Progressives Look at Tea Parties, See Giant Ink Blot
Lately, the Tea Party movement has become a giant Rorschach test, wherein a commentator can see whatever they want if they squint hard enough and turn their head at just the right angle. For instance, Democrat Steve Cohen looks over the array of Moms and Dad, Grandpas and Grandmas and sees the Klan rally from “O Brother Where Are Thou?“. Naomi Wolf, who is starting to realize that the reason she was on television a lot years ago when she was younger wasn’t exactly because of her brains, sees the Tea Party movement the natural home for her stinking cauldron of conspiracy theories.
Wolf’s belief that the Tea Partiers are going to glom onto her lazy doggerel bugs me more than Cohen’s because it’s lazier. Cohen, at least, had to rewire his Outrage-O-Meter from the Outraged Victim setting he used while he was on the pointy end of a Klan accusation to Cynical Weasel. It had to have taken Cohen a bit of an effort, and just the tiniest dollop of dishonesty, to flip that switch.
Wolf, on the other hand, didn’t do anything more but take a boilerplate anti-Bush rant from somewhere around 2006 and run a little “Change All Bush to Obama” macro. I expect better from a professional writer, and alleged brilliant mind, who has been around the block as many times as Wolf has. I don’t mind the cheap attempt to remora her way onto a popular and growing movement. Lots of folks have tried and a few have actually succeeded. I do mind that she’s doing it on the intellectual cheap. She should at least show us the courtesy of a little bit of effort. Throw in some Trilateral Commission, for goodness sake! Give us some real conspiracy meat on which our wickedly conspiratorial minds can chew. The Tea Partiers may be a barely-contained mob, but we’re not cheap. We won’t fall for just any bit of rewritten MoveOn.org claptrap, no matter what you see when you squint at the blot.
Other Posts of Interest:
- Bush Lied? Once and For All, No.
- I Guess We Violence-Inciting Swastika-Waving Americans Aren’t So Bad After All
- America is Getting Fed Up
Category: Our New Democratic Overlords, The Good Old US of A
