The Rotting Racist Underbelly of the Tea Party Protests

Were you wondering what happened to all the rabid, wild-eyed bigots yelling, “Kill him!” and “Terrorist” and “Socialist” carrying stuffed monkey plush dolls at the McCain-Palin rallies? It’s easy in our jubilation over Obama’s victory to forget the many people in America who were deeply fearful and hate-oriented towards an Obama presidency. Those people didn’t just shrug their shoulders at the Democratic victory in Nov 2008. No, they’ve re-organized. Largely abandoned by the Republican party who tapped cynically into their ignorance, fear and hatred and whipped these folks into a racist lather as a Get Out The Vote strategy, the Tax Day Tea Party people have used the internet to find each other and organize.

They’re getting plenty of news coverage. And don’t get me wrong: the teabaggers (heh) have expressed some legitimate concerns about the impact of the economic stimulus on the ballooning deficit and the evolving structure of the financial bailout strategy. Concerns some progressives and many Americans share actually. Yet Obama’s kept his promise to lower taxes for most Americans except the very wealthy–I don’t know about you but I definitely am getting more back than I expected personally on my own taxes. So. . .whassup, really? Are these folks really concerned about their taxes going up or is it about what they perceive their taxes to be funding? Here’s an image from the Michelle Malkin blog that sums up their real concerns, IMHO–note the bloody imagery, btw.

I’ve been parsing the words and the racists have been very careful to cover their tracks and fury that a black man is President. But not well enough. I’m starting to become pretty convinced at this point that “socialist” is some kind of code word for “nigger”.

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