A More Honest Tea Party

Hayes Brown: “The first tea party marches and protests began in 2009, just months after the election of the first Black president. But the conservative activists pulling the strings behind the supposed grassroots revolution went to great lengths to assure the media and American public broadly that this uprising wasn’t about President Barack Obama’s race — it was about his policies.”

“But that was back when America was still in the afterglow of Obama’s history-making inauguration, with many Americans convinced that we were now in a post-racial society.”

“Fast forward to 2021 and the same people who were organizing and mobilizing the tea party’s forces are still calling the shots in the MAGA movement’s attempted return to power. The only difference is there’s no need to pretend that this isn’t about race. In fact, the grievances of white conservatives are now front and center, making the current hyperfocus on ‘critical race theory’ more honest than the tea party ever was.”