Sam Fulwood III: God made me do it

  So now we know what the Tea Party stands for and who stands behind it.

  Until this past weekend, the various factions of what’s collectively known as the Tea Party struggled to define who they are and what they represent. The amorphous movement backed by some of the wealthiest conservatives in the country couldn’t decide if it was a political organization, an ideological alternative to the Democratic or Republican parties, or an Internet-inspired and media-driven coalition of grassroots activists whose organizational base exists ephemerally in the nexus of the World Wide Web and right-wing blab shows.

  The Tea Party’s split personality led its folk to wrestle with what a Tea Party platform should contain. Should it be exclusively about eliminating all taxes and rolling back progressive social programs? Or should it demonize President Barack Obama and glorify former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin to boost web traffic and daily viewership? Or maybe it should focus on the relationship between the Tea Party and local, state, and federal governments? Could it be all of this? Or none?