2010 Tea Party

Back in April 2010, I went to the Tea Party Rally in San Jose out of curiosity (it was a 1 block walk from work). There were a couple loons, but about 1/10th as many as I'm used to at rally's. Most were middle aged (or older) folks that were bipartisan fiscal conservatives - but both social liberals or conservatives (this is cali). The ones I talked to, got a lot more about economics than the majority of the bay area. (I like economics, and asked some probing questions). The media spun the story by finding the one guy that had some racist T-shirt or placard and interviewing him and pretending he was the norm. They first had to get him away from the folks with signs that said, "he's not with us"... and they ignored that the guy was a long time Democrat operative, and being a sock-puppet (a plant to make the opposition look bad).

Here's some of the pictures of a real Tea Party event: 7 items TeaParty0.jpg The crowd had a lot of silver-haired, middle and upper class folks, who were mad about deficit spending (not race, religion, etc). TeaParty1.jpg Lots of pro-America imagery, smiles (not much anger: more friendly grousing), and messages about taxes and freedom. TeaParty2.jpg 90% of the signage was about deficits, TEA=Taxed Enough Already, and messages about economics and smaller government. TeaParty3.jpg I searched for any obnoxious/racist messages. There was one guy with an obnoxious T-Shirt, and a few people pointing out he wasn't with the tea party (and was a Democrat sock-puppet trying to make them look bad). I didn't get a picture. TeaParty4.jpg More animal farm, Orwell, and some Ayn Randian signs around. The media played this as a white racist march, and while there were less minorities than in San Jose in general, there were a few Indians and Asians in the crowd. And these people didn't look or act like they'd have a problem with more of them. TeaParty5.jpg I took a few dozen pictures -- but I'm not a great photographer, and was more interested in the signage and looking for bad ones. The worst was an occasional jab at Obama for being a Socialist (aka: wealth redistribution). TeaParty6.jpg There was a small counter-protest of loser types. But people smiled and waved at them -- very little animosity. The cops didn't even bother to keep them separated, as it wasn't like later BLM or Antifa riots, where the Tea Party was likely to assault the kids just because they were idiots. These were Americans wanting more liberty, not mini-marxists wanting less.