by Blake Seitz
Many on the Left have tried hard to marginalize and villify the TEA Party, and to distort its aims and goals. They claim Tea Partiers are backwoods hicks or else whitewashed suburbanites; they claim Tea Partiers are uneducated, bigoted, and angry.

For a while, I believed this. I saw a few signs and a few screaming, ruddy-faced activists. I wrote the movement off as populism at its worst, and even conceded that racism might be a motivating factor behind its actions.

No more.

As coverage–and debate–has intensified around the Tea Party, it has become clear to me that the movement’s motives are pure. The Tea Party is fusionism at its finest: libertarians and conservatives speaking out against the abuses of a free-spending government gone off the rails.

Its members are predominantly white (although a few African-American members have made news recently), but no more angry than other left-wing activist groups (Code Pink, anyone? MoveOn.org?); they are also better-educated than the general population as a whole.

Are they seditious? Perhaps (at their worst), but again, no more than left-wing groups. For every Tea Partier calling Obama a socialist, there are several liberals who will call Bush a fascist.

Are they bigoted? There may be a few nuts (what political activist group doesn’t have a few?), but otherwise: unequivocally no. No evidence has emerged that any slurs were shouted against black congressmen–who, it’s worth remembering, have the most to gain from discrediting the movement. Black Tea Partiers confirm they heard no slurs at the health care rallies.

I used to dislike the Tea Party movement–I thought they were an easy target for my more liberal-minded colleague. Now, after watching the movement grow over the last few months, I’ve become proud of it, its cohesion and its message of responsibility and liberty.