Table of Contents
This book is dedicated to the millions of Americans who showed up at tea parties and townhalls across America during the Revolution of 09. The politicians never knew what hit em.
In fact, they still dont. Thats why I wrote this book.
Chapter One
My Mother, the Terrorist
Meet Patricia Grahamwife, grandmother, office manager, churchgoer, community volunteer. And in her spare time, rightwing domestic terrorist.
Shes also, depending on whos doing the talking, an evilmonger, a white supremacist, a hater, a tea-bagging redneck, a dangerous mutation, and part of an angry mob.
And shes my mom.
How did this mild-mannered woman from Columbia, South Carolina, go from happy homemaker to hate-mongering radical? Thats the funny partshe hardly did anything. To paraphrase Woody Allen, 90 percent of being labeled a rightwing lunatic is just showing upespecially at a tea party. That mundane action can get the gentlest American denounced on the cover of national magazines, condemned by White House officials, and outted on MSNBC as an agent in the vast rightwing conspiracy to overthrow our government and declare a NEW
FASCIST ORDER!
Pretty impressive for a woman who usually cant find her own car keys.
I love my mom, and shes a woman of many talents. But somebody, somewhere, is getting carried away. Setting aside her superhuman ability to torture me, my sister, and my dad, the word that best describes my mom is normal. She works forty-plus hours a week. She pays her bills and her taxes. She keeps an eye on her neighbors house when theyre out of town, and she volunteers with local community groups. She makes a meatloaf that will turn a cowboy into a vegan in one sitting. And she has a feather boa and matching high heels I once stumbled upon in her closet, whose purpose is too disturbing to contemplate.
Overall, shes a typical, proud, patriotic, law-abiding prototype of a mature American woman, one who cries watching life insurance commercials while wearing a Snuggie and sitting in her favorite chair. If I were auditioning terror-inspiring radicals, she wouldnt get a callback.
And its not just my mom whos being misrepresented. Look at the tea party attendees in your hometown or in thousands of communities across America. These arent masked anarchists smashing windows and setting fires at a G-20 summit. They arent angry, Bush Lied, People Died sixties throwbacks using a political rally to score some pot from their grandkids classmates.
Sure, there are some oddballs at tea parties. And the Obamabesot media will get every kook photographed, quoted, and featured on the front page of the biggest newspapers. But the tea party and townhall gatherings are oddly, almost bizarrely... ordinary. They comprise retirees, military vets, small business owners, and suburban families. Byron York of the
Washington Examiner, for example, was at the huge Washington, D.C., tea party on September 12, 2009. He reported,
No one I met expressed hatred for the president. A few had voted for him, and others, like Christy Smith, said they were deeply moved when he was elected. Many others opposed him all along. But now, the predominant mood is deep distrust. They believe Obama will raise their taxes, that he will blow up the health care system, that he will weaken Americas defenses.... Youve probably heard descriptions of the marchers as crazies and haters and fanatics. Perhaps there were some in the crowd. Far more important, though, was the very presence of so many everyday Americans protesting in Washington.
What did Barack Obama and his partys leadership on Capitol Hill do to bring doctors and truck drivers together in common cause on the streets of the nations capital? More than anything, these people are afraid that the new president is running the country off a cliff.
So hundreds of thousands of Americans congregated on the Washington Mall, chanted some slogans, listened to speeches criticizing excessive government spending, and then went home without incident. And what did they get for their trouble? They were denounced as racists, threats to our democracy, and would-be Lee Harvey Oswalds.
Why have these painfully polite, terribly typical peoplefolks who look less like bomb throwers and more like the early-bird special crowd at a Dennys in Branson, Missouricome under constant assault from the elite media, the Washington establishment, and the Obama administration? What makes my mom such a threat?
Like I saidshes normal. And in Barack Obamas America, normal is the new freak.
America: Obamas Little Green Acre
In the Obama era, normal bitter, clingy Americansyoure probably one of themare under assault. The Obama elites are engaged in a coordinated campaign of character assassination designed to redefine your values into venalities and to transform traditional American character strengths into shameful flaws.
You dont want to pay higher taxes, and you think hard work should be rewarded? Youre unpatriotic.
You dont understand how the solution to a disastrous economy caused by massive debts, spending, and bailouts is to add trillions in new debts, spending, and bailouts? Thats because youre dumb.
You dont like your tax dollars being used to reward scammers who bought $500,000 homes on $55 incomes? Youre unfair, heartless, andof courseracist.
Always racist. Or some variation, like bigoted or hateful. This has been the Lefts reaction to tea partiers since the movement first began. On April 16, 2009, one day after the movement took full force with hundreds of tea parties staged nationwide, leftwing activist Janeane Garofalo went on Keith Olbermanns Countdown to explain what the movement was really about. Having seen masses of Americans turn out on Tax Day to protest the governments fiscal irresponsibility, Garofalo drew a strange conclusion: This is about hating a black man in the White House, she proclaimed. This is racism straight-up. That is nothing but a bunch of tea-bagging rednecks.
The accusation of racism is now the alpha and omega of American politics. Loyal O-botsthose fawning, unthinking followers of the presidentplay the race card in every discussion and every debate. Obamas Senate consigliore, Harry Reid, even compared opponents of the Democrats healthcare reform to defenders of slavery. So if you ladies dont want a nanny government agency deciding if you can have a mammogram, you might as well put the hood back on, because Harry Reid has figured you out.
Stupid, backward, bigoted, racist. Youve probably been called all this and more, all by people who simultaneously decry partisanship and divisiveness. And if youre like my mom, then you kept quiet for a while. Youre not a political activist. Youre not a talk show host or TV bigmouth. Youre just a normal American. Youre just a citizen, a taxpayer, a parent.
Then one day, you had enough. You got tired of the attacks on private enterprise. Or maybe you didnt like seeing the government saddle your children and grandchildren with unsustainable debts. Or perhaps you just got sick of the Obama-era theme that being American means always having to say youre sorry, that you should be ashamed for just being you.
