Teabaggers keep pushing their hands farther into the racial fire

Thomas Frank, the author of What's The Matter With Kansas, examines the tea party movement and it's paranoid contradictions:

Huff Post

Not too long ago, Kansas would have responded to the current situation by making the bastards pay. This would have been a political certainty, as predictable as what happens when you touch a match to a puddle of gasoline. When business screwed the farmers and the workers--when it implemented monopoly strategies invasive beyond the Populists' furthest imaginings--when it ripped off shareholders and casually tossed thousands out of work--you could be damned sure about what would follow.
Not these days. Out here the gravity of discontent pulls in only one direction: To the right, to the right, further to the right. Strip today's Kansans of their job security, and they head out to become registered Republicans. Push them off their land and next thing you know they're protesting in front of abortion clinics. Squander their life savings on manicures for the CEO and there's a good chance they'll join the John Birch Society. But ask them about the remedies their ancestors proposed--unions, antitrust, public ownership--and you might as well be referring to the days when knighthood was in flower.

So if it's not jobs, and land and health pushing them to the tea parties, what could it be?


There's also the less kinder view