Tea Party still the philosopher’s stone of political analysis

In a simpler world, this post could begin with, “There’s no denying the popularity of the Tea Party,” but even that aspect of the movement is up for denial. Even after several high-profile primary victories, the size of the Tea Party—composed of disparate groups with neither national hierarchy nor local registration—joins the movement’s platform, origins and political impact in the realm of conjecture. The Tea Part isn’t even a party. It is either a grassroots uprising of constitutionally-minded Americans or a series of puppet shows by Republican flacks or a fringe movement exaggerated by a desperate media or some combination of the three, and no one will really know until the midterm elections, if then. Meanwhile, we have analysis. As with any inquiry into the totally unquantifiable, that analysis has taken on an element of the aesthetic.

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Tea Party Nation continues transition to ethnic identity group

Yeah, who is the President of the United States, really? So little is known about him.

If you don’t already subscribe to the Tea Party Nation newsletter, you are missing some great stuff. The TPN is only one of several groups that claim to be the national Tea Party organization—it’s unclear yet whether they’re the Bolsheviks or the Mensheviks, so to speak—but they are the canary in the dark, radon-filled mine that is America’s conservative subconscious. First of all, sorry for cramming three metaphors into one sentence. Second, TPN’s most recent screed, entitled The Horrors of Illegal Immigration, is short and spooky enough to quote at length. Check it after the jump.

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Meanwhile, inside Michele Bachmann’s head

"We set out early. Light was poor."

The Tea Party took another step toward actuality last week with the approval of a congressional Tea Party Caucus, headed by none other than Michele Bachmann. And you know what that means! Okay, technically that does not mean it’s time for another edition of Meanwhile, inside Michele Bachmann’s head, since that series is explicitly not about Michele Bachmann. It seemed like a genius system at the time, but in retrospect our decision to make MIMBH about everyone but the person whose name is mentioned in the title was an editorial oversight. Henceforth, Combat! blog will use Meanwhile, inside Michele Bachmann’s head to talk about Michele Bachmann. This paragraph is surely of little interest to anyone, except various web crawlers that are, as we speak, making this page the definitive result for people who type “michele bachmann” into Google. For the purposes of attracting that traffic, let me just wind things up by saying michele bachmann hot, michele bachmann legs, michele bachmann crazy bitch who looks at me while i’m asleep.

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Friday links! Seriously, you guys are racists edition

There’s been a lot of discussion around here lately about the fear of reverse racism and the increasingly popular trope that white Christians are the victims of institutional prejudice. It’s hard not to notice that this irrefutable fact of American life was discovered immediately after a black man became President, and also that 66% of the people in this country are themselves white, which should make it fairly easy to bring the orchestrators of this cruel anti-white society to justice. Herein lies the problem. Historically, when a minority group tries to do something about racism, it leads to a more just society (Montgomery 1955, Stonewall 1969) or brutal repression (all human history prior to 1955.) When an overwhelming majority tries to address its racial victimhood, the results are somewhat less reliable (Berlin 1938.) It’s hard not to see, in the racial complaints of the white, wealthy and increasingly powerful Tea Party, a vague threat.

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