The Administration Should Take Notice: The Tea Parties Mattered

“Let’s be very honest about what this is about. It’s not about bashing Democrats, it’s not about taxes, they have no idea what the Boston tea party was about, they don’t know their history at all. This is about hating a black man in the White House. This is racism straight up. That is nothing but a bunch of teabagging rednecks. And there is no way around that.”

-Janeane Garofalo on MSNBC’s Olbermann Countdown

Media coverage was rife with biased and even vulgar commentary, referring to the events as extremist anti-Obama protests, and making countless inappropriate innuendos to “teabagging.” Politically, President Obama refused to directly address the issue, instead filtering his responses through Press Secretary Robert Gibbs. Gibbs dismissed the tea parties as misinformed, finding it “amusing” that

Thousands gather in Cincinnati for a tea party

So what was I to expect when I prepared to attend a local tea party? Not to mention a tea party in rural Pennsylvania-where everyone clings to their guns and religion.

Rather, this was simply a gathering of people concerned that the country is heading in the wrong direction. People who believe in personal choice over government control, in low taxes over redistribution, in fiscal responsibility over wasteful spending, and in personal responsibility over government welfare. People who are not going to sit back and watch as defining American principles are abandoned in favor of European liberalism. The tenor of the afternoon was clear: We do not want to lose our country to a failed ideology.

For the first time in a long time, I had the sense that America’s true identity was not yet lost. Americans were doing what we always have-fight for our country. This was not the beginning of a violent revolution, but of a revolution of ideas. Conservatism lost its way over the last eight years, but the election of a sharply liberal administration has reinvigorated the movement. Sometimes juxtaposition is the best definition of truth. 

Though not surprising, the marginalization of the tea parties ignores the reality of a grassroots movement that is steadily building across the country. Americans are beginning to see that elections have consequences. The Republican Party is rebuilding itself on the conservative principles that once carried it to victory, and there has been a growing sense of buyer’s remorse among voters who expected a more moderate president. The tea parties were a product, not a driver, of this movement.

The tea parties certainly did not change the country overnight, or plot its new history. They did not lead to a change in government power, or a newly elected Congress. But what they did do was demonstrate that millions of Americans from all walks of life still passionately believe in our founding values.

As I watched the growing crowd sing the national anthem with more passion than I had ever seen, I couldn’t help but think that George Washington would be proud. Our tea party was not as heroic as his crossing the Delaware, or as historic as his colleagues’ Boston Tea Party. But in the same vein of our founders, who saw the injustice of government overreach, Americans are beginning to unite around the common ideals that have always made us American.

-Matt Benchener from TruPolitics.net