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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsBill Kristol to Maher: 'Total Bullsh*t!' That Tea Party Was About a Black President - video link
VIDEO here: http://www.mediaite.com/tv/bill-kristol-to-maher-total-bullsht-that-tea-party-was-about-a-black-president/
Even you dont believe that, Kristol said to Maher, youre just saying that.
I totally believe that, Maher insisted. A month after he took office, suddenly white people were very concerned about debt, even though Bush had raised the debt way more than Obama had. I dont remember a tea party then.
-snip-
Duckhunter935
(16,974 posts)so what happened 5 years ago around this time...........................
OilemFirchen
(7,143 posts)They still act like two-year-olds.
madokie
(51,076 posts)between our first Black President and the teabillies. That you can bet on too
the Tea Party was a way to re brand the Repubs post Bush. Hear much about Bush these days?
Tx4obama
(36,974 posts)... any signs in the building that said 'Republican'. A journalist reported on that tidbit during the convention
Cha
(298,074 posts)[IMG][/IMG]
Response to Tx4obama (Original post)
pacalo This message was self-deleted by its author.
MrMickeysMom
(20,453 posts)It was the Koch's who invented the tea party...
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)There are three primary factions. The wiki article does a good rundown. Dick Armey/Freedomworks runs one, Fox/Tea Party Express runs another, and then you have the randroid ron motherfucking paul nitwits.
They are still battling for control of the overall heap of dogshit.
I think the Koch's have their dicks in the Tea Party Express wing.
MrMickeysMom
(20,453 posts)This is how it plays out, so why on earth that couldn't have been brought out, I'll never know. I didn't register to Maher's "after hours" to see if that would come out, but someone needs to bring this up the next time on Real Time.
Bandit
(21,475 posts)Remember his big gathering at Washington DC. Fox Promoted the Tea Party from day one.
MrMickeysMom
(20,453 posts)The whole mixture curdles in mindless hell.
winter is coming
(11,785 posts)under the guise of representing "real Americans". Focusing on the President's race is an ongoing tactic, not a founding principle. If Hillary had been elected, there would have been shit-stirring about a "female President".
Marr
(20,317 posts)phony front for the 1%, the fertile soil they drew their actual numbers from was made of largely racist resentment. Remember all that talk about "taking the country back", and how some people were 'takers', and whatnot? Lots of code language.
winter is coming
(11,785 posts)of the pawns that have been suckered into the Tea Party, but I don't think the Koch brothers are looking for a party of racists so much as they need a party of somebody to vote for their candidates. Playing on racial hatred is a great way to cause division among the 99% and distract people from the 1%'s agenda.
Trekologer
(1,001 posts)I would assert that there is an equivalency between A) actually being racist and B) knowing which buttons to push to fan the flames of real racists. The second is merely racism by proxy.
winter is coming
(11,785 posts)If the President had been female, misogyny would have been the primary tactic.
Either way (tactic or goal), the effect is hideously toxic, but doing something that corrosive as a mere tactic (rather than out of sincere belief) is, if anything, even worse.
Blue_In_AK
(46,436 posts)They took advantage of racial hatred to forward their agenda. It was the perfect time for them to grab more power and they had a bunch of racist assholes ready and willing to do their bidding.
Dark n Stormy Knight
(9,776 posts)large numbers of racists who populate it. For those racist Teabaggers, racism, as well as bigotry in general, is a foundational principle.
exboyfil
(17,865 posts)were happening in 2007 as an extension of Ron Paul's campaign. That is not to say that it would not then focus on the next target of opportunity - Pres. Obama.
drmeow
(5,041 posts)there actually were liberals who were also part of the original Tea Party movement who didn't want to the banks bailed out for liberal reasons along with the consistent (as in, against government spending even when their party is in power) fiscally conservatives. But as soon as Obama won the election, the "government spending is bad when its those libruls who are doing it" crowd jumped on the band wagon. Since those types of fair-weather (even though they think it is foul-weather )fiscally conservative types tend to be that way because they don't want their hard earned money to go to "those" people as hand outs, it was a pretty quick and easy transition to the KKK-lite (not very lite) entity that the Tea Party is now. The Koch brothers (and other right-wing groups which have since funded the Tea Party) were perfectly happy with the bail outs when they came from the Bush administration. But ANY President they had not bought completely was going to be the object of their full blown attack and the Tea Party was a ready-made opportunity which they exploited to the max. If it had not yet come into being before the election, the Koch brothers would have invented something. It is too bad that it was already in existence because that saved the Koch brothers a lot of time, money, and effort since they didn't have to build a movement from scratch. They only had to pour gasoline on what was a relatively small flame at that point.
CJCRANE
(18,184 posts)Ron Paul's crowd were the fiscal conservative, anti-war, isolationist crowd. They were pretty much against everything that Bush did. They were ostracized at Repub conventions. Despite being fiscal conservatives they were not social conservatives, they were more the anarchist/libertarian 911 truther types.
Ron Paul said something like "we need a new Tea Party" in 2008 (obviously referring to the Boston Tea Party) and the moneymen behind the GOP took this idea and ran with it (although the Kochs had had an organization called the US Tea Party in deepfreeze since 2002).
The basic idea ("taxed enough already" was probably formed in 2008 even before Obama was nominated, as a generic anti-Democrat mantra (and would have been used even if Hillary became president).
Once Obama was elected the KOCH/FOX/Freedomworks money and propaganda machine swung into action to build up this new group as bipartisan fiscal conservatives. However, the Repub brand was now tarnished so the new group mainly attracted the Repub base who could now disassociate themselves from the Bush era and start anew and pour out all their frustrations.
Of course over time it became clear that they more attracted to social conservatism than fiscal conservatism and they were just the GOP base under a different name.
NuclearDem
(16,184 posts)Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)He is a Neo-Con.
sendero
(28,552 posts).... I have never seen a better contrary indicator than Bill Kristol.
That said, I do agree with those who are saying the Tea party is basically a Koch creation, but I believe racism is the wedge they used so I agree with Maher.
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that almost everything the Tea Party claims is bad about Obama was much worse under Bush. Where were they then? Obama has actually reduced the deficit, but you would never know it listening to those stupid racists fucks.
Cha
(298,074 posts)their racist asselves.
It was kochs funding it and then they turned into their own worst enemies.
Tell me it didn't matter that Pres Obama is Black!
More racist slime ball..
https://aattp.org/20-of-the-most-racist-teapublican-political-signs/
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)Think about it.
There were white people who paid ZERO attention to politics who woke up one morning and found out there was a black guy in the White House and they asked, "How did THAT happen?" and Fox "News" and GLENN BECK (Remember him, gentle reader?) told these white people that this Muslim terrorist STOLE the election with the help of ACORN and the New Black Panther Party. Oh, and here is a bunch of patriotic Americans you can join to express your outrage and take your country back.
We are talking about the kinds of politically ignorant types who couldn't tell you who was president during the Bush Years and couldn't tell you what Bush's party was. They could tell you all about "Survivor" though.
dem in texas
(2,674 posts)Look at the disrespect shown to the office of the President since Obama was elected. Rep. Joe Wilson shouting "You Lie" to the President during the State of the Union. Here in Texas parents would not allow their children to view Obama's back to school pep talk which was broadcast to the children while they were in class. And the cartoons and jokes comparing Obama to a monkey. What about his being born in Kenya? - All of this type of talk is rooted in racism of the worst sort. Who says all of this? The conservative right AKA, the Tea Party.
Fred Gilmore
(80 posts)was started by the Kock brothers as a way to further steal from the poorer classes what they hadn't already stolen. They accomplished this by diverting their message through the use of thinly veiled racist code words designed to infuriate poor white Americans. They realized that after the 2006 mid-terms and the 2008 general election, that pukes would never, ever, again win a national election without bringing the entire white population together. They calculated that the best way to do this was through tried and true puke methods........fear and racism. And with the stroke of their pens onto a blank check, wham, the baggers were born.
MrMickeysMom
(20,453 posts)We would both be more correct to identify the anatomy by Atheist Crusader's post upstream, however, most of this thread points to components that were called out (and I wish expanded further) on the show last night.
What happens when I see of how Maher handles the discussion is that he doesn't have enough time in the world to address this shit. You could see it in how pissed he admitted he was.
Bill Kristol, being the PNAC ass sniffer that he is, probably would not even appear as a guest unless he had somebody like that right wing dumb ass to the right of him. Fortunately, it was semi-balanced with the economist who got pushed out from Obama's first administration.
I'd love to see Kristol come back with another group, but that won't happen. Just had to be seen, since it's been a while. He probably told Bill Maher to go gentle with him.
Skidmore
(37,364 posts)Teabagger racism is entirely consistent with Burcher ideology. I wouldn't be surprised if the two greedy megalomaniacs engaged in such talk using the basest language behind closed doors.
MrScorpio
(73,631 posts)Many of them were like the Klan without the hoods.
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)The Tea Party is MOSTLY about racism. The rest is about ignorance.
CTyankee
(63,926 posts)Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)is easily taken in by conspiracy theories. But he is no racist. He is in a position to hear candid testimony from Tea Party members. He tells me the entire thing is about Obama and racism. They tell him it is about race. So there it is.
WinkyDink
(51,311 posts)My Good Babushka
(2,710 posts)and that's where his usefulness ends.
spanone
(135,950 posts)AlinPA
(15,071 posts)telling racist "jokes" when Obama was running for President and called him all kinds of racial slurs.
tanyev
(42,677 posts)even if Hillary had won. In which case, their inherent sexism would have been more prominently displayed.
Paladin
(28,287 posts)Life is too short to put up with voluntary exposure to Kristol's lies. Maher is getting to be more and more of a disappointment.
napkinz
(17,199 posts)Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)Here is Kristol the day before the Invasion of Iraq, at the link are other examples of his lack of insight.
""We are tempted to comment, in these last days before the war, on the U.N., and the French, and the Democrats. But the war itself will clarify who was right and who was wrong about weapons of mass destruction. It will reveal the aspirations of the people of Iraq, and expose the truth about Saddam's regime. It will produce whatever effects it will produce on neighboring countries and on the broader war on terror. We would note now that even the threat of war against Saddam seems to be encouraging stirrings toward political reform in Iran and Saudi Arabia, and a measure of cooperation in the war against al Qaeda from other governments in the region. It turns out it really is better to be respected and feared than to be thought to share, with exquisite sensitivity, other people's pain. History and reality are about to weigh in, and we are inclined simply to let them render their verdicts."
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/how-does-he-keep-getting-a-platform-bill-kristols-history-of-terrible-predictions-and-bad-advice/#0
SomethingFishy
(4,876 posts)spouted before the invasion of Iraq and called him out on it last night.. I am not watching any clips until I get home and can see the whole episode. I want to savor this one