What I saw of the Tea Partei....

Beautiful day yesterday to get out on Boston Common and watch wingnuts wallow in triumphalism.
Truly, these are H.L. Mencken's proverbial "believing minds" they believed in George Bush Jr's commitment to "small government" and they believe in Barack Obama's status as a diabolical communist as well.
Mostly white, mostly lower middle class, middle aged, suburban, a good chunk of ringers from out of state, cowboy hats, a couple of grim aryan sophomores from BC, in all it was aa very raucous pity party thrown by McCain voters.
Twenty thousand attendees were predicted by some hammerhead, I think they were lucky to get four and as I said, a good chunk of them came from out of state.
Sarah Palin came and went long before I got there, but still even at 12:40pm EST the roster of speakers and boosters ranted on and on about God, Family and Country, the MC (a rare African American) claimed that Barack Obama got voted in due to his "pigmentation" while tchotches hawkers sold buttons that said "I'd Rather Be Waterboarding".
Class all the way folks, class all the way.
I'd be interesting to see if Crazy Christy Mihos and Tim Cahill (Conspicuous attendees at yesterday's rally) really agree with the notion that Obama got in due to his complexion...Make a good query at their next press conference sez Humble Elias.
I blame Ronald Reagan for the current alienation on the hard right, he preached an "inclusive gospel" that said in effect "C'mon along, as long as you bash liberals yer welcome with us". A generation later having bankrupted themselves politically, financially and spiritually the Tea Partei is left with liberal bashing as it's last best ideological bulwark.
Other than that pigmentation remark I saw no racially motivated placards nor was their any gay baiting in evidence, although one need not speculate as to the crowd's real feelings about gay marriage given all the windy homages paid to "traditional marriage" up on podium.
I don't think the Tea Partei phenom is an incipient fascist movement, preachers of violence just don't go far in US Politics and most of the people are poor storm trooper fodder from what I could see. Old weary and bit shopworn leavened with a few autistic sounding undergrads are hardly the type to start street fighting any time soon.
No, this is the rejectionist thirty precent that has been around since the inception of the Republic they were the Know Nothings, the Nativists the Liberty Lobby, the Share the Wealth Clubbers, The American Legion....In short they have always been with us, Palin or no Palin.