“I just can’t see the American people sitting back and letting this happen.” — overheard April 15, 2010 as two attendees chatted at the Charlotte Tea Party rally.
The question is figuring out what “this” the pair was talking about. Despite efforts to categorize them, Tea Party members resist. The signs being displayed in Charlotte that day certainly told a story: “Welcome to France,” “The American Dream Is Not a Handout,” Remember in November” and the popular “Don’t Tread on Me,” with a coiling snake driving home the point. One man I saw wore a tea bag pinned to his shirt.
But after covering the first Tea Party national convention in Nashville in February (for the news website PoliticsDaily.com), after listening to speakers and talking with some in the crowd of 1,000 or so at the Charlotte gathering, I’ve learned that both clarity and contradictions are hallmarks of the movement — if it is a unified movement. You see what I mean by contradictions.
After Nashville, I found myself on the mailing lists of all sorts of organizations. Some — such as the Young Americans for Freedom — catered to the younger demographic the Tea Party would like to see more of. Others were geography specific, announcing rallies or fund-raisers in a certain part of the country. PJTV — a conservative online network broadcasting over the Internet — covers events, offers commentary and is open to anyone with a computer and a few minutes to spare.
In Charlotte, an incomplete list of organizations represented at the two-plus-hour rally includes: We The People NC, North Carolina Fair Tax, Get Out of Our House (which, according to its website, plans “to evict the career politicians from the U.S. House of Representatives”), the Ayn Rand Center, the John Locke Foundation and the Campaign for Liberty, whose representatives passed out copies of the “North Carolina Firearms Freedom Act” that it wants the N.C. State Assembly to pass. (It exempts “from federal regulation under the commerce clause of the Constitution of the United States a firearm, a firearm accessory, or ammunition manufactured and retained in North Carolina.”)
The Americans for Prosperity North Carolina’s handout urged Gov. Bev Perdue and Attorney General Roy Cooper to join the lawsuits to declare the health care reform bill unconstitutional. (Cooper has said that after review, his office believes the bill is lawful, and Perdue agrees.)
Ken Yarmosh, attending with his wife and daughter, said his beliefs transcended taxes and small government: “If the Lord God isn’t in this movement, it will fail. Only God can reconcile this nation,” which has, he said, “become an immoral nation.”
The Charlotte Tea Party publicized and printed the program for the April 15 event here. It describes itself as “a non-partisan grassroots organization,” though it lists a link to the state GOP on the agenda, with advice to “get involved!”
What do all these groups have in common? Though I don’t mean to generalize or mischaracterize (they believe the media do that all the time), I think it’s fair to say: They don’t like the federal government, particularly when it pokes its nose into health care reform; they don’t like taxes; and they’re none too fond of President Barack Obama. They insist that though Tea Party crowds are overwhelmingly white, they are not racists. While the movement isn’t a religious one, God’s name usually comes up — almost as often as that of Sarah Palin, who is admired if not considered a likely presidential candidate. (In Nashville, Palin was greeted like a rock star and she had them cheering before the first word of her speech.)
Charlotte will be able to judge just how much the movement has influenced other organizations when the National Rifle Association holds its annual meeting here May 14 through 16, with Palin — an in-demand speaker at Tea Party gatherings — leading a Friday “Celebration of American Values Leadership Forum.”
Talk about a big, if somewhat ideologically narrow, tent.
So what comes next? Nothing less than a revolution, according to the message I repeatedly heard, in tones ranging from calm to vitriolic. The Charlotte Tea Party site says: “Revolution Is Brewing!” Many believe that the future of America is at stake, and if there is one slogan that captures the mood, it is: “We’ve got to take this country back.” To where and from whom? Let me count the ways.
The national convention in Nashville was itself controversial, with some announced speakers and Tea Party groups — such as the American Liberty Alliance and the National Precinct Alliance — opting to stay away because of the cost (registration was $549) and questions about who would profit. (The same group that organized this first conference is planning a “Unity” convention in Las Vegas in July.)
The confusion wasn’t cleared up during an announcement in Nashville of the Ensuring Liberty PAC, a political action committee that would “endorse, support and elect” candidates, according to Mark Skoda, the media director of the National Tea Party Convention who serves as both the chair of the Memphis Tea Party and the new PAC. They would be judged, according to Skoda, on the “first principles” of fiscal responsibility, lower taxes, less government, states’ rights and national security, issues that Tea Party groups can agree on.
Still, the establishment of a PAC would seem to put the Tea Party, or at least some of its organizers, deeper into an established political system that many grass-roots activists want to keep at a distance. A few say they would prefer a third party, though so far this independence from the major political parties is more in words than actions. At Tea Party gatherings, Republicans predominate and Democrats, for the most part, are demonized. The anti-incumbent cry of “throw them all out” takes on particular passion and vehemence when directed at Democrats in general and “Obama-Reid-Pelosi” in particular.
At the Charlotte protest, volunteer Lynn Stewart stood behind the Mecklenburg County GOP table, handing out literature. Is the Republican Party connected to the Tea Party? I asked. “We thought it would be a good place to be,” she said. Stewart and her family moved here in August from San Francisco. “We lived in a very liberal part of San Francisco,” she said. “For a Republican, it’s a little bit easier getting on here.” She would like, of course, to see Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi — in Fox News host Bill O’Reilly’s words the embodiment of “San Francisco values,” whatever they are — voted out.
Corey Thompson, a candidate running for an at-large seat on the Mecklenburg County Commission, was just one of several Republicans at the Charlotte rally talking with potential, like-minded voters. Thompson is involved with CAUTION (Common Americans United To Inspire Our Nation), which describes itself as “a Conservative action group formed as a response to Glenn Beck’s 912 project.” Both he and his wife are teachers in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, with Thompson teaching history and journalism at West Mecklenburg.
“I’ve been with them from Day 1,” Thompson said of the Tea Party movement. It’s “rejuvenated American patriotism and love of country.” His primary issue in running, he said, is “out-of-control spending.”
Neil Braithwaite, a Charlotte-area realtor and conservative blogger, shared the same message, reaching from Mecklenburg County to Washington when he spoke with the crowd: “Congress has turned into one big crack house” that assembles “to get more of their drug of choice, which is your hard-earned money.” Braithwaite, 53, said, “Washington needs an intervention.”
But like many people I spoke with, Braithwaite isn’t sure of who would be a good alternative in the top executive office, though he liked Mitt Romney’s business experience. Palin? “She’s a leader, more of a cheerleader.”
Just as in Nashville, those meeting in Charlotte expressed anger at government in general, they said, for years before President Obama took office. But their heart didn’t seem to be in their criticism of George W. Bush, despite trillion-dollar deficits. Warrantless wiretapping didn’t send them into frenzy over the intrusion of federal powers. In fact, one Charlotte sign read: “George W, Of Course We Miss You! And Laura, Too.”
President Obama, however, was a prime target, with many at the rally anxious to overturn the results of the 2008 election. Signs were plentiful and colorful; bumper-stickers on sale (free if you promised to use them) read: “Overthrow Obamacare, Impeach Obama,” “Master of Deception in a Universe of Lies,” “Stop Obama Socialism.” You could take your pick: the president of the United States as the Joker in whiteface or Pinocchio, elongated wooden nose and all.
The program’s emcee, business owner Heather Merrill, traveled from Raleigh because she’s upset with health care reform. Andriana Howard was just mad in general. The 54-year-old, registered Independent from Mount Holly came to America from Greece 33 years ago. “Democrats, Republicans, it’s the same poo-poo,” she said. Howard listens to Rush Limbaugh and O’Reilly. “Glenn Beck sold me on TV,” she told me. “I don’t want Communism. Obama and his clique, they are Marxist.”
“I’m going to boycott the Charlotte newspaper,” she said, speaking about the Observer. “They are liberal.”
A free press may be the cornerstone of a democracy, but not when it paints the Tea Party movement in ways members consider unfair or inaccurate. East Charlotte activist and former candidate for city council Chris Bakis held a sign with a message to the press to “Stop Duke Lacrosseing” the Tea Party (referencing initial coverage of eventually disproven rape accusations against the university’s team members).
Bakis took up the latest charge, that Washington Tea Party activists yelled racist slurs at black congressmen on the weekend of the health care vote, and spit at one. “It did not happen,” said Bakis. Though it seems it might be simpler to just condemn that kind of behavior, and say it has no place at Tea Party rallies no matter who it comes from, the line has been drawn in the sand. Movement supporters blame the “lame-stream media” or infiltrators and have accused Democrats such as civil rights icon John Lewis of lying. “They [the press] make anything look as bad as possible,” Bakis said.
In truth, Rep. Devin Nunes of California didn’t help when he told C-SPAN after the accusations of slurs: “Yeah, well, I think that when you use totalitarian tactics, people, you know, begin to act crazy. I think, you know, there’s people that have every right to say what they want. If they want to smear someone, they can do it.”
In Nashville, the crowd, egged on by speakers such as Tea Party Express’ Amy Kremer chanted at the press to “go home.” (Another contradiction, since coverage was welcome.) I was actually sitting at a table with a nice couple who seemed slightly embarrassed by the whole exercise, perhaps realizing the irony of Tea Party members doing what they accuse the press of doing — stereotyping and painting with too broad a brush.
The tag that stings the most to many in the Tea Party movement is racism. There is usually an African-American speaker at rallies. In Nashville, Bishop E. W. Jackson, president of STAND (Staying True to America’s National Destiny), prayed for “Americans who happen to be black to wake up.” And African-Americans are as quick to defend their Tea Party views as whites at rallies are to insist they are not racist.
As a black woman, I’ve never felt uncomfortable at a Tea Party meeting; everyone has always been nice to me. Yet, it’s also true that a hotel ballroom full of people cheered former Colorado congressman Tom Tancredo’s words that voters who “could not spell the word ‘vote’ or say it in English” were responsible for putting a “committed Socialist ideologue” in the White House, and voiced approval for his suggested civics literacy test, which recalls a tactic that kept African-Americans from the ballot box before the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
It’s tough to sort out, but a recent New York Times/CBS News poll tried. It found that the 18 percent of Americans who identify themselves as Tea Party supporters tend to be Republican, white, male, married and older than 45. According to the poll, they are angry about the health care overhaul, government spending and a feeling that their opinions are not represented in Washington, and 25 percent think that the administration favors blacks over whites — compared with 11 percent of the general public.
But no survey can capture a mood of unease felt by Tea Party supporters, as well as those who love America just as much but disagree with every issue the movement represents. Does the certainty of Tea Party members that their path is the right one, that they alone represent the “real America” that Palin trumpets, leave room for anyone else?
As patriotic Americans stare at one another across a partisan divide, this may just be the beginning.
Mary C. Curtis, a Charlotte-based writer, editor and multimedia journalist, is a contributor to PoliticsDaily.com, NPR and TheRoot.com. Her “Keeping It Positive” commentary airs every Wednesday at 7:10 a.m. on Fox News Rising Charlotte.
This article appears in May 11-17, 2010.
