Tea Party Rally in Searchlight, Nevada, hometown of Harry Reid
Read this NY Times article and just take it all in. Here's a sample
With No Jobs, Plenty of Time for Tea Party
Mr. Grimes is one of many Tea Party members jolted into action by economic distress. At rallies, gatherings and training sessions in recent months, activists often tell a similar story in interviews: they had lost their jobs, or perhaps watched their homes plummet in value, and they found common cause in the Tea Party’s fight for lower taxes and smaller government.
The Great Depression, too, mobilized many middle-class people who had fallen on hard times. Though, as Michael Kazin, the author of “The Populist Persuasion,” notes, they tended to push for more government involvement. The Tea Party vehemently wants less — though a number of its members acknowledge that they are relying on government programs for help.
Mr. Grimes, who receives Social Security, has filled the back seat of his Mercury Grand Marquis with the literature of the movement, including Glenn Beck’s “Arguing With Idiots” and Frederic Bastiat’s “The Law,” which denounces public benefits as “false philanthropy.”
“If you quit giving people that stuff, they would figure out how to do it on their own,” Mr. Grimes said.
The fact that many of them joined the Tea Party after losing their jobs raises questions of whether the movement can survive an improvement in the economy, with people trading protest signs for paychecks...read on
It explains a lot. Ignorance is bliss. The right has done masterful job in developing an anti-government message. A bad economy does create anger throughout the country, but it's directed at the government in a way that was alien during the Great Depression. Government intervention saved America and FDR was a real leader who spit in the face of the oligarchy of which he was actually part. They excommunicated him because as we've seen, the rich stick together. It took a strong man to realize that the country and its people needed real help, not just the super rich. Lucky for us, FDR was up to the challenge.
For more on the Searchlight Tea Party Rally, see here.
