Do you think the "tea party" are a part of the kkk?

Nope. No hoods. Tea Partyers aren’t afraid of being identified. They’re pretty mainstream and think they’re even more so.

hehe…i know they dont wear (their) hoods…but i cant help but feel they harbor those beliefs.

Double yes.

No, I think they are just woefully misinformed.

No, they are not nearly so radical as the KKK.

but in todays age they cant be.

Let me ask an equally intelligent question. Do you think Obama is part of a worldwide conspiracy to destroy America? Just in case there are those serious souls on here who do not recognize wit….the answer to this question and the main question is NO. But they are both stupid questions.

@plethora ...hmmm…ive seen more impressive displays of “wit” and/or sarcasm…i dont think its a stupid question. im really just curious to see what people think about it..and what other theories they might have. i find it interesting. i really should not have given your response any time at all…seeing as it speaks for itself. in addition i’d like people to look up the videos i mentioned and get opinions of that too.

I think equating them to the KKK is wrong. But, I doubt they would even exist if Obama was white.

NO!

There may be individuals that support the attitudes of both organizations but that does not link the two movements.

I guess I’ve been living in a cave for a certain period of time – can someone tell me what the Tea Party is?

If they are i’d assume they all like milk in their tea right?

I don’t believe the Tea Party is part of the KKK, but I don’t doubt for a second that some “members” of the Tea Party are also members of the KKK, or at least are white supremacists.

@Snarp took the words right out of my mouth.

This question just makes me think idiot.

No

Which Tea Party? The unadorned, organic, dynamic Tea Party is just a lot of people who understand that they have been very shabbily treated for a long time, but in my opinion have been mislead as to who and what is to blame. The Astroturfed Tea Parties that charge big fees to go to their assemblies are just the usual crew of assholes taking advantage of the situation. The KKK is moribund, and I have no idea where you came up with that.

I know a couple tea baggers, and they are not KKK.
The party does seem to appeal to the same crowd, though, and there is a shortage of people of color at their gatherings, so I understand where you got this idea.

Tea Party is a pyramid scheme like Amway and Pampered Chef and similarly over rated.

@Cruiser It depends upon which iteration of the Tea Party. The Dick Army Tea Party is a fake, pumped up money making scheme, but the thousands and thousands of hurt, bewildered and angry people are as real as can be. I blame the Obama administration’s failure to communicate properly. They have squandered all their good will, and alienated the Independents.

@dpworkin Hence my choice of example as these folks are desperate for a quick fix and the same reason Obama was elected into office. Nobody wanted to accept the reality that things were/are truly THAT bad!

They’re a wholly owned subsidiary of the Republican Party, whether they know it or not. They claim to be independent, but here are the facts:

Tea Partiers have in common that they hate Democrats and think Obama is the spawn of the devil. Just like Republicans. They don’t have any viable candidates of their own. The few ultra-conservatives they have backed in primary challenges to Republicans have lost miserably.

They will all be voting for Republicans in November. The scary thing is that they will all be voting.

@IchtheosaurusRex That seems to me to be a quite thoughtless, very narrow view. It may have seemed like that months ago when the Tea Party movement was just beginning, but all the data says they are just as hard on Republicans as they are on Democrats, and they have already forced many politicians to change the focus of their campaigns. Belittle this phenomenon at your own peril.

@dpworkin They are hard on Republicans when speaking, but who are they voting for and who is speaking at their conventions? I’m sure there are plenty of people in the “movement” who don’t like Republicans, but why weren’t they so loud when it was a republican expanding the role of government? Because they easily believe the lie that just because they cut taxes for the wealthy and don’t regulate business that the Republicans are somehow in favor of small government and are closer to libertarian philosophies.

I agree that they are gravely misinformed, but who shall educate them? Obama is not doing the job.

@dpworkin , if you can find me one example of a Tea Party organization endorsing anyone other than the Republican candidate – any – Republican candidate, including McCain, come November, I’ll believe you. They might say they’re pissed at Republicans, but they’re still going to vote that way.

And why would I discount them at my peril? Is it because most of the gun nuts are there and they might shoot me? They’re a conservative phenomenon, and I’m not a conservative. They certainly aren’t going to draw away any Democratic-leaning voters. They don’t want centrists in their movement, so they won’t have any influence on swing voters, either. After November, their movement will die out. I think it’s dying out already, judging by how they fared in the Illinois and Texas primaries.

@IchtheosaurusRex See “Ostrich, head of, in sand.”

@dpworkin , see “Astroturf.” Or find me some statistics or other objective data that suggest they’re anything other that what I’ve said.

The original tea partiers were nothing like they are now. Please keep that in mind. The party has been hijacked by some seriously deranged neo-cons. I doubt they are the KKK, but would not be surprised if some members were. My hometown is still alive with KKK meetings and cross burnings, (though, I don’t think they’ve demonstrated violence for some time) and I’m positive this is the kind of person that joins this new tea party, unfortunately, giving the movement a bad name.

@IchtheosaurusRex I have already said that there is an Astroturfed, artificial contingent. That doesn’t change the fact that this country is full of angry people who have had it stuck to them since the 1980s by the very people they tend to support. You could help educate them, or you could just sit back and suffer the consequences when they rearrange your government for you in ways you won’t like.

There’s plenty of reason to believe that this movement will die out after the midterm elections. They’ll win in a bunch of districts, nothing will change, they’ll get fed up, and they’ll go back to voting Republican, but not being overly supportive, or not voting, or wasting their votes on Ron Paul. It’s a lot like the whole Gingrich Contract with America BS. The Republicans won a lot of congressional seats in the mid term election, but when the economy was soaring and life was good, they couldn’t unseat Clinton. A lot of this is just people who are dealing with bad economic conditions and want someone to do something about it and aren’t seeing that, so they want to make someone pay, and maybe they will in the mid-term elections, but whether it will be influential in 2012 has more to do with how the economy is doing and how well Obama communicates than it does with the “Tea Party movement”. In fact it may have more to do with how pissed off liberals are at Obama and whether their organization and voting is lacking or siphoned off to the greens or someone else.

@dpworkin Ah, now that is a different and interesting statement of the problem. One wonders though if it is really possible to educate those folks to convince them that the Republicans are actually worse than the Democrats, or to actually find unity among the disenfranchised to create a viable third party. I tend to doubt it, there are too many competing ideologies, so much so that even really uniting those on the right or those on the left, let alone convincing them that maybe there is a third way that they can all agree on, is next to impossible. Too much of the Tea Party movement is a reactionary right wing movement, I don’t think that those folks are really interested in finding common solutions so much as they are interested in blaming immigrants and welfare moms and secularists for their problems.

@dpworkin , the country has always been full of angry people. I was around during the 1960s, and we had a lot of angry people on both the left and the right. The Republicans coopted the right. The antiwar left burned itself out.

And the public are quite capable of educating themselves. But at the end of the day, there are still two political parties in this country, and you have to pick one or sit on the sidelines.

The organizers and financial supporters and political hangers on might be right wing. These people are just good old American nativists, and the right wing has almost always taken better advantage of their anger than the left.

I wouldn’t be surprised if underneath, Tea Partiers are some white people who at a total panic that “they” won’t be on top for much longer. It’s too bad that they don’t see that the elite Republican whites sold them a bill of goods since at least the late 1950s about how far their “race” actually has gotten them.

I mean, back then, they were called Dixiecrats. Same stuff, different decade. And the idea that they think people can’t read their coded language would be almost childishly cute if it weren’t so divisive and sad. :/

This question is not even worth answering. ;-)

@dpworkin , anger gets you one election. After that, people want results.

@Cruiser I love Pampered Chef. ;-)

No they are worse, they are more insidious.

@Trillian I do too actually! I am glad my “friend”/rep moved though! Pricey! lol!