A Virginia Tea Party activist, Doug Story, who was also active in white nationalist circles pleaded guilty to weapons charges. An investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigations, the Secret Service and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, also revealed a trail of racism and alleged threats against President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder.

On August 17, Douglas Howard Story, 48, of Manassas, Virginia, pleaded guilty to illegally possessing a machine gun in violation of the National Firearms Act. According to court documents, Story came to the attention of law enforcement through a confidential source who saw posts from Story on an Aryan Nations website. These posts indicated that Story was preparing to buy an AK-47 and have it modified to become fully automatic. According to an affidavit, "The conversations and posts were reported to the case agent and show the propensity for hatred and violence toward African Americans, Jewish Americans, other minorities and a number of political figures."

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords had been a target long before an assassination attempt that left six dead and fourteen wounded. In 2010, her congressional office in Tucson was vandalized soon after an Alabama militiameister called for Democratic Party windows to broken, as Mother Jones journalist James Ridgeway recalled. A gun was dropped at a Douglas, Arizona town hall meeting on health care reform Giffords held in August 2009. Sarah Palin targeted her district with a gun sight cross hairs (err, landscaping symbol) during the last election cycle. (Robert DePugh's 1960s-era Minutemen used to send their opponents a set of crosshairs in the mail, with an ominous 'We Are Watching You" business card.) Asked who his daughter's enemies were, Giffords' father identified "the whole Tea Party."

Tea Party group now called the Patriot Action Network

Peter Gemma, a resident of a Sarasota, Florida, is a Tea Partier signed up to the ResistNet Tea Party faction. Gemma is also a professional white nationalist. He served as head of Design, Marketing, and Advertising for the white nationalist Council of Conservative Citizens newsletter, the Citizens Informer.

Mauldin, South Carolina resident Roan Garcia-Quintana is involved in several local Tea Party groups and is registered as member on the ResistNet Tea Party faction website. [1] The Cuba-born activist who runs a group called the Americans Have Had Enough Coalition served as “advisor and media spokesman” for the 2010 Tax Day Tea Party rally in Greenville, South Carolina. [2]

In addition to his Tea Party activities, Garcia-Quintana recently joined the National Board of Directors of the Council of Conservative Citizens (CofCC), the largest white nationalist group in the country.

A quick-view guide to the relationships between the various national Tea Party factions.

The Revolutionary War-era costumes, the yellow “Don’t tread on me” Gadsden flags from the same era, the earnest recitals of the pledge of allegiance, the over-stated veneration of the Constitution, and the defense of “American exceptionalism” in a world turned towards transnational economies and global institutions: all are signs of the over-arching nationalism that helps define the Tea Party movement.

It is a form of American nationalism, however, that does not include all Americans, and separates itself from those it regards as insufficiently “real Americans.” Consider in this regard, a recent Tea Party Nation Newsletter article entitled, “Real Americans Did Not Sue Arizona.” Or the hand-drawn sign at a Tea Party rally that was obviously earnestly felt. “I am a arrogant American, unlike our President, I am proud of my country, our freedom, our generosity, no apology from me.”