A couple of days ago President Obama spoke at a town hall in Los Angeles to a group of young, tech entrepreneurs. His prepared remarks enumerated some of the economic and social successes of his administration. But he also took questions from the audience, including some that led into a bit of politics.
In one particularly notable exchange, the President observed a serious flaw in the devolution of the Republican Party.The question addressed ways “to encourage more immigrants with technical skills to be able to work legally in the United States?” Obama responded at length about the numerous contributions of immigrants to America. Then he wondered aloud about the Republican Party’s hostility to people and policies that the nation needs to progress.
“it’s anybody’s guess how Republicans are thinking about this. If they were thinking long term politically, it is suicide for them not to do this. Because the demographics of the country are such where you are going to lose an entire generation of immigrants who are looking around and saying, you know what, that party does not seem to care much about me and my life. And I think the smarter Republicans understand this. Short term, though, they’ve got a problem, and the Tea Party and others who oftentimes express virulently anti-immigrant sentiment.”
By facing head-on the inherent racism of the Tea Party (which is really just another faction within the GOP). Obama has embraced an observation that has been all too apparent to anyone paying attention, but often was left unsaid. Earlier this year News Corpse documented the overt racism infecting the right-wing after Fox News asked for some evidence of it.
But that wasn’t the only hit the Tea Party took that day. During a gubernatorial debate in Connecticut, the GOP candidate alluded to an article that criticized Democratic incumbent Dannel Malloy. This prompted Malloy to provide more information about the publisher of the article saying…
“The publication you’re talking about is a right-wing tea bag organization. You know it. I let you repeat the same story twice. Why don’t you tell the whole story when you tell stories?”
That accurate characterization set off yelps of hurt feeling by right-wingers, including those at the rag in question, the National Review. Contributing editor Jim Geraghty complained in a tweet…
“Remember when ‘Tea Bag’ was considered an obnoxious thing to say? Can I call the governor of Connecticut a ‘Left-tard’ now?”
Of course, the right has been using derogatory language against the left freely for years. This may be the first time they asked for permission. The NR’s publisher, Jack Fowler, joined in the whine-fest with a column condemning Malloy’s use of the Tea Bag label. However, what all of these crybabies forget is that Teabagging was a term that was originally adopted and promoted by the Tea Party. Even an article in the National Review, dating back to December of 2009, affirmed the term’s derivation saying…
“The first big day for this movement was Tax Day, April 15. And organizers had a gimmick. They asked people to send a tea bag to the Oval Office. One of the exhortations was ‘Tea Bag the Fools in D.C.’ A protester was spotted with a sign saying, ‘Tea Bag the Liberal Dems Before They Tea Bag You.’ So, conservatives started it: started with this terminology. But others ran with it and ran with it.”
And that’s not all. The dean of rightist commentators on Fox News, Charles Krauthammer, referred to “tea bag demonstrations” during a segment of the network’s signature news hour, Special Report, back in October of 2009. Fox’s Tea Party correspondent, Griff Jenkins, who actually rode around on the Tea Party Express bus for the summer, was also known to use the term. But the most blatant embrace of the terminology came in the form of a slickly produced video that proudly declared “I’m proud to be a Teabagger.” It consisted of a variety of allegedly average Americans taking the pledge of pride in the term.
Consequently, it’s somewhat disingenuous of them to feign outrage when somebody utters the words to which they previously swore allegiance. The Tea Party owns Teabagging, but what’s worse is that they own the racism and ugliness that has been a hallmark of their movement. And as the President said, it is political suicide given the demographic changes that are taking place in the country. Without significant reforms, it is only a matter of time before those changes engulf the GOP and make it an irrelevant footnote in future elections.
Shameless self-promotion…
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The tea party has many African American candidates, Alan B. West, Herman Cain, Condi Rice, Colin Powell, Ben Carson, so where have you been that you pretend to not know this, and continue to spread stupid lies. YOUR THE UNINFORMED VOTE!—–By the way, remember, my being Cherokee with African American family and ancestry denotes that one can assume that I would never procure an atmosphere of racism. Just because I have bleached my hair blonde, due to gray coming in after cancer treatments, one can not assume said things about me, nor others such as the tea party. Granted, whatever the tea party is, it was unlawful to use a govt. office to take them down, or to plan to put them into FEMA concentration camps. “YOU ARE NOT A LIBERTARIAN UNTIL YOU SUPPORT THE LEGAL RIGHTS TO THOSE THAT YOU DESPISE.”
The Tea Party has Alan West , Ben Carson and maybe Herman Cain. All of them being brain-damaged types who deny basic science like evolution, because it plays to the Tea Party Luddite know-nothings. And none of them will go anywhere as candidates within the Tea Party precisely because they’re black, regardless of how they kowtow to the rabid Right.
Condoleeza Rice has stated publicly that she disavows the Tea Party stance on numerous topics, including their racist immigration views and alienation of minorities. She’s also endorsing Republican candidates over Tea Party candidates, such as Kashkari in California and Mitch McConnell (she headed his fundraiser over his Tea Party rival) . To call HER a “Tea Party Candidate” is simply a lie. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdMBvlHui1o http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/201753-condi-rice-steps-onto-the-stage
Colin Powell has likewise criticised the stupidity of the Tea Party and in return, “Tea Party Nation” president Judson Phillips said that Powell was drinking the liberal kool-aid…that Powell’s Family should do the following:
” Special note for Powell’s family: Please, for the love of God, get his Alzheimer’s treated already.”
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/tea-party-nation-colin-powell-needs-to-get-his-alzheimers-treated-already#sthash.39mWKChV.dpuf
So, yeah, you have Alan West , Herman (Uz-beki-beki-beki-stan-stan) Cain and Ben “evolution is a fraud” Carson. — All of them idiots and therefore perfect for the Tea Party.
“…all of them idiots…”
You just lost another debate with your hate-filled insult.
So Carrie’s response is essentially “Some of my best friends are black.” But I don’t know how anyone can be proud of being associated with Allen West, Herman Cain, or Ben Carson.
And I love that Carrie threw in her psycho conspiracy theory about FEMA concentration camps. That really tops off her comment by marking her as a nutcase.
Once again, Mark, you are lying through your teeth. You know fully well that whenever there have been a teeny tiny handful of racist morons who show up at these rallies with their disgusting signs, the true Tea Partiers circle around him/her and tell the moron to get lost. Tea Partiers do a lot more self-policing than the anti-war movement and Occupy Wall Street ever did. That is a fact.
You want to talk about “derogatory language”?
http://www.zombietime.com/zomblog/?p+621
Plus, one of the Tea Party rallies that I attended was invaded by hate-filled counter-protestors. They were the ones who spewed hatred and bigotry. They even called an African-American Tea Partier “a house black”.
You hatred and dishonesty has been exposed again.
Goofed on the link. We will try this again.
http://www.zombietime.com/zomblog/?p=1932
When Tea Partiers show up with southern flags, Tea partiers rally around them.
http://americablog.com/2013/10/sarah-palin-joins-ted-cruz-as-new-face-government-shutdown.html (Palin and Cruz mingling with Southern-flag-waving Tealiban
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2013/10/14/ugly-rebel-yell-in-front-of-the-white-house/
When Teabaggers wave racist signs, Teabaggers praise them
http://www.irehr.org
http://aattp.org/20-more-insane-racist-tea-party-signs/
Lol. “Tealiban”
Absolute, bald-faced lie. Racist morons like Dale Robertson – the dude with the Texas flag shirt and mis-spelled n-word sign – get surrounded by actual Tea Partiers and told flatly that their message is not welcome at all.
Being someone who knows Tea Partiers and who is related to them, I feel I should jump in here. They are racist. They like hanging where the only color in the room is on the walls and not the people. You can see it on Facebook in the comments. You can see it on a Fox News posting about a cute black kid complaining that his Mother was going to have another baby. They are racist and proud of it. And, in the Tea Party, they outnumber the non-racists.
That is a lie. I have been to several Tea Party events. If racists try to show up, they are told to get lost. In my town, some left-wing schoolteacher actually started a site called “Crash the Tea Party”, telling people to infiltrate the events with racist signs to make them look bad. This idiot was exposed, the middle school that he was teaching at fired him, and his plot collapsed.
Tea Party people are not racist.
Oh, please. You put your head in the sand and believe because you can’t see the racists they aren’t there? That’s the most outrageous thing I have heard all day. And, I’m lying? Please. Sorry, Scott, there are racists everywhere – even in the Tea Party. Just because you want to believe that the Tea Party is full of nothing but good people, doesn’t make it so.
That sleight-of-hand isn’t going to work, goober. Now you are saying “there are racists everywhere”. Umm…okay. You can find them sneaking into Tea Party rallies, Occupy Wall Street protests, anti-war demonstrations, Fenway Park, Macy’s department stores…theoretically they can be found anywhere. But when you and Mark are trying to burp forth something about this being an inherent nature of the Tea Party, that’s when you all crash and burn.
It’s really hard to believe that the tea bag party actually thinks they know whats best for the people. They are way out of touch with the common man/woman. President Obama was elected twice by the people and those same people will assure that the republicans stay far away from the white house in the next elections.