History shows this is so, so very true. Even with crazy leaders or political candidates, you just need conditions to get bad enough, get people hungry enough, and so forth.
If I were American and Republican, I would be seriously embarrassed by the Tea Party. Kind of like this relative that you cannot deny is a relative, but really don't want to be seen with.
...and you invite to your wedding cause your mom insisted and they show up in baby blue polyester tuxes.
Part of me thinks that many of those types are actually itching for some sort of revolution - '17, '39 style - and think it would be a good thing for the country.
He is presented as a tea party candidate. However, he is a latin immigrant that speaks half-truths about immigration. He is against the Obama visa policy. Then, he says we must create more visas for illegals. He says it's not the same thing as Obama. smh
The Cuban/Italian "Tea Party" Republican? Oh, hell yes. And he's crazy as a loon. We're stuck with him for the next 6 freakin' years. Thanks, Texas. Next time, do a little research.
I'm not so sure -- Ted Cruz is an extremely intelligent person -- I think he will quickly distance himself from the TP nuts. I wouldn't be surprised to see Cruz through his hat in the ring for 2016 and connections with the TP will only hurt his cause.
Mine isn't a common opinion on the subject, but I believe that the TEA Party and Occupy Wall Street are fundamentally the same movement. The TEA Party actually started as a result of Ron Paul's message of government excess, spending, and financial mismanagement in 2007 (this was observed by an earlier poster as well). I believe that most of the TEA Partiers to whom thumbs refers are the people who believed in that part of the early TEA Party ideology. They are respectable, conservative people who believe that the deficits we run and the debt we have accumulated is insane (I believe "insane" is overstating it, but we do have a debt load as high as it was just after WWII, so they are right that debt is at historic highs, just not about the extremity of the problem). They were absolutely aghast when Bush bailed out the banks, which is what caused most of them to end their support for Bush the younger and become more activist in their thinking and behavior, but more on that in a minute. Occupy Wall Street was a delayed reaction from the bailouts and subsequent lack of real financial regulation reform. OWS was similarly disgusted with Wall Street, the fact that they got bailed out while the middle class lost 40% of their net worth and saw median wages drop significantly. They hated that Wall Street was back to giving billions of dollars in bonuses while they got laid off, took furloughs, and got pay cuts. Despite their common roots and beliefs, they are pitted as enemies against each other when, at the root of things, they are one movement separated by the media which they choose to consume. This is where thumbs' friends and acquaintances are sorely misled. They have chosen to believe people who are actively lying to them in order to be able to keep voting themselves our tax dollars.
God no, was Kenneth Star dead after Clinton beat Dole? Citizens United plus a second term dem president; this is about to get horrific.
Good post but see this graph (http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/spending_chart_1792_2016USp_13s1li0181366_677cs_G0f). I think people need to talk about deficit in terms of GDP. It's like getting angry that Apple doubled it's liabilities but ignoring the fact that their profitability increased ten-fold. If the tea-party was truly created due to the deficit issues our country faces, the movement would have started 2004/2005.
Ron Paul had been preaching to his (rather small) choir for years, decades before 2005. The tipping point was the financial crisis and the bailouts for the TEA Party folks. They woke up (this is how you hear a great many TEA Partiers talk about their disillusionment with GWB, that they "woke up") and started protesting. Unfortunately, they were watching Fox at the time, so they couldn't recognize that there was another part of their movement that was on the other side of social issues, which is what the 1% was counting on.
Could you explain the last few years of this graph to me? To me it looks like the federal deficit peaked a few years ago, and has now sharply decreased. I know that's not the case....is the end of the graph what it estimates it to be in 2016? Thanks.
Bumping to say....yes, it is: http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/n...rties-regroup-after-election-tax-deal-/nTwN6/ http://www.rasmussenreports.com/pub...013/just_8_now_say_they_are_tea_party_members Our long national nightmare is over.
