Is the Tea Party the New Black Panther Party?
That was the question posed to readers earlier this week over at The Root. Writer Cord Jefferson, arguing that while there’s no way to reconcile the groups’ different ideological underpinnings, notes that they still seem to have a lot in common: They were armed to the teeth. They were mad. They gathered at public buildings, guns tucked into their waistlines, demanding limited governmental authority and the right to self-determination. They believed the Democratic White House to be an untrustworthy, imperialistic power, one that “robbed” them under spurious circumstances. And as you can probably expect, the comparison’s caused quite the stir. One commentator wrote, “When the first Tea Party office gets firebombed by the government, call me.” Critics also sounded off on Twitter, with one writing that the comparison was “so insulting and incorrect, it’s beyond words.” The timeline we did last month shows at least one obvious difference: the Tea Party’s relationship to corporate and govern
