re: #696 J.S.

I have not, obviously, attended a Tea Party (seeing as how I’m in Canada). thus all info is from first-hand, or second-hand accounts..to my knowledge there has been no “survey data” (conducted independently ) to verify the demographics of who actually attended….In so far as who’s behind the Tea Paty protests, I’ve read from a Wiki artilce that “The Tea Party protests have been guided by a leadership team of 27 conservative-leaning political and media figures.” (perhaps not all of these groups are OK? perhaps some are definitely fringe? but at what point is the whole thing discounted?)

Some of them are not Ok, I don’t see HJTA as terrible, but there are a lot of Paleos involved in the movement. We need to note that as it passes. Most of the people who vote for VB are ok, and not tribal nationalists, but on the other hand you have to disagree with their leadership’s real rather than stated aims.

You don’t see Republicans as a group out for demonstrations very often, and especially not in off election years. When you do you have to look at who’s whipping the populist froth behind the scenes. I agree that others are taking this as an advantage to recruit, notice that Code Pink has also showed up at some of these. They recognize opportunity in populist angst when they see it.