Just a week ago, I had no idea what the Tea Party is because I am not interested in history and I thought that the Tea Party is just some movements in the past. Now, as I do research for this assignment and read through Zernike’s work, I still have absolutely no idea what the Tea Party is. The difference of “now” comparing to “a week ago” is “a week ago,” I don’t have any fact about this Party, while “now,” I have too many facts and they are contradicting each other.
I want to start with “What IS the Tea Party?” but it seems like a hard part to start with so I’ll begin with the construction of the Tea Party. The Tea Party define themselves, “The Tea Party movement is a grassroots movement of millions of like-minded Americans from all backgrounds and political parties. Tea Party members share similar core principles supporting the United States Constitution as the Founders intended… As a movement, The Tea Party is not a political party nor is looking to form a third political party any time soon,” (http://www.theteaparty.net/). To my understanding, the Tea Party is constructed of a bunch of “angry mob” who want to change the government to the “people rule,” or more accurately, “white people rule.” While defining themselves as open minded, “from all backgrounds and political parties,” why they are generally against the black people, particularly the black civil right movement leader (Martin Luther King Jr.) and the black president (Barack Obama). I doubt they are open-minded about race at all. More interesting, even though they mention “like-minded,” the members don’t even speak the same language, “When one young speaker mentioned the importance of using social media like YouTube, an older woman with a drugstore disposable camera and a flag brooch wrote down carefully ‘U2’,” (Boiling Mad: Inside Tea Party America, 4). They said that they are “not a political party nor is looking to form a third political party,” yet issues about the government, specifically economy related, are in their interest range (again about the government where “white people rule”). Indeed, from the “New York Times/CBS News Poll of Tea Party Supporters,” anything related to economic is voted by a large number of Tea Party supporters. Even more contradicting to their definition of the Tea Party, Wikipedia states, “A Gallup poll shows almost 80% of Tea Partiers consider themselves to be Republicans. Commentators, including Gallup Editor-in-Chief Frank Newport, have suggested that the movement is not a new political group but simply a rebranding of traditional Republican candidates and policies,” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_Party_movement). One more contradicting point, in a video clip in their website, they show that they support a quote, “History moves toward freedom because the desire for freedom is written in every human heart,” yet they completely against communists, whose revolution is caused by the same desire of freedom, or are they supporting Wilsonian moment, “history moves progressively” thing.
My intertextuality moment comes when I read this portion, “The panelists on stage were baby-faced… while the people in the audience were ‘seasoned’… But this was how the movement had grown, this mashup of young and old, abhorring the left but learning from it,” (Boiling Mad, 4). My first thought was, “Wow, maybe these youngsters hit where it hurts so the elders follow their motive,” but then I actually think of “Emotional release device.” In this day where economic hits the wall and government needs to spend more than they get from the people (increase taxes), obviously many people will get mad, all they need is a gather point (a group/religion… in here is the Tea Party) where they find people who are as mad as they are and start a “rally” (one more contradiction with their definition, which is “peaceful protest”). This is like the moment where everyone sticks their head out of the opening windows and yell, “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!”
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