It’s no great secret that most Tea Party followers are part of a sub-culture of Christians possessing extreme right-wing political beliefs including anti-government and pro-big business agendas. What is secret, at least it was until 2009 when “The Family” on “C Street” came out of the closet to admit their existence, is where the politicians who represent the Tea Party came from and how this “movement” sprang up as quickly as weeds after a Spring rain. However, Tea Party Ideology is being perpetuated even as the Tea Party itself loses support among more moderate mainstream Americans.
We are told that the Tea Party is a grassroots “movement,” a response to the Great Recession but NY Times analysts report, “The Tea Party’s generals may say their overriding concern is a smaller government, but not their rank and file, who are more concerned about putting God in government:
An analysis done by NY Times authors David E. Campbell, an associate professor of political science at Notre Dame, and Robert D. Putnam, a professor of public policy at Harvard, reveal that, ”…they [Tea Party members] are overwhelmingly white, but even compared to other white Republicans, they had a low regard for immigrants and blacks long before Barack Obama was president, and they still do.”
In a rush to the polls in the 2010 mid-term elections, Americans elected extreme right-wing Republicans in a frenzy to stop Obama’s “spending.” This knee-jerk reaction effectively gave us the Tea Party representatives that are now referred to as the Tea Party Caucus. Click here for a list. This list does not include those who were elected for a second term in November of 2010, like Tea Party kingmaker Senator DeMint, whose primary agenda seems to prevent regulation and taxes for big business and Banks. See my June 13th article.
While the Tea Party is rapidly losing support among mainstream Americans, a Fundamentalism movement more comprehensive than any would suspect is carrying on the momentum. Tea Party “soldiers for God,” are being groomed, counseled and go forth as elite Representatives of God to overcome government. As Sen. DeMint has proclaimed, “…I think some have been drawn in over the years to a dependency relationship with government, and as the Bible says, you can’t have two masters.” C Street teaches that the best way to help the weak is to help the strong, who will in turn dispense God’s blessings to the rest of us. Call it trickle down religion.
C Street is an elite Dogmatic Fundamentalist organization that calls itself “The Family” or “The Fellowship.” This group’s objective is to bring about a Christian government, by producing soldiers of God, and they are either directly and indirectly responsible for Senators Tom Coburn, Jim Inhofe, Jim DeMint, Sam Brownback, John Thune, Chuck Grassley, Mike Enzi, as well as numerous Congressional Representatives who have achieved successful elections, according to Author Jeff Sharlet’s first-hand accounts in his books, The Family and CStreet: The Fundamentalist Threat to America. Sen. DeMint is also considered a gatekeeper for the Tea Party Caucus and a bridge-builder between the Tea Party and the old Republican establishment. C Street preaches that historical figures such as Hitler and Stalin understood the power of a small core of people
An organization called the American Family Association (AFA) believes that God has communicated absolute truth to mankind, and that all people are subject to the authority of God’s Word at all times. See AFA Mission Statement. This group considers themselves in a “cultural war” with forces of darkness. AFA is anti-Obama, anti-gay, and anti-choice. They are pro-big business, yet eagerly “boycott” those who support gay rights. The AFA has a national impact with TV series, over 200 radio broadcast stations, internet television, and it also provides a daily news channel, a report and journal publications.
On public radio, Bryan Fischer, a leader of the fundamentalist American Family Association, sternly instructed a libertarian Tea Party activist that her movement was religiously rooted whether she wanted it to be or not. A recent poll by the Public Religion Research Institute backs him up, revealing that 57 percent of self-identified Tea Partiers agree that “America is and always has been a Christian nation.”
AFA was listed as a hate group since 2005. According to Bryan Fishcer, “It is altogether right to discriminate against homosexual behavior,” warning that if gays are not the ones being discriminated against, then Christians will be. Fischer also thinks women should stay home with children so as to rear future generations of leaders (male leaders, of course). Mr. Fischer’s prejudices against women in positions of authority and admiration for “strong” men in religion join nicely with C Street’s agenda.
The voices of extremism have been implanted in our government even as they denounce the very fabric of the government itself. The agenda is an obvious one stated clearly by C Street, and non-profit hate groups like AFA, that the government must be run by God and men of God, who will be His Hand. The goal is to empower the elite, in the name of God, whom they believe will then share their wealth with the less fortunate in a sort of trickle-down religious methodology. These self-proclaimed soldiers of Christ are determined to empower the wealthy who they consider “strong” in a conceited belief that this is God’s Will.
In the words of Sharlet, “We’ve reached a point where piety and corruption aren’t at odds, they are the same.”
