I knew little about the Tea Party other than what was provided by a smattering of controversial media coverage, so I decided to seek some information for myself direct from the source. According to teapartypatriots.org, their mission is to "secure public policy consistent with our three core values of Fiscal Responsibility, Constitutionally, Limited Government and Free Markets."
The original Boston Tea Party, a well known moment of American revolutionary patriotism, was a protest against a governmental monopoly on tea and taxation without representation by the British government.
During the protest, Americans dressed as Native Americans and dumped tea from British ships into the Boston harbor. The Tea Party movement tries to convey that very patriotic, underdog, grass roots, radical political reformist image that comes to mind when thinking of the Boston Tea Party.
I was left empty handed when looking for content that matched this image. The front page of the Tea Party Patriots site contains "news" articles with titles such as, "Don't Kid Yourself, Obama Wants Nothing Less Than To Destroy America!" The article shows an image of Obama holding a book titled, "The Post American World."
The article is sure to explain that "Post America" means "After America!" and point out that the book "was written by a fellow Muslim." The book is actually about a globally competitive world where America is not a super power but one of many participants, not the end of America, in fact promoting the free market anti-monopolistic ideals supposedly purported by the Tea Party.
This slanderous and racist article has nothing to do with fiscal responsibility, and is actually supposed to be against site policy: "Individuals posting on TPP [Tea Party Patriots] online groups and blogs are expected to ... refrain from profanity, slander and personal attacks. TPP does not condone and will not tolerate discrimination of any kind." Still, this article was on the front page.
In fact, nine of the fifteen front page news entries on the site negatively mention Obama. As a tax exempt 501(c) (4) nonprofit, also known as a social welfare organization, this is a direct misuse of their tax exempt status. The IRS states that a "social welfare organization may engage in some political activities, so long as that is not its primary activity".
The group needs tax exempt status for its donations, a 10 dollar a month donation, which is required for official membership of the "1st Brigade," is aggressively promoted by a full page ad upon entering the site for the first time.
A tax is defined as "A fee or dues levied on the members of an organization to meet its expenses." Ironically, according to Tea Party Patriots this tax "will help provide Tea Party Patriots with the necessary resources to be able to continue to fight for liberty and the constitution." This tax being the very thing they protest.
Then again, despite having a mission statement that seems to point toward the idea that it's an organization focused on economic reform, I've found that this issue is only one of many right wing problems that get thrown into the Tea Party bag. In fact, all right wing issues are thrown into the bag.
Although there is an actual organization, there are hundreds of groups that go under the name "Tea Party." They participate in activities as diverse as bashing Obama to shouting about immigrants.
"I feel that the Tea Party groups are generally misinformed and mislead by biased news agencies," commented Brett Mitchell, a Green River student. When asked about the Tea Party's goals he stated, "They don't have a goal in the sense of anything that they want to accomplish. Rather their belief is that the government is in some way trying to wrong them. Their goal then is to try and stop the government from doing anything. Their goal is to resist change, in that sense."
This mix mash collective of anything-right-wing-goes leaves the Tea Party less of a party and more of an identifiable movement which every dissatisfied right-winger across the country can declare his or her own, and use to release some pent up rage under the guise of economic ideals. I hope our students can see through the façade.
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