control because if a democrat gets within 10 feet of them they spit venom! We can’t do a darn thing to calm them down without endangering our health.

It’s one thing to have a crazy right-wing uncle who spouts conspiracy theories at Thanksgiving, and a whole other to have people with assault rifles lining bridges in Nevada (and then going back to las Vegas to shoot some people and kill themselves). By now we’ve also all seen video and photos from those people in California protesting immigration by shouting down and turning away the busses full of children. Have you taken a good look at their faces? Their eyes? If not yet, you need to. There’s something very wrong going on. Again, I admit that what we see on sidewalks and on the news are a small group of people, but that small group spawns more protests and the right-wings media bubble celebrate their… patriotism. It’s insane.

Who can get the Tea Party to settle down and behave like grown ups?

I know it’s not nice to say that, but there are a lot of people caught up in the cyclone of Tea Party anger that some are close to losing it. Some have (Look at those Vegas “freedom fighters”.) They won’t listen to a word that anyone like me says, so who can get them to calm the F down? Do we have to bring Reagan back from the dead? (Reagan who would be called a liberal by the Tea Party if they knew anything about history.) Who can stop Tea Party crazy? I have no idea. That’s what scares me.

And what’s most insane is that all their internal, echo chamber talk about America being on the brink of destruction… they are begging the cause. If “the sh*t hits the fan” it’s going to be because their increasing paranoia caused it. Begging the cause. That’s the danger of paranoia, which the Tea Party seems to eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Crazy.