How the Tea Party went from political movement to pyramid scheme

[Jose Fly]

How We Killed the Tea Party

The article is written by an insider who worked for Tea Party organizations and contains some fascinating information. It starts off...

The Tea Party movement is pretty much dead now, but it didn’t die a natural death. It was murdered—and it was an inside job. In a half decade, the spontaneous uprising that shook official Washington degenerated into a form of pyramid scheme that transferred tens of millions of dollars from rural, poorer Southerners and Midwesterners to bicoastal political operatives.

And how did they do this?

What began as an organic, policy-driven grass-roots movement was drained of its vitality and resources by national political action committees that dunned the movement’s true believers endlessly for money to support its candidates and causes. The PACs used that money first to enrich themselves and their vendors and then deployed most of the rest to search for more “prospects.” In Tea Party world, that meant mostly older, technologically unsavvy people willing to divulge personal information through “petitions”—which only made them prey to further attempts to lighten their wallets for what they believed was a good cause.

So it did begin as a true political movement, but then...

Republicans inside the Beltway reacted to the burgeoning Tea Party with glee but uncertainty about how to channel the grass-roots energy usually reserved for the left. A small group of supposedly conservative lawyers and consultants saw something different: dollar signs. The PACs found anger at the Republican Party sells very well.

And what did they do with the money they collected?

In 2014, the Tea Party Patriots group spent just 10 percent of the $14.4 million it collected actually supporting candidates, with the rest going to consultants and vendors and Martin’s hefty salary of $15,000 per month; in all, she makes an estimated $450,000 a year from her Tea Party-related ventures.

It's a good article and well worth reading.

 

[aCultureWarrior]

How We Killed the Tea Party

The article is written by an insider who worked for Tea Party organizations and contains some fascinating information. It starts off...

Keep in mind Mr. Fly that there are two factions of the Tea Party movement:

The godless Libertarian faction and the social conservative. The secular humanist faction is still going strong and the social conservative movement is as well, as seen in Ted Cruz's Presidential run.

It appears that your article is stating that money has been mismanaged? I highly doubt that will "kill" either of the Tea Party movements.

 

[Jose Fly]

Huh. I'll have to tell all the Libertarians I know that they are "godless". Should come as quite a surprise.

 

[Nick M]

He said nothing about them being hell bound a surprise. The Tea Party is the grass roots, and we are going no where.

 

[Crucible]

I never took the Tea Party seriously, so it doesn't really matter to me. The best thing about it was it's name- they took the best political name ever and went under :AMR:

 

[aCultureWarrior]

Huh. I'll have to tell all the Libertarians I know that they are "godless". Should come as quite a surprise.

Why do you think that they became Libertarians in the first place (they're their own 'god').

http://www.lp.org/platform

Back to the two different factions of the Tea Party movement.

Libertarian Roots of the Tea Party.
http://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/libertarian-roots-tea-party

Social Conservatives Lead the Tea Party
http://aclj.org/us-constitution/social-conservatives-lead-the-tea-party

It's always a pleasure to edjumacate you Mr. Fly.

 

[Jose Fly]

I'm thinking of all those Tea Party supporters who gave money and signed petitions, only to have it turn out to be a big scam to take their money and sell their personal information.

I see the same dynamic at play in many of the right-wing Christian radio programs around my area. A good example are the hosts who go on and on about how everything's going to be terrible soon, everyone will be forced to fend for themselves, and Christians will face horrible persecution.....

....and then during the breaks the hosts sell their listeners freeze-dried food, water purification systems, gold, "Biblical seeds", and the like. I honestly think if an otherwise normal, sane person can't see the obvious scam going on, they deserve to be parted with their money.

 

[Jose Fly]

Why do you think that they became Libertarians in the first place (they're their own 'god').

http://www.lp.org/platform

I'm looking for the part where they declare themselves to be "their own god" and I can't find it. Can you quote that part?

 

[aCultureWarrior]

I'm looking for the part where they declare themselves to be "their own god" and I can't find it. Can you quote that part?

As Libertarians, we seek a world of liberty; a world in which all individuals are sovereign over their own lives and no one is forced to sacrifice his or her values for the benefit of others.

...Consequently, we defend each person’s right to engage in any activity that is peaceful and honest, and welcome the diversity that freedom brings. The world we seek to build is one where individuals are free to follow their own dreams in their own ways, without interference from government or any authoritarian power


...We hold that all individuals have the right to exercise sole dominion over their own lives, and have the right to live in whatever manner they choose, so long as they do not forcibly interfere with the equal right of others to live in whatever manner they choose.
http://www.lp.org/platform

I bet that you didn't know that you're a Libertarian did you Mr. Fly?

 

[Jose Fly]

As Libertarians, we seek a world of liberty; a world in which all individuals are sovereign over their own lives and no one is forced to sacrifice his or her values for the benefit of others.

...Consequently, we defend each person’s right to engage in any activity that is peaceful and honest, and welcome the diversity that freedom brings. The world we seek to build is one where individuals are free to follow their own dreams in their own ways, without interference from government or any authoritarian power


...We hold that all individuals have the right to exercise sole dominion over their own lives, and have the right to live in whatever manner they choose, so long as they do not forcibly interfere with the equal right of others to live in whatever manner they choose.
http://www.lp.org/platform

I bet that you didn't know that you're a Libertarian did you Mr. Fly?

I'd say it's more like "I didn't realize just how messed up you are aCW". If you seriously think what you quoted means Libertarians are "godless", I really don't have anything else to add.

 

[aCultureWarrior]

I'm thinking of all those Tea Party supporters who gave money and signed petitions, only to have it turn out to be a big scam to take their money and sell their personal information...

How is giving money and signing petitions a big scam Mr. Fly? I call that political activism, which you liberals do quite well.

 

[Jose Fly]

How is giving money and signing petitions a big scam Mr. Fly? I call that political activism, which you liberals do quite well.

Geez dude, pay attention. Pretty much all the money they gave went to large salaries of the scammers and to additional money-gathering efforts, and the petition signatures were used to collect their personal info and sell it on to marketers.

Read the article in the OP.

 

[aCultureWarrior]

I'd say it's more like "I didn't realize just how messed up you are aCW". If you seriously think what you quoted means Libertarians are "godless", I really don't have anything else to add.

Libertarians make their own rules and don't answer to any "authoritarian power". Granted, there are those that call themselves "Christian Libertarians", but that's an oxymoron if there ever was one.

Christian Libertarians are basically drug and porno pushers (they want the government to stay out of certain matters that are deemed "victimless crimes") but usually don't partake in those sins/vices/immoral behaviors themselves.

 

[Jose Fly]

Yeah, I wondered how long it would be before you turned this topic to sex. 13 posts is the answer.

Thanks for your time.

 

[aCultureWarrior]

Geez dude, pay attention. Pretty much all the money they gave went to large salaries of the scammers and to additional money-gathering efforts, and the petition signatures were used to collect their personal info and sell it on to marketers.

Read the article in the OP.

Yes, I did read the article. I'll do my own investigation if it's all the same to you.

 

[aCultureWarrior]

Yeah, I wondered how long it would be before you turned this topic to sex. 13 posts is the answer.

Thanks for your time.

I realize that the topic of deviant sex makes liberals like you feel very uncomfortable Mr. Fly. I hope that I didn't ruin your secular humanist evening.

 

[aCultureWarrior]

I did a short investigation into the Tea Party movement.

As the article shows there were numerous Tea Party organizations with thousands of chapters.

Organizations
Non-profit social welfare organizations (IRS classification 501(c)(4)) Notethe self-reported membership numbers below are several years old.Tea Party Patriots, an organization with more than 1,000 affiliated groups across the nation[190] that proclaims itself to be the "Official Home of the Tea Party Movement".[191]
Americans for Prosperity, an organization founded by David H. Koch in 2003, and led by Tim Phillips. The group has over 1 million members in 500 local affiliates and led protests against health care reform in 2009.[184]
FreedomWorks, an organization led by Matt Kibbe. The group has over 1 million members in 500 local affiliates. It makes local and national candidate endorsements.[184]
Tea Party Express, a national bus tour run by Our Country Deserves Better PAC, itself a conservative political action committee created by Sacramento-based Republican consulting firm Russo, Marsh, and Associates.[192][193][194][195]

FreedomWorks, Americans for Prosperity, and DontGo, a free market political activist non-profit group, were guiding the Tea Party movement in April 2009, according to The Atlantic.[161] Americans for Prosperity and FreedomWorks were "probably the leading partners" in the September 2009 Taxpayer March on Washington, also known as the 9/12 Tea Party, according to The Guardian.[76]
For-profit businessesTea Party Nation, which sponsored the National Tea Party Convention that was criticized for its $549 ticket price[196][197][198][199] and because Palin was apparently paid $100,000 for her appearance (which she put towards SarahPAC[200]).[201]
Informal organizations and coalitionsThe National Tea Party Federation, formed on April 8, 2010, by several leaders in the Tea Party movement to help spread its message and to respond to critics with a quick, unified response.[202]
The Nationwide Tea Party Coalition, a loose national coalition of several dozen local tea party groups.[203]
Student movementTea Party Students organized the 1st National Tea Party Students Conference, which was hosted by Tea Party Patriots at its American Policy Summit in Phoenix on February 25–27, 2011. The conference included sessions with Campus Reform, Students For Liberty, Young America’s Foundation, and Young Americans for Liberty.[204]

Other influential organizations include Americans for Limited Government, the training organization American Majority, the Our Country Deserves Better political action committee, and Glenn Beck's 9-12 Project, according to the National Journal in February 2010.[185]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_Party_movement


Did the Politico article written by Paul H. Jossey indicate that all of these TP organizations duped money out of their followers?

 

[Jose Fly]

Have fun getting scammed. The more right-wing money and resources that are wasted the better IMO. :thumb: