What is amusing about this thread is that, thus far, criticism of the Tea Party has been:
1) It's racist (overtly or otherwise), thus any and all ideas being promoted by its membership are invalid.
2) It's hypocritical, thus any and all ideas being promoted by its membership are invalid.
Anyways, let's be real here. While I'd agree it's racially homogenous (although certainly less so ethnically & religiously), it is genuinelly politically heteregenous. Its members range from paleoconservative to CCC members to ex-shachtmanite neo-cons to libertarians and everyone in between. Hell, even Thom Hartman has exhorted his fans to go to these events.
Secondly, what seperated the Tea Party from the Republican Party is the fact that it origniated under Bush 2. Yes, the first (large scale) protests occured under Obama, but the legislation that prompted the outrage and organizing was T.A.R.P., which was drafted by a Democratic congress, signed into law by a Republican president, and was supported by both major party presidential candidates.
Anyways, my personal thoughts are that protesting is an ineffectual method of action preferred by those who prefer showing how much they care about an issue instead of actually doing something about it. My only interaction with these groups has been during some proper political events, and then I usually just try to get them to adopt nouvelle droit positions.
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