Tea Party Nation Bolsters Its Extremist Credentials
As if worried that it鈥檚 getting too mainstream, the Tea Party Nation 鈥 one of the most extreme factions of the Tea Party movement 鈥 has lashed out lately with a flurry of attacks on immigrants, Muslims, LGBT people, and, of course, President Obama鈥檚 birthright eligibility for office.
Tea Party Nation blogger Alan Caruba broke new ground Wednesday with a bizarre attempt to liken Obama to Casey Anthony, the single mother from Florida who was recently acquitted of murdering her 2-year-old daughter after a much-publicized trial.聽
In an essay entitled 鈥淐asey Anthony, Miss America,鈥 Caruba wrote, 鈥淧resident Obama was the son of a divorced, teen-aged mother, who remarried, divorced again, and abandoned her child to the care of her parents. The President experienced trauma and dislocation throughout all of his formative years. Why should we not conclude that it seriously affected him? Common to both Ms. Anthony and the President is the persistent and blatant telling of lies.鈥
Never mind that this comparison ignores that Anthony was a single mother, while Obama was raised by one. The point is clear: In the eyes of Tea Party Nation, the president is a liar. Tea Party Nation founder Judson Phillips reinforced that position just Friday in a column praising , one of the of the thoroughly disproven theory that Obama wasn鈥檛 really born in the United States and therefore lied his way into office.
Fantasizing about what it would mean if Obama were booted from office for lying about his place of birth, Phillips wrote, 鈥淸E]verything he did [would be] void. 鈥 [G]iven the potential reward of undoing everything Obama has done, why any conservative dismisses the eligibility issues as 鈥榖irtherism鈥 is simply beyond belief.鈥
That鈥檚 not the only counter-historical bit of whimsy the Tea Party Nation has on offer. In her July 4th column on immigration for the group鈥檚 site, blogger Eliana Benador praised the racist Immigration Act of 1924, which outlawed all Asian immigration and instituted national origin quotas favoring Northern European immigrants. The act stood until 1965, when the Immigration and Nationality Act finally abolished the national origin quota system that had sharply limited the number of non-white immigrants.
According to Benador, that change 鈥渆nded up altering the immigration pattern and opening doors to non-European nations, thus forever changing the intrinsic tissue of American society.鈥 In 鈥渆ndlessly increasing numbers,鈥 she complained, these non-European immigrants 鈥渁re bringing in a whole new texture of culture, 100% foreign to what America鈥檚 origins were as its wonderful adventure began in 1776.鈥
The worst immigrants of all, Benador wrote, are Muslims, who (she claims) are using the First Amendment to invade from within and turn our system against us. 鈥淸T]he First Amendment does not stipulate that 鈥榝reedom of religion鈥 must be upheld even if the followers of a religion have perpetrated an attack on, and massacred, our civilian population in times of peace, and especially if that religion incites to the destruction of our country, our people, and our values.鈥
Tea Party Nation鈥檚 Rich Swier, who beefed up the group鈥檚 with a March 28 blog stating, 鈥淭he White Anglo-Saxon Protestant [WASP] population in America is headed for extinction,鈥 weighed in last month on threats from another perceived internal enemy, the LGBT community. Proclaiming the campaign against anti-gay bullying a 鈥渟ham鈥 and comparing LGBT people to drug addicts, Swier wrote, 鈥淭his is not bullying. It is peer pressure and it is healthy. There are many bad behaviors such as smoking, under age drinking and drug abuse that are behaviors that cannot be condoned. Homosexuality falls into this category. Homosexuality is simply bad behavior that youth see as such and rightly pressure their peers to stop it.鈥
Tea Party Nation, if nothing else, is consistent. Its 2010 convention featured a parade of divisive figures, include the head of Vision America Rick Scarborough, former Alabama Supreme Court Justice (who was impeached for refusing to remove a 2陆-ton statue of the 10 Commandments he鈥檇 had installed in the state judicial building without consent and in the dead of night), and hard-line anti-immigration politician .
Founder Judson Phillips once said, 鈥淚鈥檓 not trying [to] attract moderates. Moderates are just those who have no core beliefs.鈥 Based on Tea Party Nation鈥檚 past and recent pronouncements, there isn鈥檛 much danger of that.