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Almost twelve years ago, living in North Dakota, I attended one of the first meetings of this new political force, the "Tea Party". The crowd was all white, sporadically armed & angry. Through-line from that Aug 11, 2009 to Jan 6, 2021 was obvious THREAD 1/
The crowd called Prez Obama a “disease” and called for “spiritual war” against socialism. A lot of talk tough talk about “taking it back” ((poor) video clips of the event) 2/10
In the subsequent years I covered the Tea Party’s tear through Wisconsin and Minnesota, turning theretofore conservatives into rabid ideologues steeped in conspiracy theories. 3/10
I met “leaders” like Kim Simac, a Christian Nationalist who wrote children’s books that basically hinted at exact what would happen on Jan 6. 4/10
5/10
Exactly two years after that Aug 09 rally—and numerous Tea Party Express stops, secret meetings, FreedomWorks & RightOnline trainings—I wrote a piece for The Awl stating plainly that the Tea Party was foremost concerned with Christian Nationalism. https://www.theawl.com/2011/08/what-i-learned-in-two-years-at-the-tea-party/ 6/ 10
I predicted the Tea Partiers would melt into the next movement and “go back to the grassroots anti-abortion, pro-Christian activism they were doing before this brief hiccup of interest in economics occurred.” 7/10
Today, Forum News out of NoDak published a compassionate portrait of a NDakotans who went to DC on Jan 6. (One is a local GOP chair) “because their lifestyle of guns, God and independence are marginalized by “the Left”.” https://www.inforum.com/news/government-and-politics/6846344-Im-not-an-insurrectionist-Rural-North-Dakota-attendees-ponder-D.C.-rally-cause-effects 8/10
Back to 09. One of the organizers and speakers of that Aug 09 rally whipping people into a froth was blogger Rob Port. 9/10
Port is now a regular Forum Columnist and recently argued FOR impeaching Trump, saying Republicans “are afraid to confront a political base that has become extreme to the point of violence." Hakuna Matata! https://www.inforum.com/opinion/6840432-Port-Hoeven-Cramer-Armstrong-are-wrong-to-oppose-Trumps-impeachment-and-removal-from-office 10/10
