Tea Party Notes
Today I observed a Tea Party rally for about 40 minutes in Hackensack, NJ.
The rally was very much about getting conservatives elected – speakers emphasized this, and signs had this electoral bent to them. Liberals, progressives, and “Marxists” were clearly the enemy. The Founders were idolized.
Signs that I observed were mostly about taxes, “socialism,” and government spending (mostly related to social programs). I saw one “No More Bailouts” sign. A number of signs referenced 2010 elections and “We the People” taking control of the government. I saw US flags, Gadsden flags, and one Three Percenter flag.
The only references to war and the military (a big portion of government spending) that I noticed were people wearing military veteran shirts and hats.
Campaign for Liberty folks had a table and literature, some of which I saw being distributed by a woman carrying a sign about how much money illegal immigrants cost NJ taxpayers. Instead of highlighting the costs of war and other security state programs ( “a non-interventionist foreign policy” was mentioned on one flyer but no details were there), they had literature that was generally Constitution-oriented, anti-Federal Reserve, and one flyer advocating Ron Paul’s bill to overturn Roe v. Wade. CL, at least this chapter, is looking for a niche as a conservative, not a libertarian organization, which is not surprising because that was Ron Paul’s position all along.
The event was not completely anti-immigrant – at least one of the speakers was a Russian immigrant with a noticeable accent. She gave a rosy picture of 1917 Russia – there was “an expanding middle class” – before the Communists took over.
A number of people were wearing National Rifle Association attire.
An overall Christian affiliation was presented. The opening speaker proudly declared he was a Creationist, and there were a number of handouts with a religious right perspective.
The crowd was not exclusively white, but was noticeably whiter than the general populace I observed in the streets surrounding the rally. I would guess that average age would be solidly middle age.
A 16 year old conservative speaker proudly stated that he refused to watch An Inconvenient Truth when his public school class showed it. He then proceeded to comment on the film that he refused to watch before blasting liberals for not listening to anything that counters their views. Unless I heard wrong, he said “God bless” governor Christie, which resulted in lots of applause.
I’ve got to get better at crowd counting – I’m guessing 50-100 people were there (see pics below).
One CBS news van was present.
Click to enlarge the scans and photos:
Related:
The Nineties Called. They Want Their Poser-lution Back
