The Resistance Is the Majority of Americans - Not a New Tea Party (Time)

[StrictlyRockers]

http://time.com/4676825/democratic-resistance-tea-party/


On August 25, 2009, Democratic Congressman Bart Gordon held a town hall meeting in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. A local news report called it “a discussion about the nation's health care” that “led to loud boos and heckling” from the crowd. On February 9, 2017, Republican Congresswoman Diane Black — elected to Gordon’s seat in the fall of 2010 — held a town hall meeting in the same city. A local news report headline proclaimed, “Diane Black, GOP lawmakers faced defenders of Obamacare at lively town hall.” Sounds similar, right?

The zeitgeist is quickly setting in: Republicans right now face a backlash akin to what Democrats faced from the Tea Party in 2009 and 2010. Some have gone so far as to call this resistance the Democratic Tea Party. It’s a convenient comparison: Democrats like it because the Republican Tea Party was successful in 2010, and the media appreciates it as a simple and straightforward story. I've been guilty of leaning on it myself.

But the Democratic resistance and the Tea Party actually differ in a number of important ways, each of which tells a different story about where our country is and where our politics may be headed.

For starters, the Tea Party was forged as an opposition to a societal reality in our country, while today’s resistance is opposed to a political reality. The Tea Party began before the election of President Obama, as a reaction to President Bush and the bank bailouts of 2008. Tea Partiers believed that society and the economy had all left them behind. The movement’s anger was stoked by the realization that the country had changed to the extent that it would elect someone like Barack Obama and support his “liberal” policies like the Economic Recovery Act (the so-called stimulus) and the Affordable Care Act (scornfully dubbed “Obamacare”). These members wanted the entire country to revert to a set of values that more closely resembled what they saw on Leave It to Beaver.

[murielm99]

1. The tea party was never

a grassroots movement. It was well funded and planned by republican elites.

What is happening now is strictly grassroots. No one is paying us to show up at town halls or to demonstrate. There are so many issues out there that each meeting has a variety of questions and grievances. Most of our protests and questions at town hall meetings have been polite, if emphatic. I don't think chanting, "Do Your Job," or, "Your Last Term," is in any way violent.

If these republicans fools are afraid of their own constituents, they better start planning their retirements, or looking for new careers.

[StrictlyRockers]

2. I love how everything they are guilty of, they try to project on the left.

The Tea Party was astroturfed into existence. From what I can tell, our movement is gaining steam to potential tidal wave proportions, and it is purely grassroots. *45's incompetence has motivated more good people people to action than Hillary's righteousness managed to.

[lagomorph777]

4. Trumputin is not incompetent. He is evil.

I wish he was incompetent.

[Synecdoche Trope]

5. I'd like this to be the Last Term for ALL Republicans

Hell, given the ages of guys like McConnell and Grassley.....!

[Bernardo de La Paz]

3. The Minority President and RepubliCons are scared of the majority.

Hence angry tweets about demonstrators. Repeated lying about crowd sizes and Electoral College margins.

Thus no-shows at district town halls.

And so we get fake news about paid protesters.

The T-party was AstroTurf, not grassroots.