The Tea Party Exists Mainly Because Many Rural Whites Just Don’t Like a Black Guy Being in Charge

[ashling]

http://www.forwardprogressives.com/the-tea-party-exists-mainly-because-many-rural-whites-just-dont-like-a-black-guy-being-in-charge/

[dembotoz]

1. that and our lack of attention to rural issues made it easy

[RKP5637]

2. Good point. There are lots of parts of this country suffering that one never

even hears about.

[JI7]

5. but why blame the black guy

[yeoman6987]

14. I thought it was started because of Sarah palin

She wanted to clean up Washington, D.C. Of corruption or something like that.

[Initech]

3. Yup. I saw this at the bar last night.

Iowa is playing Stanford in the Rose Bowl. The Iowa fans were all staying in downtown LA. They did not like Stanford. They also did not like Hillary Clinton.

[Nye Bevan]

4. So I guess they'll be disbanding in January 2017, then. (nt)

[Scootaloo]

6. Naw, they'll just start bitching about "TEH JOOZ" when bernie is sworn in.

[madokie]

9. Exactly

damn glad I didn't have anything in my mouth when I read that.

We are a fucked up country in so many fucking ways, are we not?

[meow2u3]

15. Or "the wimmins' if HRC is sworn in

Or even worse, the "bitches" (according to misogynists). Could be one or the other.

[madokie]

7. The racist came out of the wood work as soon as it looked like he was going to win

I honestly thought we were past most of the racism in this country but now realize we've a long ways to go, generations in fact I'm afraid

[Initech]

10. Oh it's getting worse. Much worse.

Especially when you think about the fact that Neo Nazis have said that Donald Trump is the first candidate in American history that represents their interests.

[madokie]

11. and those are the sob's

who worry me. the kind that likes to go out in the woods and play war

Had a fellow worker ask me to join him in a paint ball excursion once. I laughed in his face and told him that no way would I be interested in going and playing war. I know what war is really all about and it ain't fun.

[Wellstone ruled]

8. Most Rural Areas have major social

economic issues,and their local County and State Representation stay in control by controlling the Conversation. And that conversation tends to be keep something controversial going at all time. Older White Persons are their audience and they love to stir the pot so to speak. Amazing the amount of pure ignorance and lack of caring one finds in rural America.

[pampango]

12. America is more cosmopolitan and diverse; never is that appreciated by ethno-nationalists.

The United States is wracked by a spasm of anti-cosmopolitanism and fear of radical subversion. It is exemplified, for many Americans by the election and presidency of Obama himself: black, yet biracially cosmopolitan, urban, intellectual, raised partly in a Muslim country, and the abandoned son of a Kenyan activist and academic. Millions of conservatives still suspect him of being un-Christian and, literally, not a native-born American qualified to serve as president. ... The current conflict is a continuation of one over the past century in the United States between what the historian Gary Gerstle has called the racial nationalism of blood and ethnic supremacy and a more expansive civic nationalism which promises a common political project of equal rights and respect for all. America has seen expressions of both racial and civic nationalism in its history—both are quintessentially American articulations of political power and hierarchy. These different national projects—one culturally and ethnically homogeneous, the other inclusive of differences ...

There is no period of American history that so pervasively demonstrated the power of ethno-nationalism to suppress pluralist differences as that following the Russian Revolution, the end of the First World War, and then continuing through much of the 1920s. There are many broad parallels between this era and our own. In both historical moments, there is a rising racial nationalism that takes hold of a significant (and demographically similar) portion of the country. Following the 1920s, Franklin Roosevelt’s leadership during the Depression and a massive labor movement—which, at least, in its ideals (if often not its practice) extolled the social solidarity of Americans of all races, ethnicities, and religions—renewed civic nationalism.

Black soldiers returning from the war, looking for jobs after fighting for their country, were often met with rage; their simple expectation of respect precipitated a violent, racist backlash. In Chicago in 1919 and Tulsa in 1921 dozens were killed in race riots; across the country, whites killed blacks who dared to imagine they could be equal participants in a project of civic nationalism. ... What these various fears shared in common was the concern that the centrality of America’s Anglo-Saxon heritage was being undermined by radicals, immigrants, and African Americans. Understandable concerns for personal safety merged with resentment for groups who sought to disrupt long assumed hierarchies.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/12/the-return-of-the-1920s/422163/?google_editors_picks=true

Trump and his supporters have always seemed to be a throwback to an earlier republican era of anti-immigration, anti-trade sentiments, described by this writer as ethno-nationalists. It is interesting to see the parallels between the 1920's and republican view of the 21st century.

Liberals do seem to support "a more expansive civic nationalism which promises a common political project of equal rights and respect for all" even if that has never been achieved. Conservatives, OTOH, seem more worried about "the centrality of America’s Anglo-Saxon heritage" and their &quot u)nderstandable concerns for personal safety merged with resentment for groups who sought to disrupt long assumed hierarchies."

[Egnever]

13. The tea party was created to distance the republicans from bushes failed presidency.

Obama wasn't even the nominee nor did he look like he would be when the Tea party was created. It was created to recapture the people that were leaving the republican party in droves after bushes term.

It gave ultra conservatives an excuse to keep voting republican while still being able to say they weren't like the republicans that ruined the country.

Since then it has certainly become a refuge for the more racist of the republicans but it not how it came to be.