The Tea Party movement had legs, dozens of smaller groups began organizing all over the country culminating in the Tax Day Tea Party on April 15, 2009. This was the big day for the tea partiers. I was on one of the conference calls in March for the national organizers, and took part in radio and internet call-in shows that day. It was exciting to see regular Americans come to the conclusion only 90 days into this administration that things were not going right.
Even here in Porter County at the last minute Faith Jones, a former Obama supporter herself, decided to throw a tea party. She had to pay for an insurance policy to hold the event at the county courthouse. She put her own money in the organization, started a website and a blog and an email database. This was grassroots at its very essence. Eventually the group saw the writing on the wall with the Indiana Tea Party bossing all the smaller groups around and changed their names to the Northwest Indiana Patriots.
But alas after less than one year the national tea party movement is going the way of so many grass roots movements before it. Fractured leadership, leaders using the group to launch political campaigns for office, lawsuits and arguments about who's the "real" tea party. It's a total mess. In Nashville Tennessee there is a convention coming up, with a cost of $500 and big name speakers. There is much controversy here, with an article suggesting the tea party movement is about to be hijacked.
One commenter yesterday:
The tea party movement is new, effectively leaderless and without an objective to achieve. It's mainly just anger. That's the impetus for a social movement looking for someone to organize it.The problem is that a big part of their anger is that they are taught that all organizations and especially government are anathema. Yet you cannot organize to eliminate organization and still end up with anything ongoing.
There are going to be individuals who come out of the paradox and go on to harness some of the energy of that unfocused social anger. The tea partiers are going to be very unsatisfied.
That just about sizes it up. But frankly what's so wrong with a convention, or big name speakers or even charging for the event? What's so wrong with Americans getting together and getting energized for elections in 2010? I'm missing the point of the anti-organized tea partiers. Who's to say that the tea party activists and the GOP can't work together to throw the Democrats nationally out of office. Is this such a bad idea?
I have left messages for two of the national leaders that I know, would like to have their thoughts on where the tea party movement goes from here. Was it a one year blip, or a long term movement for change?
