Watering the tree of liberty - War Room - Salon.com

Watering the tree of liberty - War Room - Salon.com: "The Tea Parties are based around the rhetoric of the American Revolution, which was a violent insurrection. It makes a sad sort of sense that a bunch of comfortable white reactionaries would dress up their childish tantrums with such grandiose language, because 'desperately protecting your privilege in the face of what appears to be the demise of the empire' sounds much less inspiring than 'defeating tyranny.'

As the Republican Party has become more homogeneous, more regional, and more reactionary, they have tended to make up for their growing demographic shortcomings by making sure their supporters are more motivated and energized -- and the most effective way to energize them has been to make sure they're constantly enraged."