Golmer's Blog

So I had the occasion the other day to actually talk with some hard-core #teabaggers regarding what they wanted for America. I asked what it is that they wanted. They wanted - straight out of the Fox News talking points - to take back America. I asked what that meant. I got the vague answers of “smaller government,” Freedom, Liberty, and some references to how Obama was a socialist and all. The major points were that the current administration was trying to take over corporate America (nationalizing the auto and banking industries, for example) and denying people’s rights to worship as they see fit - socialism (in their view) pure and simple.

Did I mention that I also work with a person who emigrated to the US from Soviet Russia? Somebody who really knows what a socialist is? It was nice to hear this person actually try to explain to them what a socialist was (and wasn’t) and that the current administration was in no way what that was. Of course it went right in one ear and out the other, because it didn’t fit in with the Faux Neus/Glen Beck paradigm of trailer-park think. 

So I asked what time in US history (with smaller government) they’d like us to return to? I asked at what point in US History was the Social and Economic climate ideal?  What point in US history did we have it right? When was the government small enough for them and when was the climate right to allow maximum US Freedom and Liberty?

I got dumb looks in return. It seems they hadn’t thought that far ahead. For to answer the question, one has to out one’s self (primarily) as a White, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant, Bigoted, Confederate Flag waving Racist, who pines for the days when they ruled absolutely in this country. No. “Teaparty” is the new term for “Confederacy.” The major points - the White Elephant in the room - that the Teaparty really wishes to return to such unspoken element as:

-Prayer in schools

-Creationism and Bible study in schools

-White Supremacy (you know, 200+ years of blacks/brown people as inferior)

-White control of all facets of government and industry

-Return to a time when you had to be the right kind of Christian to be considered a citizen or participate in government

-A return to when everyone considered worth a damn was a God Fearing Christian

-A time when it was okay to discriminate against non-Christians, Gays, Liberals, the handicap, and anyone else that wasn’t WASP

-A time when rich white people men were the only ones allowed in Ivy League schools, law, government, corporate leadership

-A time when you had to swear an oath to God to hold public office or be in the military

-A time when it was okay to beat the crap out of someone for being a Catholic or a Jew

-A time when women were subservient homemakers who knew their place, kissed hubby when he got home from his job, cleaned the house, and raised the kids.

-A time when everyone went to church on Sunday, greased the gears of society by putting cash on the plate, couldn’t buy anything but bread on Sunday thanks to blue laws, and knew they had to go to not only church but the RIGHT church in town in order to fit in.

In short, they want what the Confederacy lost control of during the Civil War and what the white, separationist religious (primarily southerners) tried to keep going well into the late ’60s - a war that never really ended - A White America. An America we did have at one point - a bigoted and racist one where there was Liberty and Freedom - if you were a WASP and nothing else.

I’m all for small, properly sized unobtrusive and fiscally responsible government. Who with half a brain wouldn’t? But that isn’t what it is about for the #teaparty. It is about exactly what they say - even if it is vaguely articulated - It is about truly reclaiming America - from all of us Americans.

And don’t let them tell you different.