BY MARK MECKLER
Feb. 24, 2017
“Eight years ago, a new president took office who scared the living daylights out of thousands of people who’d never been politically active before,” Molly Ball writes in The Atlantic. “Sound familiar?”
No, actually, it doesn’t. Ball and other liberals are fond of comparing the Tea Party and the anti-Trump hysterics who like to burn vehicles, dress up like genitalia, and assault conservatives.
“Today, a new movement—loosely dubbed ‘the resistance’—has suddenly arisen in visceral reaction to Donald Trump’s election as president, with thousands taking to the streets,” Ball writes, before hilariously adding: “For those who remember the Tea Party, it feels like deja vu.”
For those who remember it? I’ve got news for you, Molly. We’re still here and not anything like your various movements. No matter what shiny name leftists slap on themselves from day to day – Antifa, Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, Women’s March, Indivisible, etc. – we’re not you, and you can never be us.
Here are just seven reasons why:
1. The Tea Party challenges the Republican Party to become better; the Resistance is all about partisanship.
The Tea Party Movement has never been about opposition to a party or one political figure. We are comprised of the forgotten man and woman against those that truly wish to forget us, if not eradicate us. That’s why the movement has ultimately resulted in so many primary victories against Republicans, up to and including one of the most powerful Republicans in Congress at the time: Eric Cantor.
Though it resulted in the takeover of Congress by Republicans, that was never the aim. The aim is to clean up the Republican Party, which has abandoned our values. The Resistance is the traditional, tired old opposition politics… one group of party loyalists vs. the other party.
2. The Tea Party Movement is grassroots; the “Resistance” is Astroturf.
When I joined the Tea Party movement and helped create Tea Party Patriots, I knew just about nothing about politics. I joined with other people sick of the status quo and tried to make our country better. The new Resistance is made of professional protestors (as embarrassingly demonstrated when Craig’s List ads offered money to show up to protest).
Also, the Resistance has published and distributed manuals, scripts, playbooks for their professional agitators according to the New York Post:
The manual, published with OFA partner “Indivisible,” advises protesters to go into halls quietly so as not to raise alarms, and “grab seats at the front of the room but do not all sit together.” Rather, spread out in pairs to make it seem like the whole room opposes the Republican host’s positions. “This will help reinforce the impression of broad consensus.” It also urges them to ask “hostile” questions — while keeping “a firm hold on the mic” — and loudly boo the GOP politician if he isn’t “giving you real answers.”
Anyone who’s spent ten minutes at a Tea Party rally knows this is never how we’d conduct ourselves. Which brings me to…
3. The Tea Party is not violent.
The “resistance” has a distinctly leftist, fascist element of violence, threats and property destruction. The media, of course, describes the protests as “mostly peaceful.” Imagine the coverage if the tea party protestors had broken so much as a tea cup, let alone blocked streets, physically assaulted Democrats, or trashed college campuses.
May I also remind you that when Tea Partiers protested, there was no vulgarity, they were safe for children, our speakers never had to be bleeped out when on the news, we all kept our clothes on, we didn’t burn anything down, there were no windows left smashed, and we took our signs and trash with us when we left.
4. The Tea Party isn’t comprised of millennial crybabies upset at a single politician.
We’re aware the federal government is too large but we also know that corruption extends beyond one politician. Our mission was never to overthrow anyone, but to remind everyone real power rests in the hands of the citizens.
5. The Tea Party utilizes free speech; the anti-Trump resistance squelches it.
The new Democratic Party – a coalition of the media, arts and leftist ruling elite – silences the speech of its political enemies. Correction, violent intimidation is not only considered “okay,” it’s considered a part of the new fascist toolkit. If they disagree, they label the statement “hate speech.” They deem all manner of censorship and violence acceptable to fight such speech.
At Berkeley, when provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos’ planned speech turned violent, rioters dressed in black attacked people and set things aflame. National Review described these guys as those who were armed with bats, Molotov cocktails, and other weapons, hid their identities, and moved “as a group to attack people, destroy property, and intimidate the public.”
This is not about a policy battle, Congress, the Supreme Court, or even the President. It is about silencing, marginalizing, and stigmatizing those who disagree.
6. The Tea Party was attacked by the government even though they broke no laws; the Resistance is never even properly investigated by the media.
The most underreported scandal of the Obama administration is how it used an arm of the government – the IRS – to silence the largest grassroots movement of Americans during a contentious Presidential campaign season. The IRS admitted at the highest levels to targeting, harassing and intimidating tea party, Christian, pro-Israel and other conservative groups, effectively undermining our ability to express ourselves and freely participate in the democratic process.
The Resistance gets a free pass in the culture and the media. Journalists assume they are a grassroots, “we the people” organization even though the most prominent examples are Hollywood celebrities and paid protestors. Come to think of it, the media didn’t even report on the IRS abuse against Tea Partiers.
7. The Tea Party is about love and respect; the Resistance is about hatred and contempt.
“Love” trumping hate involves a lot more assault and arson than you might think, am I right?
The Tea Party is about love of God, country, and neighbor. It’s respect for the rule of law, individual rights, freedom of speech, and law enforcement. We don’t force everyone to adhere to certain rigid principles, but welcome anyone who believed this nation has strayed from its founding principles.
The Resistance is animated by hate and disrespect. They hate America, those with whom they disagree, and “white people.” They disrespect the rule of law, individual rights, freedom of speech, and law enforcement. The resistance takes aim at anyone on their side who strays, deterring collaboration and compromise through intimidation and ostracism.
In other words, one side wants to protect the nation by popularizing the Constitution and our founding principles. The other wants to change the nation by apparently disregarding the First Amendment rights of others while questioning the founding principles on which our nation was built.
Far from being similar, these two groups show just how distant from each other Americans have actually grown.
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