Guest Column: Birth of the Tea Party by David Hale

Friends and other gentle readers ... I have a meeting to attend today, so I am posting this guest column, complements of David Hale, organizer of the Rockford Tea Party. David has been a tireless worker for the cause and has been in the trenches for several years. This is my way of saying "THANK YOU, DAVID!" On the eve of this very important election, your work is very much appreciated!

The Birth of the Tea Party

By David Hale

The Tea Party started. Yes, there was a rant heard round the world by TV commentator Rick Santelli, little-known outside the financial world, on of all channels CNBC -- one of the hated, reviled media outlets that conservatives had been deriding for years. It’s what made the moment even more glorious and literally revolutionary; that one of their own would turn on them and bite. In that Revolutionary and Glorious moment that shot some sense back into millions of Americans, many in the Tea Party movement had already been stirring in the quiet of their homes, over drinks in bars and on AM Radio stations on every back road across America. The moment was actually a crescendo of years and years of what many people felt was abuse from our Publicly Elected and 4th-rail, self-appointed establishment wannabe media power brokers.

George Bush just happened to be the man against whom we directed all that energy. It only escalated under Barack Obama. It would have happened if it were Hillary. It may have even happened if it were McCain. But it happened to be the eloquently-speaking and very attractive, almost Leave-it-to-Beaver type guy that we came to discover is anything but an All-American, “let’s have a Budwiser over wings” type American. But nobody accedes to that level of power without being smarter than hell and craftier than a Missouri Quilter. That person has to be every identifiable American character, to include the Beave, a Rothschild, a Clinton, a Mr. Smith. Wise as a serpent. Innocent as a dove. He seemed to be. We have come to find he espoused the most radical agenda Americans have yet encountered. Was it by some conspiratorial pre-plan or because this man truly believes in Socialism?

For two years now the media has loved the Tea Party and hated the Tea Party, and a symbiotic relationship drove them both forward. And though the Tea Party would exist without the media, it certainly gained steam because of the media. In fact, the Tea Party never expected the media to pay it this close attention. This is a major reason why the Tea Party has almost as many enemies as it does participants, adding to that old adage that “There is no bad press,” or “All press is good press.”

With people literally marching in the streets, the media was stunned that people who had thus far kept a safe distance from government, calling into radio stations and venting or occupying their Lazy Boy chairs yelling at the TV, would actually have the temerity to challenge the government and put tension on the institutions that are built up to maintain order. To add to their confusion, the people were marching -- not hiding in alleys or merely planting signs in their front yards. They were actually forming like an army in very public places and taking their marches to government seats of power, In-Your-Face fashion. How could they? Only radicals are allowed to do that, rioting on the streets of Seattle, or the streets of Anywhere, USA, or at G8 Summits where gas masks are issued as part of the gift packages that participants receive to stave off the effects of tear gas being lobbed at rioting Anarchists and would-be anti-war protestors.

Those first Tea Parties were anxious days. The buildup the media had done actually backfired. Instead of rioting and looting and destroying as was predicted, we were talking and actually making sense. They expected riots and tear gas and racists running around in white sheets, but what they got was innovative, creative sign-making, fathers and children and pregnant women with their toddlers in baby carriages and baby boomers dressed up like a shot from a scene from Back to the Future in Revolutionary War-Era costumes. The reality was that while the media had built up the Tea Party as a bunch of disgruntled but raving lunatic-fringe racists, we were actually people that closely resembled their parents, their wives and their children. But while that original media narrative lingers, the mud they threw didn’t.

Over and over, the Tea Party has shocked the media and laid waste to their pre-built, fabricated-for-TV perceptions. The Tea Party has thwarted the media’s effort to create perception, becoming a finely tuned grassroots organization that has proven that the American People who make up the Tea Party are much more media-savvy than the media is. Every time people in the media attempted to paint the Tea Party with broad strokes, the Tea Party has washed clean that painted perception. That has happened since day one.

We didn’t riot. We didn’t need masks for tear gas, and we didn’t carry Molotov cocktails. We looked nothing like the left wing rioters that pop up at G8 Summits around the world. We even cleaned up our mess when we left. The media has yet to figure us out and has yet to paint an accurate picture of who we are. That is actually not their fault. They cannot paint that picture because they cannot figure out that we are made up of every kind of people, and every iteration of humanity you can imagine. We are Americans.