Tea Party Antics

Now that the Obama/Democratic health care plan has passed, what are the Tea Party fanatics going to do—start shooting members of congress?

On Saturday, Tea Party fanatics had their finest day. They finally demonstrated their true colors, reaching the pinnacle of their immaturity. They spit on one congressmen, called others niggers, and shouted homophobic slurs at still another.

It was quite a demonstration of the temper tantrums that have identified their antics from the beginning. There’s nothing left now but throwing themselves on the ground and flaying their extremities in all directions.

Frankly, I wish they’d do that because as parents know when a child does that to embarrass you when you’re out in public, the best response is simply to walk away. That should have been the response to the Tea Party children on day one. Ignore them. Why treat them seriously when they have no true understanding of how they believe government works? And they certainly don’t have a clue about what constitutes socialism.

The guns are another matter and certainly a further suggestion of their retarded development. During the summer, Tea Party infants attended town hall meetings, toting guns along with them. Under what circumstances did they believe they needed to be armed? Did they believe that liberals were about to shoot them? Or was it–as I have feared from the days they first raised their ugly heads–that in their total intolerance of others and ignorance of facts they felt the need to kill the messenger?

That’s, of course, what frightens me the most: children with guns. Aged Tea Party followers—many of them on Medicare and Social Security—acting like their favorite toys are about to be taken away. I’ve heard them scream on TV, “Don’t spend my tax money on someone else.”

It’s a toxic mix: selfish children, armed to the teeth, screaming their bigoted heads off, while the adults around them wait for them to grow up.

CHARLES R. LARSON is Professor of Literature at American University, in Washington, D.C.

WORDS THAT STICK

Charles R. Larson is Emeritus Professor of Literature at American University, in Washington, D.C. Email = clarson@american.edu. Twitter @LarsonChuck.