This is fascinating to me and i'm grateful to be given a run down of the origins of the Tea Party. How and when would you say the Tea Party went from it's libertarian roots to what we see today? Was it just the aggressive foreign policy republicans joining and changing the discourse of the Tea Party movement? I've been reading a lot about the tea party of late and it's tough to get a proper picture of it coming from abroad as I wasn't entirely aware of it during the time.
glad i can shed some light on this for you. many here can tell you the same story i am going to say as they witnessed it to. id have to say the change from original intent to the shit you see today started in 2009. glen beck was one of the first to pretend he was a tea party guy and that he had done all he could to be a real freedom lover. he would go out of his way to trash ron paul, but then the very next day he would say the same things ron was saying and NEVER give credit to him, yet act as though HE himself said these things. the first real attempt of BS came on becks show when he was at a tea party rally, (right as the average person started being aware of it) and had ted nugent there as a guest playing his guitar. the show was good, but unless you knew the true way and intent of most of those people in the audience, an average person might think this was all new (in 2009) and that beck was always like this.
then during this same time frame, shawn hannity, rush limbaugh, and major GOP war hawks started pretending to be tea party as well. it was literally just a few weeks later that our original intent was so watered down by the talking heads on TV and in the government, that it no longer was true to the meaning of real freedom, yet was now a hollow, fake, war hawk in disguise beauty pageant for any politician or media guy to grab onto and the general masses never knew the difference.
i remember around 2011 some media guy said the tea party started in 2009 with some politician i cant recall their name atm....but i was so furious when i heard that because not only was it not true, but the hosts of the show and their staff and the news station as a whole, knew better, yet chose to further ignore the name of ron paul. and it isnt about rons name being ignored as much as it is, them taking credit away and rewriting history so they can use it for the establishments agenda.
its so funny to me that romney, huntsman, huckabee, santorum and many others will say they are for the tea party, knowing full well how it started, yet they were the very ones who lied cheated and stole to burry the real meaning of it to further themselves. the only one in that group who ran in 2008-2012, who can kinda claim tea party leanings is michelle bachmann. BUT in short time, she revealed her true colors and turned on ron and the message. ron actually scolded her in a live debate once over bombing iran. i felt bad for him because you could tell he didnt like doing that, but he had to tell the truth. and oh yeah, ron actually helped bachmann get elected a few years before this, so once again, she knew better than to turn on him.
but by the time 2010 rolled around, man y in the original movement, like myself, pulled out. the message wasnt the same. it wasnt the same thanks to the gop and media taking it over for their own gain.
in the beginning, when i saw a dont tread on me car tag or bumper sticker, most times i always knew they were one of us. we would always wave or honk. it was a rush. then around 2009, that changed as well. now that snake is just a generalized symbol of "something cool" just like having a magnetic ribbon on your car for "whatever is cool right now".
quote me on all of this anywhere you see fit to paste it. this is a true version of what i saw. it would be nice to have others read just one persons view point.