The Tea Party Movement Is Not A GOP Creation

The Tea Party movement is a reaction against the Republican party. Sorry to keep beating this drum, but this truth needs to be said loudly and often. It is popular among the press, the left and even some within the Republican party to paint the Tea Party movement as an Obama-hating reaction to socialistic impulses. That is part of it. The heart of it, though, is that many Americans, across the spectrum, felt betrayed by the GOP for abandoning fiscal conservatism and ethical governance.

So here’s a letter from a Texas blogger friend and typical Tea Partier attacking this meme in a letter to the editor of the Houston Chronicle:

Ms. Burton (It feels weird typing that BTW).

My name is Stan Burton (no relation that I am aware of, but we Burtons have multiplied like rabbits, so it is entirely possible that we are related somewhere back in the depths of time.). I am both a Harris County GOP Precinct Chair as well as one of the founding members of the Texas Chapter of the American Conservativer Party. Your story today makes a bad assumption that is simply unsupported by the facts.

The tea party movement is not, and never was “created by the GOP”. If anything, it was created in response to the GOP as it exists today. The GOP contingent in Congress has over the last few years attempted to move to the left and has become virtually indistinguishable from the Democrats. The Tea Party movement was created by the grass roots in order to show our leaders in Washington DC that the people are not leftist, we are by huge majorities, right of center. I realize you may not understand the true meaning of the words “Grass Roots” because it has been misappropriated and misapplied to groups that are in fact “astroturf” groups. Most of these astroturf groups are in fact promulgated by democrat organizations to support democrat causes. The most famous of these is ACORN and it’s hundreds of front organizations, including SEIU. Let me be clear here, the true meaning of a grass roots organization is one that SPONTANEOUSLY forms by individuals, not by groups in order to give political cover to said groups. The Tea Party movement is just such a spontaneous group, as is the ACP.

The Tea Party movement was not formed by the GOP, at least not intentionally. It was formed BECAUSE of the GOP and it’s shift leftward. It is not in of itself partisan, but it does lean to the right, on both fiscal as well as social issues. The ACP however IS partisan and it too was formed as a response to the GOP’s shift leftwards.

You really should do a bit more homework before you dive off into such rhetoric because you just look like a democrat toady and hack propagandist instead of an actual unbiased journalist. Frankly your biases are showing in spades. Talking to your leftist co-workers over beers at some trendy bar is NOT research. You really should have contacted Felicia Cravens or someone else in the tea party movement before you went and stuffed both of your feet in your mouth.

The Tea Party movement is a problem for many in the GOP. They did not create it, nor do they control it, much to their chagrin.

Posted in America
Tags: Tea Party