Poisoned Tea Party

As History moves through currents and counter-currents, the liberal movement that carried Barack Obama to the United States’ presidency was a reaction against eight years of George Bush conservatism. But now emerges, each time with more disturbing force, a wave that opposes the airs of liberty, tolerance, and openness that have signified the arrival of a peaceful and democratic black man to the White House.

It would be stupid to deny the power of the demonstration that the extreme right Republicans carried out last Saturday in Washington. Challengers to the symbols — the demonstration was carried out in the same place and on the same day that, forty-seven years ago, the African-American martyr Martin Luther King, Jr., pronounced his most famous speech in support of civil rights — the congregation united between 80,000 and 100,000 citizens, almost all white, that turned out to answer the call of “Restoring the honor of the United States.” The followers of King, outraged, had to organize their celebrations someplace else.

It was an exhibition of the most poisonous right, which composes the sector called the tea party, in memory of the anti-colonial incident that for many North Americans equates to the Colombian florist Llorentes: flags, patriotic hymns, religious and warlike invocations. Promoted by Glenn Beck — an extremist influence, through his Fox television show, on the bible of the extreme right — the demonstration constitutes an appetizer of what could occur in the legislative elections in November. While the directives of the Republican Party are shaky and scatterbrained, the extremist band seems capable of conquering up to five senatorial candidates to confront the aspiring Democrats.

It would be a calamity for the United States if that took place. We’re talking about an irresponsible sector that is capable of saying — and, perhaps, doing — anything. Beck labeled Obama “imam” (religious Muslim leader) and affirms that Obama is not a Christian, that he is “anti-American” and that his goal is to drive the United States to socialism. Among Beck’s supporters is Sarah Palin, the defeated vice-presidential ex-candidate, each time more inflamed with hatred and sectarianism.

The “ideological” catalog of the tea party is simple and foreseeable: the repudiation of the State; almost total freedom to the capital; rule of religion; rejection of immigration; distrust toward blacks, Latinos and other minorities; military arrogance; and patriotic fanaticism. This was the prime subject of the aberrant spectacle on Saturday and it will be that way in some of the elections that will come in November. If the tolerant citizens don’t react, the result could be deplorable.