A few weeks ago, I wrote a post arguing that Tea Party activism has become the face of the conservative movement, so much so that just about every conservative organization and activist is now tying their own agenda to the Tea Party bandwagon in an effort to co-opt and exploit it, obscuring the original Tea Party agenda and rendering the entire discussion of the movement as an entity increasingly moot, as “Tea Party” it is now becoming just another way of saying “right-wing.”
To demonstrate what I mean, just take a look at this article:
A diverse mix of longtime Southie conservatives and young professionals packed a standing-room-only Tea Party launch meeting yesterday, energized by Scott Brown’s U.S. Senate win and mobilized by ire at Washington.
“The Tea Party is a movement of all the heroes of this country,” South Boston Tea Party organizer Susan Long told a crowd of 65 gathered at the Perkins VFW Post.
The meeting was part of a burgeoning GOP grassroots revival from Boston to the Berkshires.
Long, a nurse and mom of four, spoke on conservative themes – anti-abortion, low taxes, small government. Brian Camenker, a Newton anti-gay activist, also spoke, and GOP gubernatorial candidate Christy Mihos, Shrewsbury Rep. Karyn Polito and former City Council candidate Doug Bennett also attended.
Camenker runs MassResistance, an anti-gay group so militant that it is one of the few classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
From its inception, MassResistance has focused on nothing beyond furthering their anti-gay bias, only now Camenker is passing it off as Tea Party activism.
Whatever Tea Party activism meant when it first emerged has been lost as the “movement” continues to get co-opted by traditional right-wing and Religious Right activists.
