It's not really that simple, though I agree the Tea Party has nothing to do with this.
The problem with the Tea Party is pretty much identical to the problem with the Occupy movement - it's ill-defined. The purists would claim that Tea Party is about small government, like the Occupy movement purist would claim that it's about restoring bank regulation. But at this point both movements, being more or less leaderless, have grown wildly beyond the confines of the people that started it.
Like #Occupy, the Tea Party IMO has become an easy label and an easy rallying cry for whatever ails you. What started as a movement for small government has also attracted economic reformers, people who don't like taxes, freedom of speech activists, McCarthyan anti-communists, social darwinists, and yes, plenty of racists too who just aren't very happy about that black guy. Go look at what people are carrying and yelling at Tea Party rallies, and you'll see plenty of all of the above.
Similarly, go look at an Occupy rally and you'd have trouble telling what they stand for, even approximately. We have economic reformists, anarchists, environmentalists, black bloc hooligans, people who want to lynch all bankers, anti-corporate types, militant anti-corporate types... Some people want corporate power reigned in, an equally large contingent seem to just want the end of capitalism.
Both movements are really just a sea of disparate interests groups trying to pretend they represent some kind of unified voice.
The problem with the Tea Party is pretty much identical to the problem with the Occupy movement - it's ill-defined. The purists would claim that Tea Party is about small government, like the Occupy movement purist would claim that it's about restoring bank regulation. But at this point both movements, being more or less leaderless, have grown wildly beyond the confines of the people that started it.
Like #Occupy, the Tea Party IMO has become an easy label and an easy rallying cry for whatever ails you. What started as a movement for small government has also attracted economic reformers, people who don't like taxes, freedom of speech activists, McCarthyan anti-communists, social darwinists, and yes, plenty of racists too who just aren't very happy about that black guy. Go look at what people are carrying and yelling at Tea Party rallies, and you'll see plenty of all of the above.
Similarly, go look at an Occupy rally and you'd have trouble telling what they stand for, even approximately. We have economic reformists, anarchists, environmentalists, black bloc hooligans, people who want to lynch all bankers, anti-corporate types, militant anti-corporate types... Some people want corporate power reigned in, an equally large contingent seem to just want the end of capitalism.
Both movements are really just a sea of disparate interests groups trying to pretend they represent some kind of unified voice.