By: Tony L. Jefferson, Jr.
An inaccurate portrait is often painted about the Tea Party. They are often portrayed as racist, which isn’t all of the way accurate. I think of them more as narcissists. They are completely oblivious to the fact that their rhetoric is offensive to the rest of the country. Sure they rant about big government, high taxes and the like. This however is just a cover for the real agenda of the Tea Party.
These same folks totally ignored the rambunctious spending of the Bush era and not even a month after Obama was in office, they started to complain. Their message “we have to take America back” is often chimed time and time again. What exactly are we taking America back from or to? Is it the fact that minorities are progressing in this country after so many years and the majority is shook by the revelation that a Black man took the Presidency? Yes and no. President Obama taking office did enrage many conservative Americans and historically most conservatives in America are white Americans.
Let’s get back to government spending. Tea partiers and other conservatives often challenge the Medicare system. A few of the Tea Party hopeful’s one being Rand Paul are physicians who benefit from Medicare payments to doctors. He is also an opponent of Medicare spending except when it pertains to himself. At most Tea Party rallies the crowd consist of people who benefit from the same thing they are protesting against Medicare. When asked about this they often get confused and say some don’t deserve the help, but they are living large off of government spending. The average Tea party person is sincerely against government spending – with the exception of the money spent on them. This confusion and lack of understanding is essentially how most of this political party functions. Confusing and misleading the average American by playing on their fears and emotions.
The master manipulator Sarah Palin is a prime example of this. People have all but forgot how much of a pawn she was in the VP race and how absolutely ridiculous her arguments were in debates and on issues affecting the country. Now out of nowhere she is a wise ole sage, an experienced stateswoman, and the supposed leader of the Tea Parties misguided movement.
What the party is playing on is the fact that majority of Americans are misinformed or totally oblivious to what is going on in the country besides the bias they hear on the news. Yes, the government is overspending as it always has done, this isn’t a new trend. Just as the economical mess were in isn’t a new trend. The economy goes in cycles, which is standard data. Us poor and middle class Americans didn’t know a recession was going on till rich Americans started complaining. The middle class and the poor have been in a recession for most of our lives. It’s only when a few dollars started getting snatched out of the wealthy Americans pockets that they became enraged. When the President stated that we should let the Tax cuts expire for the wealthiest Americans and keep them for Middle America. They went on a smear campaign engaging those same Americans with lies and conspiracies. Socialism this, communist that, too liberal, to biased, anti business etc. The wealthy preached to the middle class and the poor about how evil the government is and how by forcing rich people to pay their share of the taxes is wrong and stops job growth. Unfortunately the average American ate those lies up.
Corporate America, Wall Street and other big companies started lying off workers, not so much because they are hurting for money to pay these people, but to make a statement disguised as they are losing money. If the Tea Party actually believed in what they preach to us and actually had real solutions instead of ways to cut help to the majority we would actually pay attention. Spending cuts in education, public works, welfare or Medicare isn’t exactly the right solution to solving the deficit problem. The truth is the deficit is always going to be high and we will never pay off that imaginary number. In order to create jobs and not just getting by paycheck to paycheck jobs but good paying jobs, you have to invest in education. You have to have public works such as construction, police, fireman, etc., and since the Tea Party objects to the Healthcare Plan we Medicare and welfare don’t hurt. What we need is better oversight on these programs. Fire all of those corrupt politicians and misguided souls and replace them with a diverse, intelligent, group that actually cares about the country as a whole instead of just themselves and votes.
All in all the Tea Party like so many other grassroots organizations isn’t bad for America, but they aren’t exactly helping the cause if they continue to preach the ugly, racist, biased, non conforming bullshit that other politicians do. This is just one organization, but right now they are the most prominent.
If America continues to fight against each other and not come together for the common good, nothing will ever get accomplished; our enemies win in the end because we can’t get along. The beauty of this country is its diversity, its moral obligation o do what’s right such as end slavery, establish women’s rights, and protect civil liberties. If we continue down this road we’re going, we’re no better than the countries we pick wars with.
