Taliban or Tea Party?
 

I realize that Aaron Sorkin is kind of a political hack, but in the Newsroom finale, the main character does a monologue where he compares the Tea Party to the Taliban.

The point isn't that the Tea Party beheads people it disagrees with, but rather there are quite a few similarities between the Tea Party and the Taliban, and by extension most hard-right groups such as:

Ideological purity, compromise as weakness, a fundamentalist belief in scriptural literalism, denying science, unmoved by facts, undeterred by new information, a hostile fear of progress, a demonization of education, a need to control women’s bodies, severe xenophobia, tribal mentality, intolerance of dissent and a pathological hatred of the U.S. government.

I think the Republicans need to take their party back because these people aren't Republicans. And they don't stand for American values. For lefty lefties like me, they're terrifying. A left/right discussion and resulting compromise is a good thing. An I'm right and you should die command is not how democracies work.

I love Aaron Sorkin. I feel like he has been able to eloquently state what I've been feeling for a long time.

What's craziest about the Tea Party to me is that they're almost completely different than they were at their inception. If the Republican Party is pulling hard right to appeal to the Tea Party, the Tea Party already pulled hard right to appeal to the Evangelical vote.

I actually identified with them at their inception.

They are no longer recognizable.

It seems like a turnkey base which will believe absolutely anything they're told by their leaders. This idiots will vote against their own interests--lowering taxes on billionaires while raising their own taxes. (the Ryan plan)

I really identify with the character Will Mcavoy. I'm a pro-gun, pretty economically far-right Republican, but I'm embarrassed at the things this party has done recently. So much that if Romney plays silly season politics as the rest of his party has, I'm casting lots of votes for Democrats in local and federal elections this November.

In fact, the only Republican I'll probably vote for is Tom Coburn.

In the past, I was strictly independent. I have supported both sides, depending on the position and the candidates' stance on the issues. This tea party stuff is worrisome. I will only be voting Democrat this November.

Kevin, you nailed it on the head when you said that the followers will believe anything and vote against their own best interest.

The blatant disregard for science and fact is scary. The scapegoating of teachers and education is mind boggling. A very populated county in the area started school about two weeks late because the county commissioners were unwilling to support a small property tax increase to cover the school system's budget. The reasoning was that people wouldn't want to move there if property taxes were higher. A poor school system that isn't open will keep a lot more people out than a slight property tax increase. It is in our society's best interest to have an educated population. Is the system perfect? No, but it's also not past the point of no return, either.

Finally, I can't support a group that hates women.

I think the comparison is apt.

This is probably because for most of the "normal" TPers at the inception, they got what they wanted and went home. The crazy zealots that continue on are in it really as anti-Obama righties. That means they are for anything that is opposite of what Obama is for with the goal of getting him out of office in 2012. Not really the original goals of the Tea Party, but essentially lines up with the goals of the GOP. Little do they know they are cutting of their noses to spite their faces.

Mike Castle, et. al. would agree with you.

I can't believe they've targeted Orrin Hatch.

I can't recall where I read the article, I believe it may have been Washington Post, but it basically said that there has been a decline in hate groups that are being watchdogged because they have all joined the Tea Party. That's how I personally view them.

I have always been a line straddling Independent but I will be voting for President Obama because I too cannot abide the women haters that Republicans have become.

The problem is we don't have politicians that represent the views of the people anymore. Poll after poll show that the majority of Americans are moderates regardless of their political affiliation yet the people keep electing these far left/right radicals to office. Moderate Repubs and Blue Dog Democrats should be the majority in Washington yet their kinds are going extinct it seems.

When I realized I had nothing in common with the Republicans in 2000, I started identifying as an Independent. The self named Conservatives and what now passes as Republicans scare me very, very much. Feminism is not a dirty or liberal word.

True story.

Tea Party is to Republicans as Westboro Baptist Church is to Christianity.

33girl (and other Pennsylvanians), ever wonder what John Heinz would be doing now if not for that terrible accident?

The problem is that it seems like it's only those on the far left or far right that are motivated to vote in primaries. So even if a ton of moderates vote in the general election, the candidates coming out of the primaries are already skewed to the sides.

Although I'd make the argument that Obama's actually a lot closer to the center (even right of center sometimes) than people like to acknowledge because it doesn't play into the Socialist Muslim Immigrant narrative.

Very true.