Tea Party Nation, the fourth largest national Tea Party faction with 42,100 online members, continues to move towards an explicit expression of white nationalism.  The group has already been widely criticized for its proposal to deny voting rights for those citizens who do not own property, and for promoting anti-gay bullying.  It has asserted that “American culture” will soon perish since the “White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) population is headed for extinction.”[1]  Now, taking it one step further, Tea Party Nation is defending the now defunct and indefensibly racist National Origins Act of 1924.

By now the Democratic Party's hoopla about winning a seat from this staunchly Republican district has died down.  With the smell of victory in their noses, how can you fault anyone for thinking that pro-Medicare politics defeated the let-them-eat-cake program of the Republicans.  A quick look at the numbers, however, should be cause for a more sober assessment.

Now that President Obama has attempted to quell the surge of birtherism by providing a copy of his oft-requested long form-birth certificate, will that satisfy the birthers? Will they go away now?

Nope.

Long before President Obama released his long-form birth certificate, Tea Party leaders and other birthers had already concocted outlandish new twists on birther racism.  Clumsily forged Kenyan birth certificates, failed lawsuits, cries of conspiracy, and the cottage industry of birther books and videos have popped up in the last few years.  Indeed, leading birther activists have invented an incomprehensible array of bogus arguments and convinced themselves that a black man could not possibly be president of the United States.  Now, they are not going down without a fight.

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Many pundits were quick to pronounce the Tea Party movement dead after failing to stop the passage of health care legislation. Conventional wisdom also held that the bigoted and violent behavior displayed by Tea Partiers over the weekend would negatively impact their growth. Let’s examine the data before we begin drafting a Tea Party obituary.

Instead of membership going flat or declining, online membership in each of the different national Tea Party factions has continued to rise. In fact, several factions experienced sharp increases in the last week.

Tea Party Patriots and Tea Party Nation failed to push the government into a shutdown.  They did succeed, however, in driving the Republican leadership close to the brink.  In so doing, the Tea Party movement as a whole can justly claim to have turned the public debate toward a discussion of how large the budget cuts should be. Desperately needed policy proposals for jobs programs, by comparison, were pushed to sidelines.

 

As if Tea Party Nation founder Judson Phillips’ embrace of the “birther” position and his support for restricting voting rights of non-property owners weren't enough, now his national Tea Party faction appears to be moving closer towards the embrace of full-fledged white nationalism.

Nashville - The rancor and division among Tea Partiers that erupted in the weeks leading up to the first Tea Party National Convention were nowhere to be found inside the expansive biosphere-like confines of the Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center. Squabbles set aside, at least for the moment, the real business of the February 4-7 convention was three-fold: culture warring, movement building, and campaign winning.

The news just keeps getting worse for the Tea Party Nation Convention. Following on the heels of several organizations cancelling their sponsorships, today both Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-MN) and Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) announced today they are pulling out of the controversial convention scheduled for Nashville next weekend.

Just when you thought they were out, they jump right back in…

As quickly as one anti-immigrant group extricates itself from the Tea Party Nation convention, another one jumps in to fill the gap.

In sign of growing dissention surrounding the upcoming National Tea Party Nation Convention in Nashville, sources confirm that the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) has officially pulled out of the convention.

Initially enthusiastic about the event, a source tells IREHR that in the second week of January FAIR abandoned the convention over concern that the for-profit status of the Tea Party Nation could jeopardize FAIR’s 501c3 non-profit status. FAIR staff also reportedly expressed anxiety about the possibility of funds from the convention being funneled to political candidates.