TPMDC
Remember, Remember The Fifth Of November -- A Day With The Tea Partiers
Evan McMorris-Santoro | November 5, 2009, 4:37PM
Tea Party protesters at Capitol Hill on Nov. 5, 2009.
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The first thing you need to know about the Tea Partiers: they take their traffic laws very seriously.
In a city known for its jaywalking, roll-through red lights and the white-knuckled anarchy of the traffic circle, the thousands of flag-carrying jeans-clad protesters who descended on Capitol Hill today stood out in the D.C. morning rush hour by literally standing -- they waited patiently curbside as "Don't Walk" signs counted all the way down to "Walk" outside D.C.'s Union Station transit hub while caffeine-fueled Hill staffers (and at least one reporter) rushed past them into a sea of beeping horns and one-finger arguments about who has the right of way.
Once on the Capitol's West Lawn, however, the Tea Partiers' willingness to wait disappeared. Though it would be hours before many people paid them any attention, their banners unfurled immediately and full-throated chants of "Kill the bill!" began the second they hit the grass they kept reminding one another that, as American taxpayers, "we own."
It was a strange atmosphere before the protests started at noon. The Tea Partiers -- many of whom rode buses all night from places as far away as Florida -- milled around, shaking hands with the friends they met the last time they stormed DC, back on 9/12. But every now and then, without warning or obvious provocation, the familiar "Kill the bill!" refrain would start up again in little groups scattered throughout the crowd.
And that's the second thing you need to know: Tea Partiers know how to stay on message. Sort of.
They hate the Democratic health care reform proposals. They hate them because they think they will raise their taxes. They hate them because they think they will put the government in charge of their lives. They hate them because they think they put the country on a path toward jack-booted, secret-police state socialism.
"YOU ARE ENSLAVED IF YOU ARE NOT FREE," one protest sign read.
But the Tea Partiers don't all agree on how far into oblivion the country has already descended. Dorothy Manley, who drove from Port Saint Lucie, FL to help her friend Julia Glattfelt sing their special version of "Yankee Doodle" into a bullhorn, represented the darker view espoused in the crowd.
"They're evil," she said of the people in the Capitol Building that rose before her. "I never used to think that of my government, but that's what happened -- they've turned evil."
"People need to be afraid," Glattfelt said. "But they don't want to believe the government is doing to them what it's doing. It's just too hard to think about for a lot of them."
Neither woman expected their song would have much effect on the goings on inside the Capitol.
Across the lawn, however, it was a different story. Laurie Danley traveled to D.C. from New Jersey with her husband Walter, six year-old son Thomas and the couple's ten month-old twin daughters. She said she was on the West Lawn because she couldn't think of another way to get through to her representatives.
"We've had a lot of hang-ups," Danley, explaining that her members of Congress won't take her family's calls protesting the health care bill. "It gets pretty heated on the phone."
"I really want to believe that the people in there listen to the people," she said. "I honestly think they'll hear what we say today."
Keith, a disabled veteran from Goldsboro, NC, was somewhere in the middle of those two views. He was wandering around the Hill with an empty suit hanging from a pole and an airhorn. (Asked if the suit was meant to represent a specific member, he just said, "pick one.")
"The lights are on, but there's nobody home in there," he said, pointing at the Capitol Dome. "These people don't know what's going on out here. We have to tell them."
And that brings us to the third thing you need to know: The Tea Partiers think they're winning.
Two days after the GOP's sweeping victories, and in the wake of the Conservative civil war that was NY-23, the crowd was hopped up on its own political significance.
"The people said they've had enough of this 'change,'" Carla, a protester from "the Philadelphia area" said about Tuesday's elections. "We were shocked by the results -- I knew people were upset, but I didn't know how much."
Carla's sign read, "World Series 2009" and underneath was listed, "Strike 1: Virginia, Strike 2: New Jersey, Strike 3: Obamacare. 2010: You're Out!"
But Carla wasn't talking about Democrats with the sign. Her message was about a specific ideology. "We're conservatives more than we're Republicans," she said of the crowd. She said she couldn't name a single political candidate ready to carry that banner to the White House in 2012.
"I wanted Romney last time, but not any more," she said. "My mind is still open for next time. We have to see what they say and what they'll do."
"We still have a lot more to do," to get the candidates Tea Partiers want, Carla said.
A crudely spraypainted sign across the lawn echoed her point.
"IT'S HUNTING SEASON 4 RINOS," it read.
Check out the ladies from Port Saint Lucie and their rendition of "Yankee Doodle":
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mans_best_friend
November 5, 2009 4:47 PM
Let's not kid ourselves. What they're mostly worried about is that Obama and the Democrats will be successful at delivering things the American people want and will be re-elected. This is the Limbaugh party.
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Powkat
November 5, 2009 4:57 PM
'"YOU ARE ENSLAVED IF YOU ARE NOT FREE," one protest sign read.'
Some one has a talent for the obvious
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johnmccsf
November 5, 2009 5:01 PM
As I watch with delight Michelle Backmann and her Teabag licking patriots getting their heads cracked by Pelosi’s Police on Capitol HillL …Palin, Beck, Rushbo scavange the remains of the GOP from Carlyfiornia to NY23, a Camp Obama participant’s story from August 2007 keeps coming to mind
The guy and his girl friend lived in SF but were students at McGill University in Montreal and shortly returning to finish undergrad studies
The guy’s father is a professor at Oklahoma University, Norman and the young Obamanoid grew up there (and fled for his life the first chance he got!)
When it came time to tell his why I am an Obamunist story, first among the reasons…..
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VivaAmerica!
November 5, 2009 5:24 PM in reply to johnmccsf
LOL!
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The Commenter Formerly Known as NCSteve
November 5, 2009 5:36 PM
Among the many delusions in a movement that makes an acid-drenched 60's commune look like a bastion of reality-based thinking, the delusion that they are representative of a rising majority is potentially the most dangerous. It's pervasive in their rhetoric and implicit in all their actions. Listen to the way DeMint (manuvering himself to become their favored presidential candidate in 2012) talks. In a very real sense, they feel surrounded and out-numbered by frightening, dangerous "others" and yet are simultaneously convinced that they are a majority.
In Iraq under Saddam, population demographic breakouts were a state secret and it was an article of Baathist faith that Sunnis were the majority (and thus entitled to their privileged status). One of the things that drove Sunnis into terrorism during the worst years was the unshakable conviction that the reason that, given their majority status, the only explanation for their electoral defeats was fraud on a massive scale.
These people already have a ready-made fraud mythology in place when the inevitable defeats come for them. ACORN, Soros, Chicago-mob clout politics, illegal aliens sneaking onto voter rolls, corrupt politicians resisting the voice of the majority and, thus, hell-bent on imposing totalitarianism. When they lose, the nuttiness is going to go supernova, and at that point, well, it would really only take a couple of thousand of them turning terrorist to tear the guts out of the country for several years.
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Marioth
November 5, 2009 5:55 PM in reply to The Commenter Formerly Known as NCSteve
Compelling commentary. Do you see it going as far civil uprisings? I have grave concerns over the proliferation of concealed carry permits. Unless a conservative leader emerges from the center to bring them back from the ledge, I do not see how this ends well. Far left extremists are a pain in the ass, but few claim to me on missions from gaad. There is no compromise with the Crusade.
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The Commenter Formerly Known as NCSteve
November 5, 2009 7:49 PM in reply to Marioth
No. I see a few hundred to a couple of thousand of them hooking up with the existing rightest proto-terrorist networks--Klan, Aryan Brotherhood, militia nuts, anti-abortion extremists--for training and such and going terrorist, fifty or a hundred thousand becoming active sympathizers, financiers and enablers, a few million passive supporters and apologists and the rest, the overwhelming majority, recoiling in horror the first time they kill Real Americans.
The scary thing are the reports from people like the SPLC about the Klan and the Nazi types taking advantage of lowered recruiting standards to infiltrate people into the military for the specific purpose of picking up training and expertise to spread back among them.
Of course, it looks like the Crips and the Bloods have been doing the same thing, so we got that goin for us.
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jeffgee
November 6, 2009 11:52 AM in reply to The Commenter Formerly Known as NCSteve
And cheered on by Fox News and the radio loudmouths. Until someone goes too far and blows up something. Then Fox and the radio blowhards will deny any connection and blame it on liberals. Expect Bill Ayers to be mentioned.
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Matt Jones
November 5, 2009 7:53 PM in reply to Marioth
One could imagine it going a whole lot farther. See this paper for a discussion that will give most thinking people the heebie-jeebies.
We're at the very cusp of stage 3 - the NY23 stuff and Steele's comments today make a lot more sense in that light.
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puckerupAmerica
November 6, 2009 1:39 PM in reply to Matt Jones
I enjoyed the paper you referenced and would agree fascism seems to be in full force and contend we are entering the fourth phase, but not with same group as you see. To argue the tea partiers are creating a fascist movement would have to admit the majority is a part of the tea party movement - you contend they are not.
The group I suggest is representative of a fascist movement is the current administration in power and entering the fourth phase. The Obama movement took hold with a sweeping mass populace uprising focusing support to a central authority by the indoctrination and promise of "change" or "third way" in the ruling class that invokes the worship of statism through nationalism (national entitlement programs) and syndicalism (i.e. awarding labor unions ownership in companies). The fourth stage of 'execution of power' will define this administration as a truly fascist one by feeding the populace demands while also compromising interests with the 'conservative' elitist system - corporatism. (by conservative, I mean already established system as the paper does, not US political party affiliation.) The goal will be to keep the arousal of the populace through small deliveries of entitlements, but leaving some undone as to keep the demand ready and willing for the next election cycle. The underpinnings of power will be the stronghold in 'big business' while policies push small business out of industry and into a state of 'need,' which will force them into one of two groups - support for the administration through promises of 'help' or opposition to the administration. If the latter, annihilation will only continue for them. You are in or out in fascism, and fascism reigns as long as the masses are willing to accept this indoctrination in substitute for constitutional structure. The waves of fascism are seen in FDR, Johnson, and now Obama.
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puckerupAmerica
November 6, 2009 1:55 PM in reply to Matt Jones
Notice in the Obama movement:
1. 'demagogue haranguing an ecstatic crowd' (any Obama-led gathering)
2. 'disciplined marching youth' (college campuses throughout the country)
3. 'uniformed militants beating a demonized minority' (i.e. SEIU clothed people beating a man in Missouri, union people gathered to demonize corporations...)
4. 'obsessive preoccupation with community decline, victimhood' (promises of community revitalization, constituencies grouped by victimhood: poor, elderly, minorities...)
5. 'compensatory cults of unity...' (any of the groups unified behind Obama who is the beneficiary of his policies - see stimulus winners)
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puckerupAmerica
November 6, 2009 3:01 PM in reply to Matt Jones
"the heebie-jeebies"? Yes, I agree...
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mans_best_friend
November 5, 2009 5:56 PM in reply to The Commenter Formerly Known as NCSteve
Good observation. The more delusional they get the more extremist they become and the more they're rejected by the sane majority, leading to an ever-increasing cycle. However, I'm not so sure I'd expect violence. This is the same path taken before by the Whigs and Know-Nothings. As they shrink in size they shrink in electoral impact, and soon no one pays attention to them any more than we pay attention to the LaRouchies or the other fringe groups. Today was all about getting attention, but when no one pays any attention anymore, they'll just find another group to latch on to.
I think they may be setting themselves up for another massive defeat in 2010 when they run Doug Hoffmans all over the country. Politicians have, if nothing else, an instinct for political self-preservation, and none of them are going to hold on to a sinking anchor for long. That could spell the end for the Limbaugh party.
I see one of two possibilities:
1. The moderates regain control.
2. The party fractures completely and it's years before a viable political party emerges from the wreckage.
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Marioth
November 5, 2009 6:00 PM in reply to mans_best_friend
I would predict much more of #2.
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Mr.E.
November 5, 2009 6:45 PM in reply to mans_best_friend
Your comments are usually spot on, but this one doesn't fit:
"Politicians have, if nothing else, an instinct for political self-preservation, and none of them are going to hold on to a sinking anchor for long."
In general, that premise should be true, but unlike Nixon and Reagan's cynical machinations (including Cheney, Rumsfeld, DeLay and Rove) to implement the Southern Strategy, Bush Jr. (poppy must be so proud) and the current R legislators seem to fall more into the category of true believers. I would argue that the blue dogs are trying to act according to your premise, but seem to be out of touch with the political and demographic trends (stupidly, in my opinion.)
The currently-elected R's on the other hand have already purged their moderates and are becoming more extreme. They seem to have chosen the new mascot of lemming, rather than elephant. If they really had any sense or sense of self-preservation, they would have been in their office hiding under their desks with the lights out, not on the steps preaching to the (small) masses.
DeMint has stated publicly, and seems to sincerely believe that it's better to have 30 conservative senators than 40 Rs, including moderates (we may actually agree on that one!) Bohner's claiming that HCR is the greatest threat to freedom facing the U.S. Cantor is actually a smart guy, and should no better, but he seems willing to drink the Kool-aid. Jindal was actually a really smart guy who seems to have undergone a major lobotomy. But who's calling the plays? Limbaugh, Beck, Palin and Bachmann! And the team is falling in line behind them.
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midnight rambler
November 6, 2009 3:28 AM in reply to Mr.E.
Yep, I agree. It's also worth pointing out that Gingrich is one of the few Republican Machiavellian manipulators still active in the public eye, and he got completely rolled by the true believers in this election, to the point that a good chunk of the activist base considers him a "traitor".
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thomas1
November 6, 2009 9:05 AM in reply to Mr.E.
smart guys don't drink kool-aid. Cantor only looks smart because of the company he keeps.
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An Outhouse
November 6, 2009 10:09 AM in reply to mans_best_friend
They have this guy going for them in 2010:
http://www.georgehutchins.com/
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slb
November 6, 2009 1:18 AM in reply to The Commenter Formerly Known as NCSteve
You have explained something that I sensed back in 1992, when the Republicans went what then seemed completely nuts (how the threshold for what seems nutty has changed!) over Clinton's election. It seemed to me at the time that they assumed that the presidency was theirs by right, and that any Democrat sitting in that office was, by definition, a usurper.
Thanks for an interesting and cogent analysis!
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Lucieann
November 5, 2009 5:36 PM
OMG!! Those women from PSL, FL! This city is almost all Democratic, it really is hard to believe they even came from here. Do these people even know what they are protesting? Really? or are they just so full of being fed the Right wing lunatic pablum...it doesn't even matter to them anymore. I do think the Republicans are in deep doo-doo as we enter the midterm election season....when they can't even identify with the GOP anymore. Abe Lincoln would be so proud that his Party is being purged of the loons.
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Mr.E.
November 5, 2009 7:19 PM in reply to Lucieann
Actually, it is being purged BY the loons.
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Berni
November 9, 2009 12:09 PM in reply to Lucieann
Hmmmmmm...and no one critized Bush? Or called him names? Or questioned his intelligence? Or wished to have "their" white house back?
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pakaal
November 5, 2009 7:17 PM
"We've had a lot of hang-ups," Danley, explaining that her members of Congress won't take her family's calls protesting the health care bill. "It gets pretty heated on the phone."
Maybe someone should try being polite when speaking to members of Congress, hmm? I find them much more willing to speak to me more than once if I don't start shouting "No funding for Death Panels" as soon as someone picks up the phone.
And yes, sure, there's always the possibility that "her family" has just had extremely bad luck with the staffers who answer the phones for those thirteen Representatives and two Senators in NJ.
Yeah, sure.
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Redshift
November 5, 2009 10:04 PM in reply to pakaal
I thought the same thing -- I read that as "we called up and screamed at our reps staffers, and now they hang up on us as soon as we start." Somehow I doubt that "it gets pretty heated" is the fault of the staffers.
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gdunn45
November 6, 2009 9:05 AM in reply to pakaal
Someone has already brought up the term delusion, so I think it is also apropros here. Tea Baggers believe that "free speech" is their ability to yell and scream at whoever they want and you HAVE TO LISTEN to them yell and scream whatever they want, when they want, wherever and whenver they want.
If you try to get a word in, they shout you down by screaming you are violating their FREE SPEECH.
When they stop screaming at you and you can respond. They shout you down and when you ask about your free speech, they shout they are using their right to Free Speech to shout you down.
So, really we are dealing with the Bully Party.
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jeffgee
November 6, 2009 11:58 AM in reply to gdunn45
The 1st amendment only protects speech form government censorship, it doesn't compel anyone to listen and it doesn't prevent private entities from censoring speech.
The baggers forgot the scriptural line "a gentle answer turneth away wrath."
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beeper
November 5, 2009 9:55 PM
The a****** wing of the a****** party??
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meri
November 5, 2009 11:04 PM
Limbaugh loonies-----wouldn't know really what socialism is if it bit them on the behind.
ladybeetle
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AmericanDad
November 5, 2009 11:37 PM
Et tu Evan? "Two days after the GOP's sweeping victories...." Quit drinking the AP's kool aid and look at who actually won most of the contests and the most important contests this week.
The Dems picked up two seats in Congress, including one that’s been a Republican seat for more than 100 years. Dms have a stronger and more liberal majority in the House -- where national policy is being made -- now than they did last week.
Obama’s favorable rating of 56.1% is actually a tad higher than it was on Oct. 6 of last year (56%), just a month before he was elected in a landslide.
Americans prefer Dems over Reps for Congress, and prefer them even more — and by a wider margin — than they did this time a year ago.
In the East, north of the Pennsylvania border, there are 51 congressional districts representing 34 million people. — and Reps have a whopping two seats. In the West, California is trending strongly to the left.
Dems won the big city mayoral races in Seattle, Atlanta, Charlotte, Minneapolis, St. Paul, Pittsburg, Cleveland, Chapel Hill and Detroit.
Gay rights meaures won in Washington and Kalamazoo, Michigan, and barely lost in Maine, while gay candidates won the day in Houston, Chapel Hill, St. Petersburg and Charlotte.
Two TABOR initiatives were on ballots Tuesday -- both lost.
As for the GOP's two marquee wins: Back in 2001, at the same point in Duby’a reign of error, the election of Democratic governors over Republicans in those same two states -- Virginia and New Jersey -- it meant absolutely nothing then, just as it does now. In fact, it's a 30-year trend. In New Jersey, the party in power in the White House hasn’t won the governor’s office since 1985 and the party in power in the White House hasn’t won the governor’s office in Virginia since 1977.
Sweeping victories for the GOP? Please.
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CyberDuckie
November 6, 2009 4:06 AM in reply to AmericanDad
Thank you! Finally!
Ya know, I expect the Rethugs to try and play up their mediocre wins as much as they always do. But it really gets to me every time I see a liberal blogger echo those same sentiments.
It was not a "sweeping victory" for the Republicans. Barely eeking out wins in two races, one of which should never have been an issue (Bloomberg) does not constitute a mandate. Nor does winning an election in a red state where the dem candidate ran a terrible campaign, therefore failing to mobilize the voters.
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
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bluesplashy
November 6, 2009 1:02 PM in reply to AmericanDad
Yes yes yes. I want to thank you also. Too bad your comment can't be writ large on the front page of the NY Times. Juan Williams did make some of those points on NPR on Wednesday but it didn't seem to faze any of the other regulars there. They probably won't call him back until he had drank a gallon of the kookaid.
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AmericanDad
November 5, 2009 11:38 PM
Et tu Evan? "Two days after the GOP's sweeping victories...." Quit drinking the AP's kool aid and look at who actually won most of the contests and the most important contests this week.
The Dems picked up two seats in Congress, including one that’s been a Republican seat for more than 100 years. Dms have a stronger and more liberal majority in the House -- where national policy is being made -- now than they did last week.
Obama’s favorable rating of 56.1% is actually a tad higher than it was on Oct. 6 of last year (56%), just a month before he was elected in a landslide.
Americans prefer Dems over Reps for Congress, and prefer them even more — and by a wider margin — than they did this time a year ago.
In the East, north of the Pennsylvania border, there are 51 congressional districts representing 34 million people. — and Reps have a whopping two seats. In the West, California is trending strongly to the left.
Dems won the big city mayoral races in Seattle, Atlanta, Charlotte, Minneapolis, St. Paul, Pittsburg, Cleveland, Chapel Hill and Detroit.
Gay rights meaures won in Washington and Kalamazoo, Michigan, and barely lost in Maine, while gay candidates won the day in Houston, Chapel Hill, St. Petersburg and Charlotte.
Two TABOR initiatives were on ballots Tuesday -- both lost.
As for the GOP's two marquee wins: Back in 2001, at the same point in Duby’a reign of error, the election of Democratic governors over Republicans in those same two states -- Virginia and New Jersey -- it meant absolutely nothing then, just as it does now. In fact, it's a 30-year trend. In New Jersey, the party in power in the White House hasn’t won the governor’s office since 1985 and the party in power in the White House hasn’t won the governor’s office in Virginia since 1977.
Sweeping victories for the GOP? Please.
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johnsoni37
November 6, 2009 9:02 AM
i think we should go back to calling them tea baggers.
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Berni
November 9, 2009 12:11 PM in reply to johnsoni37
We don't call ourselves teabaggers...the left uses that term. They are the ones that are into name calling
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gdunn45
November 6, 2009 9:09 AM
Evan, is there any information on the demographics of these Tea Partiers? Obviously, most are white and elderly--but I am curious about financial data--ie--household income and what % are on Medicare and receiving Social Security.
Also, the $200 to pay for roundtrip bus tickets does say something towards commitment.
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lindam
November 6, 2009 9:20 AM
It is interesting to see hear that they have had enough of this "change." Just what change are they talking about? An improved public image in the world? More openness in government? Thoughtful consideration of committing troops? Trying to assure that their fellow citizens have health care? Do they want more war, more of the wealth concentrated in the richest 10% of Americans? Sending young men to their deaths in a war based on lies, misinformation and a personal agenda? Do they realized that many of the soldiers that they send to war are minorities? Do they realize that their lily white lives are being defended by minorities who are absent from their tea bagging protests?
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roxanne
November 6, 2009 9:28 AM
As a Democrat from New Jersey who didn't vote Republican and never would, I've never had problems getting through to my Representatives or Senators Menendez or Lautenberg. Of course, I don't call them screaming and cursing into the phone either. It really is amazing how the Republicans are trying to spin Tuesday's elections as a loss for Dems. Further, every single one of teabaggers voted Republican last year so they should stop trying to pretend that their a new group of people who are going to help sweep Republicans back into power next year. One thing these idiots and the media should be careful about is framing Tuesday's elections as a clear path to victory for Republicans next year. Instead, what they may be doing is challenging Obama supporters to do it again. I for one am already excited about crushing their BS and the "history" of the Whitehouse losing seats when in power.
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roxanne
November 6, 2009 9:33 AM
By the way, early yesterday I predicted that the idiots of my state who voted for govenor Fatty Arbuckle would live to regret it but, I didn't realize it would be this soon. I saw a clip of Fatty on a local news station and while he promised to cut property taxes he was saying that he's not going to be able to do this overnight. Of course he never said that during his campaign or in his ads. He just talked about how fat he is. Well, as someone who doesn't own a home......I hope you loose your homes you idiots! You're not thrilled with the economy that was damaged by Republicans for the last 8 years and your solution is to vote Republican again? Stupid and soon to be homeless asses! I'd start looking for an apartment if I were you folks!
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jeffgee
November 6, 2009 12:01 PM
Brainwashed by Beck.
Idiots. All of them.
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