I think I know what the Tea Party needs - an editor! Get in line behind me.

I’m told one of the central themes of the Tea Party Movement – hereafter referred to as TPM for the sake of brevity – perhaps the most important theme of all, is that they stand opposed to “big government.” In fact the TPM is quite often referred to as a “backlash” against big government.

Hey, I’m all for that. With over two million federal employees (not including the postal service) and more on the way I happen to agree. Government has gotten too big and does too many things. Further, I’d bet that most of your garden variety Americans are against big government, too.

So why then is there a backlash against the backlash? Why isn’t everyone running out into the streets to embrace the TPM as the best thing ever?

It must be hard to take a central theme that most Americans would eagerly embrace and generate backlash against yourselves. Way to fumble the ball while running into the end zone without being touched.

People in the TPM are angry and not afraid to show it. But is that anything that special these days? It seems to me that when taken as a group, most Americans are angry. We flip each other the bird, spew profanity at one another, drive like we’re in the Indy 500 and barely take the time to show the most inconsequential of courtesies to strangers we bump into. We are, as I like to put it, a society of assholes.

Also, like I recently wrote in my post Always Be Opposing, anger isn’t a very effective selling technique.

My objective today is to expose what I think are some myths about the TPM.

1. “The movement is grass roots.” It turns out that big money funds the movement, and it comes from “conservative” groups like Americans For Prosperity and FreedomWorks. Follow the shell-game of organizations receiving money from corporations and conservative individuals and you’ll find the source of the money comes from places like David Koch, Koch Industries, the Sarah Scaife Foundation, and Mellon industrial. [Source.]
2. “The movement isn’t about Obama.” Another myth that can easily be dispelled simply by looking at the number of anti-Obama signs at TPM events, protests and rallies.
3. “The movement is non-partisan.” Heh. This is an especially good one. It is a conservative movement and trying to sell it as anything else is disingenuous.  Even one of the movement’s biggest supporters (FOX News) says so: “In a bid to advance the tea party movement from holding rallies to holding office, the leaders of the anti-establishment groups announced a new political organization Friday that they say will ‘endorse, support and elect’ conservatives across the country.” (Source.) A poll recently found that the most members of the TPM were Republicans at 53 percent. 28 percent said they were independents and 13 percent were Democrats. (Source.) No great big shocker there.
4. “There is no racism in the TPM.” This is simply a bald-faced lie. I doubt any group of humans could successfully support a claim like this. What about the racist signs seen at TPM event? Those are discounted as “plants” or persons not representative of the moment. Simple question, though: Why are the racist messages allowed to remain unmolested? Why doesn’t the TPM kick those sign-wielders the hell out? Isn’t that the same as tacit approval? The response to this argument is lame as hell: “It’s a free country. We can’t stop them.” Sure. At best the movement fails to properly control its image. At worst racist elements are actually a part of the group.
5. “The movement does not condone violence.” Why then all the talk about “revolution” and pruning the tree of liberty (a quotation that refers to “blood”), violent imagery (clenched fists raised in the air, boxing gloves, Browning firearms), TPM leaders on radio talking about effecting change via the “bullet box,” violent speech (like “reload”) and so forth? If you want to successfully defend against the charge of inciting violence, again, you need to proactively control the perception of your movement. Allowing violent messages to stand simply confuses the issue.

So how does the TPM take a theme where they enjoy a considerable amount of sympathetic support amongst the American people and turn it into backlash against themselves? I think it has to do with the vehemence of their anger and the way they go about pursuing their agenda and the methods they employ. Most of us don’t much relish the thought of being shot dead by our neighbor because we happen to have some sort of difference on a political belief. The general public is also turned off by the bait-and-switch aspect of saying it is about big government while the actions of the TPM say it is about Obama. Most of us don’t like being lied to, either.

The TPM needs to take proactive control and reign in the radical messages that have been allowed so far. Failure to control their image will only continue to generate backlash against their goals.