Hail the conquering teabagger

The day after tens of thousands (perhaps 300,000 all told in what could be a generous estimate) of Americans teabagged with total strangers,the right is desperate to portray this as some great mass movement. A sign that, to quote the great Twisted Sister that prompted awful singalongs at at least one gathering, we're not gonna take it. That the nation has buyers remorse about electing Barack Hussein Obama X as president. A sign that there's something happening here ... something more than a bunch of corporate-sponsored rallies by people driven to turn out by the equivalent of tens of millions in free advertising via Fox News, talk radio, et al.

Charlie Sykes was twisting his lying tongue on Thursday to drive that message. And given his talking points are the same that will be repeated coast to coast, they're worth examining.

1. "Conservatives don't do protests." That is, of course, not true. Conservatives do protest all the time. Particularly if they're sponsored by corporations or right-wing interest groups. Off the top of my head, I can think of massive anti-immigration rallies, the AFP's 2007 FAIL rally in Madison last year, pro-Iraq War rallies (that denounced anti-war protesters -- who, btw,were fucking right -- as being anti-American), anti-Dixie Chicks rallies sponsored by ClearChannel affiliates, not to mention anti-abortion rights marches in DC or protests elsewhere.

2. "Many of today's protesters have never done this before." Charlie was pushing this line. Why? Because it's a clear counterpoint to the phenomenon in the 2008 presidential election that saw tens of thousands of people who had never been engaged in politics before sign on with the Obama campaign and knock on doors, make phone calls, do whatever they could to get the man elected to (and, I think this aspect is underplayed, keep the Republican nominee out of) the White House. And to be sure, there probably were thousands of people who turned out on Wednesday who'd never been at a political rally. But the fact that Charlie had to explicitly encourage these people to call in -- which in and of itself suggests that point one was less than true -- suggests that most of the teabaggers are people who are prone to get together with total strangers for a good conservative time.

3. "Don't listen to the mainstream media's coverage because they hate you." A numerically unimpressive number of Americans show up to corporate-sponsored rallies (look here if you want to see a crowd), get coverage way out of proportion to attendance, and still it ain't good enough. Exhibit A for Charlie's victimization routine was this CNN bit:

   Now, clearly the reporter was on edge and could have done the interview a bit more professionally. That said, anyone hailing Lincoln as an opponent of taxation is a dumbass (yes, I'm looking at you, Scott Walker). And I'm fairly certain the reporter was encountering a fair bit of abuse just for being from CNN before this snippet. Oh, and before this snippet was taken she was talking to some dude who said Obama was a fascist and had a placard with Obama in full-on Nazi gear. Strangely Chuck didn't post this video:

In the end, that taste in teabaggers' mouths is not victory but fail. But the Chief told them that before they left their homes.

Comments

[Brian H.]

Another "half-post" by Sykes where he took only the parts he felt relevant, chewed them up and spit them onto his radio show and blog. The remains were very quickly devoured by his pathetic flock of voltures who hang on his every ridiculous, nasaly word.

This guy is the absolute worst kind of Republican. He CANNOT have an objective argument on any topic as it relates to praising the right, bashing the left and all that's in between. It is a very thin line between: Republican = Good and Democrat = Bad.

And it's pathetic.