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The Tea Party protests were a series of protests throughout the United States that began in early 2009. The protests were part of the larger political Tea Party movement.
Among other events, protests were held on:
Most Tea Party activities have since been focused on opposing efforts of the Obama Administration, and on recruiting, nominating, and supporting candidates for state and national elections.[8][9] The name "Tea Party" is a reference to the Boston Tea Party, whose principal aim was to protest taxation without representation.[10][11] Tea Party protests evoked images, slogans and themes from the American Revolution, such as tri-corner hats and yellow Gadsden "Don't Tread on Me" flags.[3][12] The letters T-E-A have been used by some protesters to form the backronym "Taxed Enough Already".[13]
Commentators promoted Tax Day events on various blogs, Twitter, and Facebook, while the Fox News Channel regularly featured televised programming leading into and promoting various protest activities.[14] Reaction to the tea parties included counter-protests expressing support for the Obama administration, and dismissive or mocking media coverage of both the events and its promoters.[14][15]
The theme of the socialist agenda of Washington."[125]
Some Tea Party organizers have stated that they look to leftist Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals for inspiration. Protesters have also appropriated left-wing imagery; the logo for the March 9/12 on Washington featured a raised fist design that was intended to resemble those used by the pro-labor, anti-war, and black power movements of the 1960s. In addition, the slogan "Keep Your Laws Off My Body", usually associated with pro-choice activists, has been seen on signs at tea parties.[126]
On April 8, 2010, it was announced that the
but they didn't have an explicitly tea-based theme. If they had a theme of any kind it was "pork" and government waste.
Kate Zernike, author of Boiling Mad: Inside Tea Party America, has observed, "Rather than explain it as a fringe of the movement, which they plausibly might have, they argued that the ugliness had never happened. Wasn't it suspicious, they asked, that there was no video of spitting or slurs, in an age when everyone's cell phone has a camera? It was difficult, if not disingenuous, for the Tea Party groups to try to disown the behavior."[146] Politicians from both political parties, black conservative activists and columnists have argued that allegations of racism do not reflect the movement as a whole.[147][148][149][150]
Representative Heath Shuler of North Carolina, who is white, backed up his colleagues, telling the Hendersonville (N.C.) Times-News that he too heard slurs.[140] Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO, corroborated Lewis' version of events during a confrontation with Breitbart at a Harvard Institute of Politics forum by saying, "I watched them spit at people, I watched them call John Lewis the n-word. [...] I witnessed it. I saw it in person. That's real evidence."[143][144][145] One of Representative Anthony Weiner’s staffers reported a stream of hostile encounters with tea partiers roaming the halls of Congress. In addition to mockery, protesters left a couple of notes behind. According to the New York Daily News, one letter "asked what Rahm Emanuel did with Weiner in the shower, in a reference to the mess around ex-Rep Eric Massa. It was signed with a swastika, the staffer said. The other note called the congressman "Schlomo Weiner."[132]
Conservative commentator Andrew Breitbart, who wasn't at the protests,[140] said the incidents reported by Cleaver, Lewis and Carson were fabricated as part of a plan to annihilate the Tea Party movement by all means necessary and that they never actually happened. He offered to donate $10,000 to the United Negro College Fund if Lewis could provide audio or video footage of the slurs, or pass a lie detector test. The amount was later raised to $100,000 for "hard evidence."[140][141][142] In addition, the National Tea Party Federation sent a letter to the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) denouncing racism and requesting that the CBC supply any evidence of the alleged events at the protest.[128]
On March 20, 2010, it was reported that protesters against proposed health care legislation used racial and anti-gay slurs. Gay Congressman John Lewis and his chief of staff, amid chants of "Kill the bill" he heard the "n-word" about fifteen times coming from several places in the crowd: "One guy, I remember he just rattled it off several times. Then John looks at me and says, 'You know, this reminds me of a different time.'"[135][139][140] Congressman Emanuel Cleaver said as he walked several yards behind Lewis, he distinctly heard "nigger", and he was also spat upon by a protester while walking up the stairs of the Cannon Building, although whether the spitting was intentional has been questioned.[135][136][140]
On March 16, 2010, at a Tea Party protest at the Ohio offices of Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy, a counter-protester with Parkinson's disease was berated by one of the protestors and had dollar bills thrown at him with additional protesters also mocking the individual.[134] The man initially denied the incident, but later apologized for his "shameful" actions.[133]
There have been allegations of racism and abusive behavior by Tea Party protesters.[129][130][131][132][133]
[128][127] Tea Party activist Mark Skoda noted the slow response to critics who have charged the protesters with racism, stating: "It took us 72 hours to respond to John Lewis... We're not needing to meet every week. But there will now be a way to have a call to arms to respond to attacks with a crisp and clear message."[127]
On February 4, 2010, the first Tea Party national convention was held in Nashville, attended by 600 people.[121] The convention received broad media coverage as former GOP Vice Presidential Candidate Sarah Palin was the featured speaker. Some tea partiers condemned the event, questioning the main sponsor, Tea Party Nation, a for-profit group, as well as the several hundred dollar ticket price. The former Alaska governor was criticized[122][123] for receiving as much as $100,000 to address the convention.[124]
Using the counts of those in attendance, the march may have been the largest conservative protest ever held in Washington, D.C., as well as the largest demonstration against President Obama's administration to date.[119][120]
On September 12, 2009, Tea Party protests were held in various cities around the nation. In Washington, D.C., Tea Party protests gathered to march from ABC News station had reported attendance of over one million, but he retracted the statement after ABC News denied making any such report.[118]
On July 17, 2009, there were additional Tea Party protests around the nation organized by a group called Tea Party Patriots, this time against President Obama's proposed health care overhaul that they labeled socialized medicine.[115]
A number of Tea Party protests were held the weekend of July 4, 2009, coinciding with Independence Day.[112][113] "The rally followed a national effort that drew thousands of activists to Tea Party events across the country on April 15, 2009 when income taxes are due."[114]
Tea Party rallies continued in various locales around the nation. Many of these events were focused on opposition to state or local taxes and spending, rather than with national issues. Late April saw Tea Parties in Annapolis, Maryland, White Plains, New York,[92] Jackson, Tennessee,[93] and Monroe, Washington.[94] In May, there were six more Tea Party events in Tennessee,[95] New York,[96] Idaho,[97] Ohio,[98] Nevada,[99] and North Carolina.[100] During June 2009, another dozen events were held in North Carolina,[101] California,[102] Rhode Island,[103] Texas,[104] Ohio,[105] Michigan,[106] Montana,[107] Florida,[108] New York,[109] and Washington State.[110] On June 29, 2009, in Nashville, Tennessee, four thousand people rallied against proposed emissions trading (cap and trade) energy in Congress and universal health care.[111]
On April 15, 2009, a Tea Party protest outside the White House was moved after a box of tea bags was hurled over the White House fence. Police sealed off the area and evacuated some people. The Secret Service brought out a bomb-detecting robot, which determined the package was not a threat.[91] Approximately one thousand people had demonstrated, several waved placards saying "Stop Big Government" and "Taxation is Piracy".[2]
[85] Some of the gatherings drew only dozens.[90][89][88] Estimates of protesters and locations varied. [84] April 15, 2009 is said to have been the day that had the largest number of tea party demonstrations reportedly in more than 750 cities.
Also on February 19, Americans for Prosperity. Soon, the "Nationwide Chicago Tea Party" protests were coordinated across over 40 different cities for February 27, 2009, establishing the first national modern Tea Party protest.[82][83]
The following day after Santelli's comments from the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, roughly 50 national conservative leaders participated in a conference call that gave birth to the national Tea Party movement.[77] In response to Santelli, websites such as ChicagoTeaParty.com, registered in August 2008 by Chicago radio producer Zack Christenson, were live within twelve hours.[78] About 10 hours after Santelli's remarks, reTeaParty.com was bought to coordinate Tea Parties scheduled for the 4th of July and within two weeks was reported to be receiving 11,000 visitors a day.[78] However, on the contrary, many scholars are reluctant to label Santelli's remarks the "spark" of the Tea Party considering that a "Tea Party" protest had taken place 3 days before in Seattle, Washington[79] In fact, this had lead many opponents of the Tea Party to define this movement as "astroturfed", but it seems as if Santelli's comments did not "fall on deaf ears" considering that, “the top 50 counties in foreclosure rates played host to over 910 Tea Party protests, about one-sixth of the total”[79]
On February 19, 2009,[53] in a broadcast from the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, CNBC Business News Network editor Rick Santelli loudly criticized the government plan to refinance mortgages as "promoting bad behavior" by "subsidizing losers' mortgages", and raised the possibility of putting together a "Chicago Tea Party in July".[73][74] A number of the traders and brokers around him cheered on his proposal, to the apparent amusement of the hosts in the studio. It was called "the rant heard round the world".[75] Santelli's remarks "set the fuse to the modern anti-Obama Tea Party movement," according to journalist Lee Fang.[76]
[72] By February 20, Malkin was using her nationally syndicated column in an attempt to present these three protests as a movement to her fellow conservatives, continuing to call for more. "There's something in the air," she wrote, "It's the smell of roasted pork."[71] A protest at the Denver Capitol Building was already scheduled to coincide with the bill signing. Malkin reported that it was organized by the conservative advocacy group
Carender contacted conservative author and Fox News contributor Michelle Malkin in order to gain her support and publicize the event. Malkin promoted the protest in several posts on her blog, saying that "There should be one of these in every town in America," and that she would be supplying the crowd with a meal of pulled pork. The protest was held in Seattle on Presidents Day, 2009.[66] Malkin encouraged her readers to stage similar events in Denver on the following day where President Obama was scheduled to sign the stimulus bill into law.
Carendar organized what she called a "Porkulus Protest" on President's Day, a few days before Rick Santelli used the phrase "Tea Party" in what has been characterized as a "rant" broadcast from the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.[64][65]
credits Carender as "one of the first" Tea Party organizers. The Atlantic An article written by Chris Good of [63]
Competing claims have emerged over which protest was actually the first to organize. According to Fort Myers, Florida, calling it the "first protest of President Obama's administration that we know of. It was the first protest of what became the tea party movement."[58] Rakovich, along with six to ten others, protested outside a townhall meeting featuring President Obama and Florida governor Charlie Crist.[59] Interviewed by a local reporter, Rakovich explained that she "thinks the government is wasting way too much money helping people receive high definition TV signals" and that "Obama promotes socialism, although 'he doesn't call it that'".[59] She was invited to appear in front of a national audience on Neil Cavuto's Fox News Channel program Your World.[60] Regarding the role Freedomworks played in the demonstration, Rakovich acknowledged they were involved "right from the start,"[61] and said that in her 21⁄2 hour training session, she was taught how to attract more supporters and was specifically advised not to focus on President Obama.[62]
The dominant theme seen at some of the earliest anti-stimulus protests was "pork" rather than tea.[50] The term "porkulus" was coined by radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh on his January 27, 2009 broadcast,[51] in reference to both the 2009 stimulus bill, which had been introduced to the House of Representatives the day before, as well as to pork barrel spending and earmarks.[52] The term proved very popular with conservative politicians and commentators,[53] who began to unify in opposition against stimulus spending after the 2008 General Election.[54]
On February 11, 2009, talk radio host and Fox Business Network personality Dave Ramsey appeared on Fox and Friends, waving tea bags and saying: "It's time for a Tea Party."[34] He was on the show criticizing the newly confirmed Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner, who that morning had outlined his plan to use the $300 billion or so dollars remaining in the TARP funds.[49]
[48][47] The founder of market-ticker.org,
Forum moderator Stephanie Jasky helped organize the group and worked to "get it to [38]
On January 19, 2009, Graham Makohoniuk, a part-time trader and a member of Ticker Forum, posted a casual invitation on the market-ticker.org forums to "Mail a tea bag to congress and senate,"[35] a tactic that had first been attempted by the Libertarian Party in 1973.[36] The idea quickly caught on with others on the forum, some of whom reported being attracted to the inexpensive, easy way to reach "everyone that voted for the bailout."[37]
[34][33][32]
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