At the risk of sounding like an Obama supporter, I would like to mention that I do feel that his handling of the economic crisis by putting taxpayer money into the hands of private enterprise is unacceptable. We must let the free market get a taste of its own medicine by letting it collapse, thus making people around the world realize the dangers of unregulated free-market globalization.
However, the new right-wing backlash against the current economic crisis is not unexpected in itself, but its far-right rhetoric is very telling of the movement. The tea-party protesters are primarily poor white Americans who did not support Obama in the election, and feel that he is dangerous to the U.S. because of his "socialist" policies. NOTHING could be further from the truth. For one, Obama has completely dropped the single-payer option from the healthcare debate, and has created this trumped-up concept of a "public option" while letting private insurance still exist. Secondly, Obama may have put tax money into private enterprises like banks and the auto-industry (and thus some ignorant conservatives have cried "socializiation"), but this also is false. If Obama were a socialist, he would not only put tax-payer money into industries, he would have the government run them or have the government own the means of production, neither of which he has done, he has simply given them a bailout.
It is obvious, from the rhetoric of their protests to the propaganda of Fox News, that the Tea Party protesters are ignorant of their concept of "socialism" and continue to portray Obama as a demagogue. Even when he is attempting to give them some sort of healthcare plan, they complain, although the majority of them are uninsured. It is my personal opinion, from witnessing the recent school speech controversy and the recent Capital Hill protests against healthcare reform, that although they may truly be fiscal conservatives, the stench of Jim Crow reaks from the Tea Party movement, due to the fact that many of these insecure poor whites may feel bitter that an African American has risen to the highest position in American politics. They may try to hide behind the "socialist" argument, but when Obama tries to address schoolchildren and encourage them to succeed and the Tea Party reaction is "he's trying to politically indoctrinate our children", I can't help but wonder, when Presidents Reagan and Bush senior also addressed children, if there is some hidden motive behind the zealotry of the Tea Party.
