Right Wing Extremist Tendencies: In the 1990s Forward to Today

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Maddow Explains Tancredo's Literacy Test

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After much uproar and a synchronous outcry from conservatives, the Republican Party and the Right Wing, the Obama administration’s head of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Janet Napolitano, in an act that can best be described as conciliatory, as in an attempt at goodwill, sought to nearly reject and discount the findings of Homeland Security that were contained in its report released in April 2009.

Contrary to the spin of the conservative news media, Republicans and the Right Wing, the Homeland Security report had been commissioned by the administration of Republican President George W. Bush. Also inherent in the conservative spin was the attempt to portray the report as the total condemnation of any and all groups addressed within the report. Specific tendencies were identified to clarify whom the report was addressing.

The Homeland Security report notes compelling information regarding Right Wing extremism and those that are attracted to and likely to be adherents to the philosophies espoused by the Right Wing.

The report includes an assessment of factors contributing to the occurrence/resurgence of increased Right Wing activity in the 1990s. When comparing planned recruitment tactics, beliefs and rhetoric of that era with much of the Right Wing rhetoric currently in vogue today, with activity sharply increasing after the election of President Obama in November 2008, there are found direct parallels in the activities of the Right Wing then and now.

It is quite obvious that all of the elements listed in the Homeland Security’s definition for Right Wing extremism have been noted as expressions among elements of the Right Wing in the decade beginning in 2000 and extending through 2010.

Despite the efforts of mainstream media and conservatives to present the TEA Party as a mainstream movement, the majority of polling and opinions offered, from the earliest polls until polls released this past November 2010, expressed by those calling themselves members or supporters of the TEA Party, reveal the TEA Party to be otherwise. On most polling questions, TEA Party members’ or supporters’ responses are often more than twice the ratio of any given query when compared to other respondents’ responses, whether the polling question attempts to assess a pro or con viewpoint.

The earliest citizens or voters that first adopted the title TEA Party rallied to ‘take the country back’, coalescing around a call for a return to the use of the U.S. Constitution for governance, a puzzling call since the Constitution as a guide for governance had never ceased, while expressing the desire for less government, on the federal level, and less taxes.

• Smoke and Mirrors: The Role the TEA Party in American Politics
   

Due to the conservative, Republican organizational links and conservative monies funneled into developing the ‘unorganized’, possibly ‘grassroots’, character of the TEA Party, while in its infancy, with its lack of organization being heralded proudly as a signature characteristic by those earlier adherents, the current TEA Party has been shaped into and is the Right Wing expression of the Republican Party.

• Corporate Interests and Republican Insiders Built the TEA Party
  

• Covert Operations: The Billionaire Koch Brothers' War Against Obama
  

A recent Associated Press-Gfk poll revealed, as a voting block, the TEA Party has voted 66% of the time for Republican candidates. 60% of Republicans say they belong to the TEA Party.

• Associated Press- Gfk Poll
  

Almost from the TEA Party’s inception, groups identified as Right Wing extremists in the Homeland Security report have been attracted to the TEA Party and have sought to recruit membership from within the ranks of the TEA Party.

There is a singularly unique, focus issue in evidence today, found primarily among those who share ideology with the Right Wing, and those identifying as members or supporters of the TEA Party. Among those individuals are those who believe President Barack Obama is a foreigner.

• Meet the Birthers
  

Many that believe this bizarre conspiracy theory voice displeasure with being governed by a president they believe to have illegitimately assumed the highest office in the land. This belief has spawned several militia groups to organize to defy the Obama administration and its tenure at the helm of the government, like the organization that call themselves patriots, the Oath Keepers.

• Oath Keepers and the Age of Reason   
  

As far as seeking adherence to the U.S. Constitution, there are elements within the TEA Party that actually seek to dismantle the U.S. Constitution in an effort to repeal a number of amendments enacted during Reconstruction after the Civil War, which ended in 1865.

Tea Party Nation President Judson Phillips has discussed changing the 14th Amendment to deny birthright citizenship, promotes ending the ability for voters to choose their senators by one man one vote, found in the 17th Amendment, as well as the elimination of voting rights for those American citizens who do not own property, predicated on the belief they don’t have a true stake in the United States.

It must be noted here that nearly all statistics show the majority of Latino and African Americans, indeed all so called Americans said to be minorities, in general, are least likely to own their homes, living in dwellings as lease to lease renters in apartments and private houses.

Judson Phillips and the Tea Party Nation have aligned themselves with a group called North Carolina Freedom (NC Freedom), founded by David DeGerolamo.

It was during the Tea Party Nation Convention in February 2010, when former Republican governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin, gave the keynote address at the event, that former Colorado Republican Representative Tom Tancredo, giving the opening address at the convention, called for the re-institution of literacy tests to be administered before a voter would be allowed to vote.  Literacy tests were declared unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 abolished its use.

Mr. Tancredo has lobbied against all forms of immigration, including legal immigration, lamenting what he refers to as a "cult of multiculturalism", which he has stated has taken the country away from embracing American values and culture. 

• The Voting Rights Act of 1965 Ended the Use of Literacy Tests

Today, it has been reported that TEA Party Nation president Judson Phillips has written Sarah Palin, who was the star attraction of his convention in Nashville, Tennessee in February 2010, and supporters, urging that the former Alaska governor run for chairman of the Republican National Committee (RNC).

His entreaty reads in part:

Of the 51 members of the TEA Party caucus in the U.S. House of Representatives, all Republicans, 39 of them, an overwhelming majority of the caucus, evidence a tendency toward tolerance of extremist ideology. Polling consistently shows affinity with and support for the TEA Party nearly evenly split along party lines, between the Democratic and Republican Parties, with the Republican Party identified as majority supporters of the TEA Party. 70% of independent voters state they do not support the TEA Party.

• Meet Members of the TEA Party Caucus
  

It is clear the TEA Party does not represent the majority of Americans and is not the mainstream movement former Republican House Majority Leader Dick Armey, founder of FreedomWorks, has portrayed it to be.

The tendency for the majority of mainstream media and other news outlets to ignore salient points, avoiding reporting on information linking elements within the TEA Party to Right Wing extremists that seek to implement extremist agendas is an unprofessional, glaringly erroneous abdication of journalistic responsibility.