Attempts to Discredit Tea Party Movement

11 Apr, 2009 by B. Daniel Blatt

Print this article Font size -16+

As the tea party movement gains momentum, many supports of the President (and opponents of free markets) are becoming increasingly agitated, eager to smear, slander and otherwise discredit the movement.

Through e-mail (and in the comments), some of my liberal readers at GayPatriot have suggested that the anti-gay AFA’s (American Family Association) backing of some of the protests somehow discredits them. Well, International Answer, a Communist front organization spearheaded many of the rallies protesting the Iraq War, that is, it it had greater involvement in those protests than does the AFA in the tea parties.

So by the standards of those faulting gay people for joining in protests sponsored by an anti-gay groups, all those protesting the Iraq War were Communist sympathizers (or closet Commies themselves). I don’t recall reading about any non-Communist opponents of the Iraq War (and they probably constituted the overwhelming majority of the protesters) refusing to participate because a Communist group sponsored the rallies.

Yeah, I’d rather the AFA not be involved any of the protests. But, they are one of many sponsoring these rallies against bigger government and higher taxes and for a less intrusive state and more personal freedom. There’s nothing on the sites for the tea parties which even remotely suggests an anti-gay agenda. I mean, what is anti-gay about protesting “against out of control government spending“?

This is about freedom. We believe that an ever-increasing federal government means ever greater encroachments on our liberty.

Their attempt to the discredit the movement because of some of its unsavory associations is really just a refusal to acknowledge the growing grassroots movement against the president’s spendthrift policies. What is it about these partisans that they refuse to take seriously the ideas and motivations of their ideological adversaries?

Why can’t they recognize the sincerity of opponents of big government and the appeal of our ideas? (Heck, they even tapped into one of our ideas (that of the burdens of deficit spending) when it was a Republican President who was overspending.)

Why would do they attempt to discredit us rather than engage us?

I have asked similar questions before. And it seems the answer relates to the central narrative of the educated leftist–that his ideological adversaries are nothing more than hateful troglodytes eager to trample upon the rights of women, ethnic minorities and gays in their zeal to create a white Christianist (whatever that is) state.

Crossposted at GayPatriot.