Tea Partiers are right. Threats to America are real, but they don’t have much to do with political parties or presidential administrations.
This is exceedingly clear when a severe anti-immigrant law is passed in Arizona that puts individual rights at risk, yet the most newsworthy tea party activity was eviscerating a Republican senator at a tea party rally in South Carolina.
Last week many around the country watched in horror as SB 1070, a bill that gives sweeping power to local law enforcement to racially profile Arizona communities, passed state legislature and was signed into law by Governor Jan Brewer. The bill that Gov. Brewer just signed makes it a misdemeanor to lack proper paperwork in Arizona. It also requires police officers to attempt to determine a person’s immigration status if they form a “reasonable suspicion” that someone is undocumented. In Arizona, residents, especially those of color, now live in fear of the police.
By creating laws meant to find and flush out a portion of the population, Arizona has created an atmosphere reminiscent of past political regimes that the U.S. considered enemies. Shouldn’t that concern Tea Party patriots more than so-called “socialized” health care? After all, some of the greatest sacrifices by Americans over the past 70 years involved fighting threats to democracy during World War II.
Even President Obama was concerned enough to chime in, saying the law “threatens to undermine basic notions of fairness that we cherish as Americans, as well as the trust between police and their communities that is so crucial to keeping us safe.”
It didn’t seem to concern any of the tea party groups that have been rallying around the country lately. And it sure didn’t concern anti-immigrant leaders like William Gheen who have jumped neatly on the tea party/patriot platform.
According to Neal Rubin’s blog at the Detroit News, Gheen “somehow connected the dots between Graham’s sexuality and his attempt to work with the White House to come up with a workable immigration bill. By “sexuality,” I mean Gheen boldly stated that Graham is gay, which Graham has said he is not. Then Gheen suggested that the reason Graham does not foam at the mouth about immigration in the manner of, say, William Gheen, is that he’s being blackmailed.”
Morris Davis wrote on Huffington Post,
“It’s disappointing to see groups like ALIPAC and the Tea Party Patriots try to stake a false claim to patriotism. The motto of Gheen’s organization is “fight back with ALIPAC,” but it appears the only fighting Gheen’s a veteran of is a verbal ambush of his own making on a career military officer. Gheen never served a day defending the country as a member of the armed forces (another PINO – Patriot In Name Only) while Senator Graham has been a member of the U.S. Air Force for 28 years. It’s one thing to talk the talk like Gheen, but Senator (Colonel) Graham has walked the walk in defense of America.”
These sometimes bizarre parallels aren’t confined to the Southwest and South. In the nation’s capitol on April 16, a run-of-the-mill gun rights rally got complicated when another group of activists conducted an armed rally not too far away in Northern Virginia. The armed group wasn’t just out to advocate for the right to bear arms, it was there to encourage arming oneself in defense of liberty.
According to the Washington Post, the primary coordinator of the event was motivated to have the alternative rally because “he is upset about health-care reform, climate control, bank bailouts, drug laws and what he sees as President Obama’s insistence on and the Democratic Congress’s capitulation to a ‘totalitarian socialism’ that tramples individual rights.”
Meanwhile, a few days earlier, an Oklahoma Tea Party group announced plans to work with state-level legislators to create a citizen-manned militia to combat the federal government.
It seems what was a few troubling areas of far right extremism dotting the nation has grown into a full-blown cancer that is quickly spreading.
In the Pacific Northwest activity by long dormant white nationalist groups is escalating at a rapid rate. According to an article by Eric Ward in The Oregonian, Oregon’s communities successfully united to counter white power groups 20 years ago, yet
“Oregon neglected to remain vigilant, and the cost has been real. Now hate crimes are on the rise, from 137 in 2005 to 187 in 2008, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. White nationalist organizations are once again active, and history shows they will target minority communities and those who dare to oppose organized bigotry. Today too little attention is being paid by community leaders to the hatred rising again within its midst.”
This is a wise warning not just for Oregon, but for communities across the nation that are seeing far right activity laced with violent rhetoric. It can be confusing to make sense of it all, especially when even traditional conservatives are under attack. This at least is a good reminder that hatred has the ability to cross many boundaries.
The only thing we can be sure of is if it sounds, looks, and feels hateful, it probably is.