Tea Party movement

A lot of angry dipshits who haven't noticed that the national debt has been going up steadily since the 80s.

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“”The Republican Party is very very right wing, and the Tea Party is mad.

—Ian Hislop, Have I Got News For You

The Tea Party movement was many things to many people:

• A far-right reactionary paleolibertarian (at least in their minds) socio-political movement within the United States.
• A loosely-organized, and even more loosely-defined, group who felt disenfranchised in this age of globalization.
• A phenomenon of corporate astroturfing, sponsored primarily by Koch Industries, other billionaires, and Fox News.
• A group of people who had no major political grievances during the Bush administration, yet were suddenly extremely concerned with taxes and the national debt the instant a black man was elected POTUS.

At first, this "organization" consisted of little more than a dollar bill being yanked on a short string. Over time, it grew beyond the GOP's ability to rein in its members, to the point where they led a successful coup on the House Speaker. Thereafter, every piece of Teabagger legislation was shut down in the Senate (even if it passed with Republican support) or vetoed by the President, that legislation being huge tax cuts, repeal of Obamacare, repeal of Obamacare, repeal of Obamacare, repeal of Obamacare, repeal of Obamacare, repeal of Obamacare, repeal of Obamacare, repeal of Obamacare, repeal of Obamacare, repeal of Obamacare, repeal of Obamacare, repeal of Obamacare, repeal of Obamacare, repeal of Obamacare, repeal of Obamacare, repeal of Obamacare, huge tax cuts, repeal of Obamacare, repeal of Obamacare, repeal of Obamacare, and huge tax cuts. Also, repealing Obamacare.

History

As the name indicates, this self-inflicted gunshot wound was founded on a misinterpretation of the Boston Tea Party. They adopted the lame slogan "Taxed Enough Already" as a backronym for "tea."

The term has been used here and there for generations; most recently, Ron Paul held a couple rallies against taxes they called Tea Parties, and a group in NY held rallies against anti-obesity laws that used the same name.

Right-wingers insist that the movement was a totally organic, grassroots effort that sprang up overnight as a reaction to taxes Chinese-owned US debt Obama progressives health care reform big government illegal immigration gun control the War on Christmas George Soros the FCC Al Gore SJWs Public libraries Canada? taxes, presumably with representation. Everyone else realized this was a media stunt orchestrated by the likes of Newt Gingrich, Dick Armey, Roger Ailes, et al.

Ironically, the Tea Party was actually launched by CNBC's Rick Santelli. The first use of the Tea Party iconography started in 2007 during Ron Paul's presidential campaign. However, the Tea Parties were limited to Paul die-hards and never gained mainstream traction until Santelli dredged the idea back up on CNBC in 2009. It didn't take long for the astroturf machine to move in after that:

That Tea Party movement looked an awful lot like the efforts the Kochs’ CSE had led in the Clinton and Bush years [...] and, of course, CSE’s successor, Americans for Prosperity, built to coordinate the effort nationally. All of them saw their budgets expand significantly as Obama ran for the White House and then took office—months or even a full year before the Tea Party movement erupted into public view. This explains why the Tea Party movement was able to mobilize, spread, and network so rapidly, as if by magic. —Jeff Nesbit

Not a joke

The movement officially launched in February 2009. Their stated purpose was to organize a nationwide protest on April 15th, 2009 — the day income tax forms were due in the United States. On this day, millions hundreds of people gathered at various locations around the country to throw teabags into some handy bodies of water. These demonstrations took place everywhere from Kentucky to California, but were thwarted in Washington, D.C. because they didn’t have a permit to litter dump a million tea bags into the sea (way to organize, guys!). The protests energized the conservative base like nothing seen since the Goldwater revolution of the late sixties.

The greatest trick the Tea Party ever pulled was making everyone who isn't Ted Cruz look like a "moderate". Following a wave of elections lost by Tea Party politicians and the government shutdown of 2013 (which was widely blamed on Tea Party candidates like Cruz), the establishment wing began to realize that the Tea Party was hurting as much as helping them. Tea partiers denied these accusations and insisted that they will remain a force to be reckoned with.

There were 1.7 million 'baggers at a protest in Washington D.C. in the autumn of 2009 according to Glenn Beck. Not 60-75 thousand as estimated by the DC Park Policiffers. There were apparently follow-up protests on the 4th of July, 2009; however, they received little media coverage, and only one place cared. They did, however, hold a larger protest in Washington, D.C. on September 12, 2009 with attendance of about 70,000, comparable to other major D.C. protests.

Jon Stewart once commented (in semi-praise of Ron Paul) that most were just "Moral Majority in three-corner hats."

Make it stoppp

The group had mixed success in the 2010 midterm elections; they kicked out most of the Blue Dog Democrats in the 2010 midterm elections, and were credited with some impressive Republican gains, but also caused the Republicans a few losses. For example, Sharron Angle, who, with Tea Party support, knocked out a more viable candidate in the Nevada Republican primary but then lost the election to Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, whereas the more viable Republican candidate might have toppled the Tea Party's public enemy. Christine O'Donnell is another sorry case.

The Tea Party continued piling up wins in 2014 (probably because no one is proposing unchecked immigration and they are attacking a strawman), ousting Majority Leader Eric Cantor and shaking the very foundations of the GOP. It's thanks to them that the GOP controlled the House until 2018. No longer merely "useful idiots", the Tea Party looks to be the future of the Republican party. The 2016 GOP primary is even more of a circus now than it was before. You had Scott Walker talking about building a wall across the Canadian border, Carson discussing the possibility of using drones to bomb caves in Mexico, and Bush trying to out-trump Trump with mentions of the scourge of Asian birth tourism. Not to mention Cruz, Huckabee, and Paul all coming out in favor of bigoted nut Kim Davis.

The torch had already largely been passed. The problem wasn't that those specific Republicans made up a majority of the caucus, but that the rest of the caucus was scared of them. Tea Party groups continued to threaten to "primary" (i.e., support primary challengers against) incumbent Republican candidates running for re-election whom they perceive as being too moderate.

Jumping on the Trump train

“”We have a word for people who are dominated by fear. We call them cowards. Trump was not a coward in the business or campaign worlds. He could take on enormous debt and had the audacity to appear at televised national debates with no clue what he was talking about. But as president his is a policy of cowardice. On every front, he wants to shrink the country into a shell.

—David Brooks

In 2016, the Republican base voted overwhelmingly for a presidential candidate who promised to punish China economically for manipulating their currency. Every GOP candidate (including Rand) had also promised to double down on everything the Bush administration did to worsen inequality. They're also proposing "vaccine choice" and a return to the gold standard. While terrible, that idea doesn't come close to "ban all the Muslims". Unless you consider "the pyramids are giant grain silos" to be an idea, then it's that one. But by the way let me tell you about how we must defund Planned Parenthood, even if it means shutting down the government, to prevent the majority mob from ruling us. Meanwhile, Trump's supporters are so deluded that they actually believe he controls voters through mass hypnosis because a guy who draws cartoons told them so.

So, no matter who won, the Republican party as you know it is over. Finished. Finito. Schwarzenegger, Jeb Bush, Mark Sanford, Flake, and the others are done. They have lost the respect of voters because they had the gall to put country over party. So they're out. It's now the party of Trump, LaPierre, Palin, and LePage. Ryan and McConnell are now champing at the bits trying to get their agenda passed while bowing to the Dear Leader. They can neither know nor accept opposing views, because they believe their failures are the fault of "others": immigrants, minorities, and the PC police.

In short, it's a global trend occurring as a result of economic instability and the death toll of the pre-information industrial sector. They aren't exactly socially liberal, since they're willing to exclude non-whites and women in society. We don't know exactly how this will play out in the coming years, since this is a contemporary phenomenon mirrored around the world.

Death and irrelevance in the land of Trump

In 2019, CNN reported that the Tea Party movement died when Trump and Congress hashed out a budget deal that further eroded the spending constraints enacted as a key component of the 2011 "Tea Party" Congress. This was no surprise, as Trump has never given a shit about deficits or debt. Since the Tea party was a principally oppositional movement, designed to drive up turnout by exploiting conservative hatred of Obama, with a Republican in the White House, it had simply outlived its usefulness.

Demographics

“”Up to now, America has not been a good milieu for the rise of a mass movement. What starts out here as a mass movement ends up as a racket, a cult, or a corporation.

—Eric Hoffer, The Temper of Our Time (1967)

The Tea Party was fundamentally a movement of Republicans who thought they were Libertarians. 76% identified or leaned towards the Republican party (although much of the establishment Republicans find them annoying). More than $850,000 of the money the supposedly grassroots political action committee collected went to the firm of GOP political operatives who ran it.

This party was a beautiful microcosm of what modern conservatism has become: a small handful of people who actually care about things like small government (except the military of course), individual liberty, civil liberties, freedom of religion, privacy, and opposing government surveillance, all being shouted down by people who like to go on and on about how much they stand for all those things, but will throw it all away instantly with a smile on their faces the moment they smell a chance to persecute people they don't like. These are the "center right" voters who want to abolish the minimum wage and all social programs plus roll back the Civil Rights Act, who call Obama a dangerous far-left extremist for saying that you can't fix a gay person by praying it away. As long as the gun industry continues to supply 'armed insurrections' against the government, they will always vote "R".

Strange bedfellows

A conservative distaste for alternative fuels. A wingnutty passion for "living off the grid". What happens when these two sides collide? You guessed it: the Tea Party issued challenges to utility monopolies in Arizona, Oklahoma, Georgia, Florida, and other places that unfairly tax rooftop solar panels. It's reasonable for there to be a fee for being disconnected from the grid; you pay an extra fraction of a cent per kWh that goes to making sure everyone else has power. What shouldn't happen is users being penalized for having solar via service fees that can exceed a normal power bill, like those Arizona power companies that wanted a $50-$100 minimum charge for using solar panels. What appeared here was a schism between the Tea Party puppet-masters (Big Oil) and the on-the-ground activists, who had stopped following directions.

Minority outreach

An absolute casserole of mishmashed hate-and-conspiracy imagery, approaching near-Dadaist levels.

The Tea Party movement was highly diverse. Stormfront talked of infiltrating the Tea Party. The white supremacist Council of Conservative Citizens also had connections to it, as did similar groups.

Racism was by no means universal in the Tea Party: some groups expelled racist members. The NAACP called on the Tea Party to repudiate the racists within the movement, but there were complaints that not enough was done. Still by no means were all members racist; there was even at least one token African American representative. Birthers represented 35% of committed Tea Party supporters, and the same proportion of conservative Republicans agreed.

Tea Partiers couldn't even be relied upon to support Israel in the end. Tea Party lawmakers, on the other hand, leaned toward making an exception for Israel, thanks to the influence of Jewish fundraisers such as Sheldon Adelson. Both Ron and Rand Paul were criticized and labeled anti-Semitic for proposing cuts to foreign aid. Ex-governors Rick Perry and Sarah Palin, both darlings of the Tea Party, carefully toed the line, and even Trump refused to touch the third rail. Still, there was an underlying resentment of foreigners which wouldn't go away so easily, and threatened to bear fruit if the isolationist wing got its way.

Conspiracy Theorists

Anyone who spent time on an active Tea Party forum would have seen a number of conspiracy-related threads pop up. More common conspiracies included:

• The belief that Obama was deliberately trying to destroy America, or trying to create a socialist / communist totalitarian government.
• The belief that Obama's presidency was part of a plot to institute the New World Order — often referring to George Soros or the UN.
• And, of course, Birtherism.

An eagle-eyed viewer may also find:

• 9/11 truthers
• Conspiracies about chemtrails
• Abiotic oil

But you would not have found anyone suggesting that the Tea Party itself might be a conspiracy of moneyed interests such as the Koch brothers.

It's about taxes and spending, really!

“”But they are nothing new, nothing new at all. They are mostly a bunch of cranky white men with money who are trying desperately to hang on to their privileges. Same as it ever was. They are what we have called 'Republicans' for at least the last 30 years.

—digby

Though the movement claimed to be libertarian, most libertarians have come out against it and its prominent figures. A Libertarian Party poll has also shown that Libertarians see the Teabaggers as too Republican-flavored:

• Reactionary social policies and support for immigration law.
• National security policies.
• Glenn Beck's previous entanglement with a Libertarian candidate.
• They turned a blind eye to legislation that curtails the rights of others.
• The Teabaggers cheered every time food stamps and other social support programs were cut, but had nary a word to say about other, possibly more significant kinds of government spending like agricultural/oil subsidies, unchecked military expenditure, and the idiotic, unwinnable War on Drugs.
• They believed even the most reasonable kinds of regulation/taxation were a violation of our civil liberties, but thought it's okay for the government to dictate what we can put in our bodies, which consenting adults we can have sex with, and what women can take out of their bodies.

Furthermore, a number of polls showed considerable overlap between the Tea Party and the religious right:

• A poll by the Public Religion Research Institute found that almost half of Teabaggers openly identified as part of the "religious right", a majority favored declaring abortion illegal, and less than one in five were in favor of legalizing gay marriage.
• A Pew poll found similar results, in addition to finding a majority in favor of securing the border and Second Amendment rights.
• A University of Washington poll found that a majority of Teabaggers thought gays and lesbians had "too much political power" and that immigration was "changing the country for the worse".

Astroturfing

The Tea Party was astroturfing from minute one. It was the best-coordinated viral marketing campaign in history, and the fact that anyone actually believed it was ever grassroots is a testament to just how well-executed it was.

The two main 'Bagger astroturf groups were FreedomWorks, headed by Dick Armey, and Americans for Prosperity. Both were spun off from the Koch-bankrolled Citizens for a Sound Economy. The Kochs denied any connection to the Tea Parties. A few months after that statement, a video leaked of Teabag state chapter leaders reporting directly to David Koch himself at the Americans for Prosperity mothership. (But they're grassroots, honest!)

At the First Teabagging Convention, Mark Scoda, a Memphis businessman, announced the creation of Ensuring Liberty Corporation, a Memphis-based company with a political action group that would fund "Tea Party candidates" — that is, politicians supportive of the tea party movement which he described as: "Less government, fiscal responsibility, lower taxes, states['] rights, and national security." It will be accepting corporate donations.^{[better source needed]} (But it's grassroots, honest!)

The Tea Party became a patsy for the insurance industry's war on healthcare reform. The "Tea Party Caucus" received donations of $2.7 million from the health care sector, which also contributed towards a $25 million "war chest" to be used by the Tea Party to fight the elections. One insurer went so far as to urge employees to attend anti-healthcare Tea Party rallies. (But it's grassroots, honest!)

Factions

By the end of 2009, like many kooky political movements, the movement splintered into various groups, each claiming to be the true leader of the Tea Party movement, including the Tea Party Patriots and the Tea Party Nation. On February 4-6, 2010 the Tea Party Nation hosted the first ever national convention in Nashville, Tennessee with guest speaker Sarah Palin. The convention was attacked by teabaggers for being distant from the supposedly grassroots movement, with tickets costing $549.

The largest Tea Party organizations by size were:

• Tea Party Patriots
• ResistNet
• Tea Party Nation
• FreedomWorks Tea Party
• 1776 Tea Party

The Tea Party Patriots were funded primarily by billionaires Christopher Goldsbury and Sanford Diller, and Oregon libertarian David Gore. Their membership list only consisted of 144,000 people, despite their website claiming to have 3 million.

Cheerleaders

Though the news was generally critical of their intentions, they love the Tea Party's insult-comic shtick, their lack of political correctness, and (most importantly) the ratings their antics brought.

The "9/12" protests on September 12, 2009 were the culmination of a six-month campaign by Fox News host Glenn Beck. The 9/12 Project got its name from the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington DC, on September 11, 2001. Apparently, Beck decided that the way to commemorate the 8th anniversary of this event was to hold a large anti-government rally in one of the cities where it occurred, something he had failed to do on the previous seven anniversaries whilst George W Bush was president. His rationale was that the protest was going to take Americans back to how they felt the day after the terrorist attacks — united behind a Republican president. He then devised 9 principles and 12 values he wanted everyone to adhere to. When the protest finally occurred, it was given all-day coverage on Fox News, with Glenn Beck hosting a special show from the protest. Despite some claims of a seven-figure turnout, the heavily astroturfed tea party protest attracted 70,000 to 100,000 people.

The aftermath of the protest became a comedy of its own. Fox News began running full-page ads in newspapers that read "How did ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, and CNN miss this story?" The other news organisations all pointed out that they had given coverage to the protest during their news bulletins. Fox countered by saying they were missing the story behind the protest; however, the story behind the protest was that Fox News astroturfed it — including having news producers directing and rallying the crowd.

Never one to be outdone, Rush Limbaugh suggested protesting the media itself for not covering this "growing movement". This began WorldNetDaily's attempted astroturf campaign to protest "Obama's Minion Media", with the help of the supposedly grassroots, supposed organisation Operation: can you hear us now? — whose website seems not to exist. The extremely lackluster event gathered less than a few thousand people in more than 100 locations, making for underwhelming protests that were justifiably ignored by the media. As with the July 4th protests, without extensive advanced coverage from major media outlets like Fox News, the tea parties tended to attract very small crowds.

In October 2009, Republicans in the House of Representatives wanted to pass a resolution to commemorate the "hundreds of thousands of American patriots" who "came to Washington, DC, to show their disapproval". Remember, these protests were not organized by the Republicans; they were entirely organic, and the protesters opposed government waste — which should presumably include passing unnecessary resolutions.

Stupidity

“”They don't read the Fortune 500 and put together an analysis of what's really going on in the world, all they've had rammed into their heads is, 'The federal government's your enemy.' You tell them to go read declassified National Security Council documents, or to look at things in the business press that would really mean something to them – I mean, a lot of people don't even read. We should bear in mind how illiterate the society's become.

—Noam Chomsky on the seeds of the Tea Party movement (in 1994)

The problems with the movement were many, but they boiled down to oil men taking advantage of uninformed working stiffs. Generally, the protests suffered at least one of these flaws:

1. The Obama administration had issued no new taxes at all, before the date of the protest. Any complaint about the tax policy at the time should have been directed at the Bush administration, whose taxes were still in effect. Even after the Obama administration changed the tax laws for the following year, 95% of people got a tax cut, not an increase. No reports exist saying whether the protests consisted entirely of the 5% who would pay (slightly) more taxes. Furthermore, though the Teabaggers frequently protested the 2009 stimulus package, tax cuts encompassed 37% of the stimulus.
2. The original Tea Party was to protest taxation without representation. The US had (and currently has) taxation with representation, unless Obama suspended free elections (spoiler alert: he didn't). Thus, using tea is an inappropriate, idiotic idea that accomplishes nothing except pointing out which people are not clever enough to research what they're protesting about. Oh, and giving some fish a brief caffeine and tannin high. And creating a temporary windfall in sales of tea bags. However, let's not forget the fact that D.C. and the territories actually experience taxation without representation, but the Teabaggers didn't rush to their aid.
3. Also, and more amusingly, the original Tea party was a protest over the tea tariff being cut — but only for the British East India Company. As a result, the EIC effectively gained a monopoly over tea in the colonies, since they could sell tea at drastically lower prices, undercutting the wealthy merchants and smugglers (the "protesters").
4. Promoted as a "giant" protest, with "over 500" local events, it was utterly dwarfed by the "protest heard 'round the world" against the start of the Iraq War, which earned George W. Bush the ignominious title of having the largest number of people ever in history to protest against him.
5. Many who considered themselves to be part of the Tea Party worshipped the Republican Party and/or people like Glenn Beck. Others (wanting to appear "independent") claimed not to agree with such organizations or people, yet espoused much of the same crackpot rhetoric. They thought that listening to paranoid blowhard Alex Jones and reading Infowars made them savvy.

Insert teabagging jokes here

See the main article on this topic: Euphemism

• Protestors were "full throated" and wanted to give Obama "tongue lashings". Oh yeah, that's dirty baby.
• A Fox News fan wrote in saying he would hang tea bags from his rear-view mirror and antennae (to "support the cause") because he couldn't make it to the actual protests and Gretchen Carlson piped in saying, "You could hang it from your mirror too like fuzzy dice."
• "The Democrats are a donkey, Republicans are an elephant, and the Tea Party is a bug up the elephant's ass." - Stephen Colbert on the fiscal cliff
• "It's hard to talk when you're teabagging"
• "[I]f you are planning simultaneous tea bagging all around the country, you're going to need a Dick Armey."
• "Teabaggers suck balls."

Not-so-useful idiots

We're starting to think that this is the last season of America and the writers are just going nuts.

“”It is only when the people become ignorant and corrupt, when they degenerate into a populace, that they are incapable of exercising the sovereignty. Usurpation is then an easy attainment, and an usurper soon found. The people themselves become the willing instruments of their own debasement and ruin.

—James Monroe, First Inaugural Address (1817)

• Greg Abbott (Governor of Texas 2015-present): Suing the President is his big claim to fame. (Similar to when idiots pass laws against video games.) That's not his money. That's taxpayer money. He wins on multiple fronts: He can point to the law and say "see what I did?" He can also point at the judges who overturn it and shout "judicial activism, see?" And last but not least, when cases like this one drain money from the government and social programs have to be cut, he can point and say "See, big government doesn't work. It can't balance its budget." Unfortunately, humanity as a whole loses.
• Todd Akin (Representative from Missouri 2001-2013): These aging boomers are hilariously tone-deaf.
• Sharron Angle: Fruitcake to the tenth power. She believes that rape victims should turn lemons into lemonade and give birth, and endorses "Second Amendment remedies." Despite bashing "Obamacare," she and her husband receive government health care.
• Penis Navy Wiener Air Force Cock Marines Vagina Coast Guard Dick Armey (Representative from Texas 1985-2003, House Majority Leader 1995-2003): He split with the FreedomWorks lobbying group over matters of principle, uh huh. (He managed to pocket $8,000,000 before quitting over minor details, like fraud.) This is just standard procedure for the elitist class: CEOs frequently drive companies into the ground and receive very handsome payouts for their failure. We preferred the direction he was taking the Tea Party: Wasting money on losing elections.
• Joe Arpaio: How this guy kept getting re-elected is a reflection of the intelligence in the Sun City area. (We have dozens of golf courses in a desert, so why do we have a drought?) He was recently charged with federal contempt and is facing trial. Just in time to be drafted by Trump's Homeland Security, so wave goodbye to your Constitution. If the Yellowstone supervolcano blows, this is why. Update: Looks like we dodged that bullet.
• Rob Astorino: Andrew Cuomo may be hated in upstate NY, but they hate this guy even more. He was elected by an apathetic electorate and didn't deserve the state governorship. "Soup is good!" he said, with a giggle, when asked how Medicaid recipients would chew food if dental services are no longer covered. He gunned for Cuomo again in 2018.
• Michele Bachmann (Representative from Minnesota 2007-2015): Bachmann (and some of her Tea Party cronies) accused an aide of Hillary Clinton of being a Muslim Brotherhood agent sent to infiltrate the highest levels of Washington. In response, John McCain proved he has a bit of a spine and took to the Senate floor to denounce this evil shrew.
• Adam Baldwin: He is responsible for "Gamergate", along with a few wackadoodle theories regarding Obama.
• Steve Bannon (White House Chief Strategist 2017-slightly later in 2017): Not sure this is really a "takeover" so much as sealing the deal. Nazi alt-righters on social media already call themselves Republicans, and there's been less than zero resistance from the party's rank and file. At some point, you just have to say the alt-right is the Republican Party.
• Lou Barletta (Representative from Pennsylvania 2011-2019): Endorsed Trump because he identifies with him. “I’ve been called names, a racist and a bigot." Yes. Yes, you have. He failed to mention he fought his case all the way to the Supreme Court and lost, with the citizens of Philadelphia having to foot the bill for legal fees. Hopefully the Santorum endorsement is a sign of his predictive ability fuck.
• Joe Barton (Representative from Texas 1985-2019): He's a man on emission. Wind is a finite resource, environmentalists are causing global warming, and besides, brimstone has a much higher carbon footprint! You can laugh at this idiot, but the real problem is that 50% of Americans would agree with him, and an even higher percentage in Texas. At this rate, humanity won't make it to the year 3,000.
• Glenn Beck: We Surround Them!
• Matt Bevin (Governor of Kentucky 2015-2019): Opposed renewal of the Violence Against Women Act, on the dizzy grounds that it was “unconstitutional” to include spics, squaws, and lesbos in the bill. Wants to legalize cockfighting. Too crazy even for Kentucky Served as governor for one term before narrowly losing reelection to Democrat Andy Beshear. That face now you're done with the Governor's shit.
• Pat Boone: Believes Dylann Roof was justified in shooting up a black church, and wants to arrest the cast of Saturday Night Live. His punishment from God? Having to live right next door to Ozzy Osbourne.
• James Bopp: Seeks a "pure" GOP. Also likes to call people names.
• Kevin Brady (Representative from Texas 1995-present, Chair of the House Ways and Means Committee 2015-2019): Indecision 2016 "is a clear choice of two paths: one with higher taxes or one with more taxpayers." Translation: This election is about allowing the temporary tax cuts to expire as agreed to or taxing the poor and middle class, who are living under the greatest disparity of wealth since the '20s.
• Dave Brat (Representative from Virgina 2014-2019): College professor who spanked the well-financed incumbent, Eric Cantor. It's really not that impressive; Brat is another bought-and-paid-for shill for the Koch brothers. Says "rich" nations don't have to fear climate change (???).
• Andrew Breitbart, RIP: Prime publisher and amplifier of James O'Keefe. Helped launch the Tea Party, slimed ACORN, got Shirley Sharrod fired, and exposed Weiner. (Erm...) Very sad. I wasn't aware that you could actually die from being full of shit.
• Jan Brewer (Governor of Arizona 2009-2015): ERROR: COMPASSION.EXE IS CORRUPT. INITIATE DESTROY_HUMANS.EXE Update: She could have challenged the term limit, but it would have been a long shot at best.
• Mo Brooks (Representative from Alabama 2011-2023): "There are a growing number of leftists who believe the way to resolve this is not at the ballot box but through threats and sometimes through violence and assassinations." Yeah, okay pal.
• Paul Broun (Representative from Georgia 2007-2015): Evolution and Big Bang Are “lies straight from the pit of Hell!” Broun served on the House Science Committee with Todd Akin.
• Sam Brownback (Senator from Kansas, 1996-2011, Governor of Kansas 2011-2018): Ran on a Tea Party platform, primaried the Republican governor, and then promptly bankrupted the state. A total unmitigated disaster who can barely govern due to how poor the state is. Lowest approval rating in the country from what I understand. Reelected in 2014 (Kansas). Thank God for Trump tapping this guy for a position, otherwise he might've never gone away.
• Mary Lou Bruner: A truther... JFK Truther, that is! (So that's where Trump got the idea.) Even the Tea Party thinks she's out to lunch.
• Cliven Bundy: Turd flushed. Many more.
• Herman Cain: Trump needs black supporters to counter accusations of KKK affiliation. He seems to know this, and has already enlisted a few.
• Eric Cantor (Representative from Virginia 2001-14): The party purity thing is crazy. Cantor agreed with them 95% of the time and had the power to get things through. Now you have to agree with them 99% of the time, or kiss your College Boy ass good-bye. It's an echo chamber.
• Ben Carson (Secretary of Housing and Urban Development 2017-2021): Makes audible grinding noises when asked difficult questions. "Obamacare is the worst thing that has happened in this nation since slavery. In a way, it is slavery..." How about shut up.
• Liz Cheney (Representative from Wyoming 2017-2023): Sith apprentice. Offers zilch to the residents of Wyoming, besides her father’s connections of course. Disowned her sister for having a functioning sense of empathy. Was shown the door in 2014. Don't worry, there is other evil that she can attend to. Hopefully she will go hunting with her dad. In 2016, she was elected to Representative. Liz barely had time to unpack her carpet-bag from the last failed attempt. But to her credit, at least she has enough human decency left to throw Trump under the bus denounce Donald Trump for attempting Kristellnacht 2.0 to stay in power after losing the 2020 election.^{[citation needed]}
• David Clarke: Behaves like a True Grit jack ass anytime his department might take a trim. Like Sheriff Joe, he's become addicted to the limelight; he needs to be busted down to private citizen, stat, but alas, he keeps running as a Democrat and there's no way to prevent Republicans from voting for him. We will never understand the cowboy hat. (Come on, you're in Milwaukee dude.)
• Greg Collett: Came out against Idaho driver's licenses. Because, you know, it's not important that we license people and hold them responsible for plowing two-ton machines into people. Oh, but here's the kicker: he's against mass transit too! So in his perfect world, no one has a license, but they can't avoid having to drive. He's really just really anxious to live in a Mad Max-style apocalypse.
• Billy Corgan: "Despite all my rage, I am still just a rat in a cage Captain of Industry, so pay for downloading my music, you leech on society ♫" He really knows how to relate to teenagers, so it makes sense he hasn't moved past that mentality.
• Jerome Corsi: Claimed that Obama might be gay and can't be trusted with the Presidency because he smoked once.
• Doreen Costa: "Just cut Food Stamps. Most people on welfare are addicts anyway, lol."
• Tom Cotton (Senator from Arkansas 2015-present): Responsible for the Iran letter, which didn't go over too well. Right-wingers love him for undermining Obama, however.
• Ann "Redneck Money" Coulter: Dang, Coulter is downing a lot of redpills lately. She is a good little Alt-Lite figurehead, like Milo, but as far as conservatives go, she never had kids or even got married, and even dated a guy from India.
• Ted Cruz (Senator from Texas 2013-present): I'm not saying that Bohener is infested with alien brain mites, but I'm just saying that I'd want to know if he was.
• Ken Cuccinelli: A vote for Ken Cuccinelli is a vote for keeping sexual predators off the streets — including married couples. (Virginia: No Longer For Lovers™) Not even close to constitutional since Lawrence v. Texas. He isn't just anti-sodomy, he was fine with knowingly passing a law in violation of a SCOTUS decision. And endorsed by both Pauls, of course. A Paulbot to the end, Ken polled at an impressive 7%.
• Jim DeMint (Senator from South Carolina 2005-2013): More like "Demented", amirite? Former leader of the "Frat House for Jesus" and the Heritage Foundation, but he's too Trumpy for them. Had a simple goal for the US Senate: "Complete gridlock." He also wants schools to fire gay and "promiscuous" female teachers.
• Ron DeSantis (Representative from Florida, 2013-2018, Governor of Florida, 2019-present): Won the primary on Tuesday, started spouting racist horseshit on Wednesday. Ran ads of his young children building Trump's wall. But alas, he won, because why would anything ever go right?
• Scott DesJarlais (Representative from Tennessee 2011-present): Gerrymandering lets you do amazing things.
• David Duke: The Goyim know.
• Erick Erickson: He desperately tried to unite all of the right-wing pundits together on three separate occasions. He failed, and now he's just another crank whining about how teh evul liberals are destroying our society.
• Joni Ernst (Senator from Iowa 2015-present): Hard to show charity when your church brainwashes you into lacking empathy. Unlike most people on the dole, Sen. Joni Ernst just learned to "live within her means" — on the taxpayer's dime, of course. Sick of this automaton? (And the "I'd like to speak to the manager" haircut to go along with it?) Blame the Dems for not highlighting any of the good things they have done for the country.
• Joseph Farah: God is angry at Obama, so he sent tornadoes. (Which makes all kinds of sense, since the tornadoes only hit red states.) He loves Israel, but hates Mormons because they reject the Trinity; this explains why WND took a dislike to Romney in 2012.
• Michelle Fiore (City Councilwoman from Las Vegas 2017-present): Bundy cheerleader from Nevada who owed the IRS approximately $1 million. Her political platform appears to be "I HAVE BIG BREASTS AND LOTS OF GUNS". It's as if a video game character somehow reverse-TRON'ed into our world.
• Carly Fiorina: Star of CSI: Cyber. Her bad parenting killed her step-daughter, not marijuana. What sort of witch uses the death of family members for political gain? Attributes her litany of failures to sexism. Now that The Donald's facilitated a pandemic, a crashing economy, and riots in the streets, she's decided it's time she stood up for her principles.
• Bryan Fischer: Homosexuals are bullies who are trying to force their way of life on everyone. Why can't we just force them to live the same way as me?
• Michael Flynn (DIA Director 2012-14, National Security Advisor January 2017-Febuary 2017): Michael Flynn was fired from DIA for being terrible at his job and a little crazy. Obama gave him a pink slip, but one suspects that the intelligence world wanted him gone. Trump then appointed him to be NSA, a liaison between him and intelligence. Intelligence world not happy. Flynn Jr. was a promoter of Pizzagate until daddy told him to muzzle it. Update: Do svidaniya. Yes, a career intelligence officer (who made it as far as being put in charge of the DIA!) knowingly gave secret communiqués to Russia on an open line. He lasted 24 days, a new record.
• Virginia Foxx (Representative from North Carolina 2005-present, Chairman of House Education Committee 2017-present): She said Matthew Shepard was killed in a robbery, not because he was gay. She hasn't said why he was tortured and crucified.
• Trent Franks (Congressman from Arizona 2003-2017): Congresspeople like this are "a threat to the nation's survival". Thinks terrorists can hide nukes in marijuana bales, and that's why we need a wall. Which may or may not have been the plot of a Wile E. Coyote cartoon.
• Frank Gaffney: Anti-Muslim gadfly, now a "National Security advisor" to the Trump Administration. This is the guy who repeatedly said the Muslim brotherhood was about to seize Washington. Yeah, we're still waiting on that one.
• Pamela Geller: Sultana of second-generation, middlebrow racism.
• Newt Gingrich (Representative from Georgia 1979-99, Speaker of the House 1995-99): The spiritual father of the movement. Newt was one of the first practitioners of brinksmanship, obstruction, and all those 'party-over-country" tactics we complain about today. He and his cohorts held up Congress to the point of shutdown, same as in 2013. As we have seen, these tactics somehow translate to parties sweeping the legislature.
• Louie Gohmert (Representative from Texas 2005-2023): King Louie is simply too gorgeous and outsized a figure to sum up here.
• Trey Gowdy (Representative from South Carolina 2011-2019): As a legislator, Gowdy has done jack squat. He wasted 6 million dollars on Benghazi hearings, and claimed the e-mail investigation (run by a Republican who hates Clinton) was a cover-up. He's truly no better than any other conspiracy theorist, which is why the alt-right loves him.
• Nikki Haley (Governor of South Carolina 2011-2017, Ambassador to the U.N. 2017-2018): We knew she was in for trouble when she said that the problems in the government aren't all the Democrats' fault.
• Sean Hannity: Used to be friends with this guy.
• Joe Heck (Representative from Nevada 2011-17): The bootleg Sharron Angle. Accidentally linked voters to a hentai site. What a guy.
• Valarie Hodges: Ack! When I voted to funnel state funds to religious schools, I didn’t mean Muslim ones! - Rep. Valarie Hodges (R)
• David Horowitz: Accused Kistol of being a "renegade Jew" who is in league with Hamas. This is old hat for Horowitz.
• Kay Ivey (Governor of Alabama 2017-present): Fundamentalist hypocrite who has proven to be worse than her predecessor. Has a fetish for the death penalty.
• Earl Walker Ewwww "E.W" Jackson: You have to wonder about a guy who keeps trying to criminalize oral sex. Believes that practicing yoga allows Satan into your heart.
• Victoria Jackson: She's giving off some serious Ali G vibes. But there's no indication that she's taking the piss.
• Ron Johnson (Senator from Wisconsin 2011-present): This is the guy Wisconsin voted in over Russ Feingold? Feingold gave WI a voice in national politics, he fought for his constituents, and actually did his homework (see: the PATRIOT Act). Then the state decided, to hell with having a voice or any influence, let's vote in this rich businessman who bought his way into the seat. He's not even a good businessman, anyway; most of his money comes from his wife's family. He is useless.
• Alex "Juice Boxes Make You Gay" Jones: Make one last trip to Wal-mart for canned goods and ammo, before you retreat to your underground bunkers made mostly of derelict school buses and old refrigerators. (Don't click his videos for any reason, even to laugh. Please stop giving him adsense.)
• Jim Jordan (Representative from Ohio 2007-present): If John Boehner thinks you are a "legislative terrorist", you must be a pretty bad dude.
• John Kasich (Governor of Ohio 2011-2019): Kasich is with the Tea Party, too, but still more palatable. He's like the "Gingrich Revolution" type of Tea-Partier.
• Toby Keith: Breaking: Toby Keith comes to the dark realization that he has more in common with Radical Islam and its converts.
• Alan Keyes: I disowned my daughter for being gay; why shouldn't everyone else?!
• Steve King (Representative from Iowa 2003-2021): Not even bothering to hide his Neo-Nazism. King thinks that Syrians are crossing thousands of miles of desert to rape and steal Iowan jobs. If not Syrians, then Mexicans. If not Mexicans, lesbians. Now the only Republican congressman in Iowa. Great job guys!
• Kris Kobach: Current former SoS in Kansas and leader of the immigrants are stealing our votes! voter ID push in the U.S. after harping about how sacred voting is, he likely committed election fraud and then stonewalled any investigation into the actual tampering of our election.
• The Cock Koch brothers: If you don't know, you haven't been paying attention.
• Matt Krause: Going to law school at Liberty must consist of three years of being hit in the face with a bust of Jerry Falwell as the instructor screams at you, "WIVES SUBMIT TO THEIR HUSBANDS!"
• Jon Kyl (Senator from Arizona 1995-2013, 2018, Senate Minority Whip, 2007-2013): >90% of Planned Parenthood's activities are abortions. But that's not intended to be a factual statement.. Thanks McCain, we really needed this guy back.
• Art Laffer: Wrote the empirical proof that the rich are taxed enough alrehehehehahaha
• Wayne LaPierre: In 1995, Wayne sent out a fundraising letter calling ATF agents "jack-booted thugs". George H.W. Bush resigned his lifetime membership from the NRA soon after.
• Tomi "No Label Millennial" Lahren: It's obvious the reason she gets any air time (looking at you, Trevor Noah) is because she's a young, pretty blonde. She has absolutely nothing to offer in terms of public discussion. Which is problematic for right-leaning women.
• Paul LePage (Governor of Maine 2011-2019): Pledged to veto every Democratic-sponsored bill until they agree to kill the income tax. Warned of black mobs invading from New York (and Connecticut!) with the intention of knocking up our white women. Keeps comparing the IRS to Nazi Germany, but ignores the mounting evidence that a GOP-ruled America would be Nazi Germany. Ordered the removal of a mural depicting the state's labor history, because it's too "one-sided" in favor of employees. Wants to repeal the ACA, rewrite the ACA 99.99% the same, but name it "Republicans for Economical Medicine" and call it a victory. Somebody stop him.
• Mike Lee (Senator from Utah 2011-present): We're confused. We thought Tea Partiers were mad at the "squishes" because they always promise to achieve conservative goals and fail. But in this case (the debt ceiling and repealing Obamacare), Cruz and Mike Lee did fail, they just failed harder and louder than the "RINOs". Is this what passes for success in Republican circles these days?
• Mark "Master Shake" Levin: The poor man's Michael Savage. (And brother, that's a poor man to be.) He considers anyone to the left of the Neo-Confederacy a "centrist", meaning Fox News is too liberal for him. Mark Levin now claims that Trump is "not a Conservative" but a "populist". Levin has to justify his outrage factory somehow, and as a "real conservative", he just can't have voted for Trump based on his conservative beliefs; therefore, Trump is a populist.
• Dana Loesch: REALLY loves her guns (possibly physically), former writer for Breitbart, had her own show on The Blaze, spews out racist bullshit every chance she gets, and former minister of propaganda spokeswoman for the NRA. Dana Loesch is the model female teabagger.
• Michelle Malkin: The token Coulter, only with even less integrity.
• Pat McCrory (Governor of North Carolina 2013-17): McCrory lost. Why is he still obsessed with trans men and where they are allowed to defecate? Answer: It's gotten him further than his intelligence and charm would have. Now he's on the national stage with the Republicans in their Final Form, instead of being remembered as a figurehead for his friends at Duke Energy. Maybe they'll even forget that he burned the capital down so he wouldn't have to share his toys with anyone. Just a friendly reminder that we're talking about adults and not children — adults in public service, too. He's running for an open Senate seat in 2022, so unfortunately, he may have more opportunities to make hell for trans people.
• Ed Mangano: Well, see, the real problem is that he didn't cut taxes enough. If he'd dropped them all the way to zero, Nassau would be rolling in funds! /libertarian He's a dumbass for not cutting spending while cutting taxes. That's what libertarians propose — less government. Not just less taxes. He didn't even follow the Tea Party platform, he just took the worst parts of two major ideologies and jammed them together.
• Chris Mapp: Hello state that is 38% Hispanic! Vote for me to be your Senator so I can kick out all the wetbacks!
• Gavin McInnes: Disgraced writer for Vice, apex of the 'demented aristocrat' part of the far right. Also founder of the Proud Boys, a bunch of 'ironically' racist Nazis. Beatings will continue until you can name five breakfast cereals.
• Sid Miller (Representative from Texas 2001-13): Good News: As SecAg, he'll no longer be a Texas embarrassment. Bad News: He'll be a national embarrassment.
• Stephen Miller (Senior Advisor to the President 2017-present): A Neo-Nazi in Republican's clothing. We know, that describes most of the GOP these days, but it's especially true here.
• Roy Moore: He was booted off the Alabama Supreme Court for being a religious fanatic — twice. Believes that America was better during slavery, and of course, there's the whole pedophilia thing. Arguably the most unelectable Senate candidate in recent memory. (Yet 48.3% of voters — 651,972 Alabamans — voted for him. That says as much about Alabamans as it does about Roy.)
• Robert Morrow: GOP Chair in Austin. Robert Morrow's twitter is the stuff of legends. Terrible legends.
• Mick Mulvaney (Representative from South Carolina 2011-2017, Director of the Office of Management and Budget 2017-2020, Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau 2017-2018, Chief of Staff 2018-2020): His excuse for the Trump Administration cutting free meal programs in schools was that they weren't "proven" to be beneficial to children during the day. Pardon us while we bang our heads repeatedly against the wall.
• Grover Norquist: Grover, sensing a chance to weed out unfaithful conservatives, jumped on the bandwagon early. But Tea Partiers weren't fooled: These people know a crypto-Muslim when they see one! (And the Tea Party has officially outdone the John Birch Society.)
• Chuck Norris: He has even threatened to run for president himself. Not of the United States – of Texas, if it decides to secede and again become a separate republic.
• Ted Nugent (Tea Party "deputy"): God, guns, and "EXTREME MODERATION!"
• Christine O'Donnell: Coached to act like a poor, victimized little woman to garner sympathy and votes from people as brainless as her. If only she spent as much time on elocution lessons. (What the heck is "lock, step and barrel", anyway?)
• Candace Owens: Absolutely convinced that white supremacy isn't real, racism is dead, Democrats are the root of all evil, and anyone who says differently is just whining for attention. Also, she's Kanye West's BFF.
• Sarah Palin (Governor of Alaska 2006-09): If you want to understand the Tea Party, consider this. From their point of view, the only redeeming thing about McCain '08 was Sarah Palin. (But Palin's the main reason you were stuck with a "lying communist".) Trump has had his sights on this for some time, and Palin showed him the way.
• Carl Paladino: Another colorful (and failed) Teabagger from New York. Owns a rent-a-car business in Buffalo, and affixed birther bumper stickers to all of the cars. Currently co-chairman of Trump's New York campaign.
• Dan "God Over Country" Patrick (Senator from Texas 2007-15, Lieutenant Governor of Texas 2015-present): A Limbaugh wannabe who thinks God speaks through Duck Dynasty, and that pedophiles take advantage of so-called "bathroom bills" to assault women and children. Other states with similar policies have never had that problem… but it plays well with moonshiners led by ayatollahs like Dan Patrick.
• Rand Paul (Senator from Kentucky 2011-present): Oh right, Rand Paul still exists. And he's still a senator, apparently. You'd think he'd go the Gary Johnson route and sell himself as a sane alternative to what Trump is peddling, but here he is, proudly throwing his last stopped clock overboard. His presidential campaign was a non-starter; Ron Paul might be their man, but Trump is their leader.
• Mike "Shoot the Gays With Tesla Rays" Pence (Governor of Indiana 2013-2017, "Vice" President 2017-2021): Sure, he'd appoint Falwell Jr. to the Supreme Court and be a scourge on humanity, but if Trump were to quit or be impeached, Pence would be a return to normalcy. Yes, folks, it has come to that! He was nearly lynched during the 2021 coup attempt for "betraying" Trump by being willing to concede defeat.
• Rick Perry (Governor of Texas 2000-15, Secretary of Energy 2017-2019): Too smart for the Tea Party, ouch. When Rick Perry is trying to talk you down from the ledge, something has gone seriously wrong somewhere. And by "something", we mean "everything".
• Katrina Pierson: She's behind scam PACs like Draft Gowdy for Speaker — which is still up and running, in fact. Update: Come to think of it, she essentially disappeared after Kellyanne was hired. We've really missed her uniquely insightful commentary.
• Larry Pittman (Representative from North Carolina 2012-present): ABRADOLF LINCLER! Isn't this the same dumbass who thought he could overrule SCOTUS on gay weddings, or are they just all starting to look alike?
• Joe the Plumber: Not really named Joe and not really a plumber, but asked Barack Obama some question at one of his events.
• Tom Price (Representative from Georgia 2005-17, Chair of the House Budget Committee 2015-17, Secretary of Health and Human Services 2017-2017): Insider trading: the illegal practice of trading on the stock exchange to one's own advantage through having access to confidential information.
• Reince Priebus (White House Chief of Staff 2017-2017): Formerly the chairman of the RNC. Colbert noted that if you remove the vowels from his name it spells RNC PR BS.
• Wayne Allyn Root: A talking head for Newsmax. Thinking being born anywhere other than America is a "curse."
• Marco Rubio (Senator from Florida 2011-present): Anthropologists have classified the species known as Suitis Emptius as an invertebrate. He hails from the Tea Party movement, but Trump took that "grassroots" support away.
• Mark Sanford (Representative from South Carolina 2013-2019): Once offered the unemployed only "prayer". In a better world, he'd be the one begging for a job, but Democrats aren't going to waste time on SC. Despite having copious resources, they lost by 10 points in 2013. Never mind.
• Michael Savage a.k.a. Michael Weiner: Mental infant.
• Steve Scalise (Representative from Louisiana 2008-present, House Majority Whip 2014-2018, House Minority Whip 2018-present): Nobody deserves to be shot. For any reason. But it takes a special kind of asshole to continue to advocate against gay rights after your life was saved by a gay woman.
• Anthony "The Mooch" Scaramucci (White House Communications Director 2017-2017): A foul-mouthed dandy who seems incapable of opening his mouth without saying something he'll immediately regret. Although somewhat well-informed on social issues like race, immigration, gun control, and gay marriage, he's still a hardcore Trump apologist who thinks that rich people are under attack. Fired from his position as Communications Director after only ten days because of his inability to keep his yap shut.
• Curt Schilling: A rich Tea Party moron from way back. (He formerly played for the Red Sox). Schilling is running on a platform of Infowars-type propaganda. The hatred for him spread like wildfire from Massachusetts to Rhode Island after that game dev fiasco. We will enjoy seeing Warren mop the floor with him.
• Phyllis Schlafly: Chauvinist pigress. Older than dirt: enthusiastic antifeminist who led the opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment. Gave birth to Andy through immaculate conception. Popped her clogs in 2016 — though, only after endorsing Trump. Allegedly spent her own funeral whispering — from the other side — into a ghostly string can telephone held pressed against his tiny, childlike ear.
• Jeff Sessions (Senator from Alabama 1997-2017, U.S. Attorney General 2017-2018): Somehow too racist to be confirmed in the 80s... ...and yet here we are in 2017. It definitely answers the question ("What do you have to lose?") Trump posed to the black community. Rabidly anti-marijuana to boot. But those are exactly the types of people Duterte Trump used to become President. He needs bad hombres to point to.
• Ben Shapiro: The Colbert Report is worse than blackface! At least this disaster of a human being isn't writing for Breitbart any more.
• Tom "Drop Bombs Not Food" Tancredo: Ah, good 'ol Tom Tancredo. Ran for congress on a pledge of term limiting himself but broke it. Later ran for governor of Colorado and lost the primary, so he ran on the Constitution Party ticket. He just recently decided to register as an unaffiliated voter and wrote some op-Ed on Breitbart about the decision. The same man who says food stamps are the equivalent of "giving booze to an alcoholic" thinks the money would be better spent arming 100 million civilians to do battle with "Islamists" in the streets.
• Peter Thiel: Godfather of the Paypal Mafia. This guy got away with running a regulation-free international bank for years, which is how he made his fortune: freezing the assets of people gullible enough to trust him with their money. If you have a parody in your head about Silicon Valley political views, Thiel is basically that. Except less coherent. If the alt-right ever figures out that Pete is a gay immigrant, they'll cut all ties with him. Or maybe not. The kapos were useful.
• Donald Trump (President 2017-2021): "God save the Queen, the fascist regime..." What a sad, shitty world we live in where Trump is the conservative wing's only hope. A real non-conservative, bad-pansy-ass, straight-talkin' liar man with small hands, orange skin, and the world's most obvious combover is their only hope. But he's rich and hates women, Muslims, and Mexicans, and that's enough to clinch a Presidential election! (Daughterfucker. Don't forget that he said if he had his way he'd be a daughterfucker.)
• Richard Uihlein: Uihlein donates a lot of money to a lot of PACs. He has personally donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Walker Governor campaign in Wisconsin, and to Bruce Rauner in Illinois. Here's an article talking about his terrible campaign tactics, and general lack of humanity. Some call him the Koch of Illinois.
• Maureen Tucker: Another Tea Party "celebrity".
• David Vitter (Senator from Louisiana 2005-2017): The heir apparent to Larry Craig as the Senate GOP's resident sex pest. But unlike Craig, he actually isn't gay. He just asks prostitutes to make him wear diapers. Good ol' Republican family values…
• Jon Voight: Flipped his lid a long time ago. As long as he's coherent, Fox will continue to trot him out to rallies and feed him pre-digested slogans.
• Scott Walker (Governor of Wisconsin 2011-2019): The incomparable voice behind the classic Sixties hit for The Walker Brothers, "The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore" He couldn't finish college, so now he's mad at educators. That, and his major donors include private/voucher school owners. His has got to be one of the worst Presidential campaigns ever; he's pretty much the Rick Perry of the 2016 cycle.
• Joe Walsh (Representative from Illinois 2011-13): Saying nigger is OK, but electing a black guy president? The most racist thing that has ever happened. Poor Joe Walsh...
• Allen West (Representative from Florida 2011-13): "...I believe there's about 78 to 81 members of the Democrat Party who are members of the Communist Party. It's called the Congressional Progressive Caucus."
• Meg Whitman: Goldman Sachs executive. Like Trump, Whitman was a billionaire who wanted to buy an office and spent something like $117 mil of her own money. (Why would anyone spend that much for a job that pays $206,500 unless there was some kind of corruption planned?) For anyone who wasn't paying attention to California politics, she lost a race for Governor in which she managed to accidentally endorse her opponent. Arguably one for the record books. Bonus: Whitman also shares a link with Jeb! Her campaign was run by Mike Murphy, who also ran Jeb's PAC, Right to Rise. He's very good at spending lots of money for minimal returns.
• Joe Wilson (Representative from South Carolina 2001-present): "YOU LIE!"

See also

For those of you in the mood, RationalWiki has a fun article about Tea Party.

• UKIP — The Tea Party has begun to spread to other continents, like herpes.
• Rally to Restore Sanity
• Tea Party Organizers
• New Right (United States)
• Nippon Kaigi — This organization is closely related to Liberal Democratic Party (Japan). It is also evaluated as similar to a Tea Party.
• Alt-right, essentially the Tea Party if it were a teenager with a dirty mind

External links

• Tea Party Nation
• Tea Party Patriots
• The Tea Party Express
• Wikipedia's list of Tea Party protests, 2009
• Wikipedia's list of Tea Party protests, 2010
• A blog about the Tea Party attitude to science
• Chappelle's Show was ahead of its time.
• A history lesson from the Tea Party ("This Modern World" comic strip by Tom Tomorrow)
• The Truth About the Tea Party, Matt Taibbi's definitive takedown of the 'Baggers.
• Was the Tea Party founded in this Indiana dominatrix's fetish dungeon? - Daily Beast, 21 May 2017

• Hi, I'm a Tea-Partier
• Inaugural speeches: Trump vs. Bane