Success!

I did it. knowing it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, I ran down to the tea party.

Unfortunately, I literally ran there and thus didn't have my cell phone (a.k.a. "the fresnikon") to take pictures. But my, oh my! No tea, no Indian costumes, what took place resembled the county fair much more than it did a political rally. The Save Mart Center had overpriced sodas and popcorn for sale, there were guys walking around on stilts, old white folks galore, skits, church groups, a blue-collar heaven.

I've heard before that Fresno is really a Midwestern town. Never has it been shown more clearly than it was today. The people stood around, politely, and held their signs. I saw a girl with an "I only date Republicans" T-shirt. No wonder I'm still single! Nah, she was one of maybe five twenty-somethings I encountered the whole damn time.

Picked up some of the stuff they were handing out. One guy gave me a million-dollar bill, I couldn't wait to read what it said about Obama's craaaaaaaaaazy tax policy... then turned it over and saw that it was a Christian tract. Dammit! It was appropriate though. Fear of the new and the different permeated just like dusty clothes and bales of hay did (yes, there was a semi pulling a moving stage with a bunch of hay on it). If I didn't know any better I'd think I really was at a church event.

The signs were a-plenty. Many read "I'll keep my (guns, money, freedom, God, old white friends, etc.) you can keep your change." Others said things about socialism. One fairly creative guy was dressed as a disheveled-looking Obama with a sign that said, "Anybody seen my teleprompter!?" There was a production going on, the announcer kept yelling, "Don't taze me, bro!" Later a govanaata impersonator came up and made up a new city that he could tax (I don't know, and he is a Republican right? ). W-I-L-D

To be quite honest, it was sad, for a number of reasons.

Again, what I saw and observed in the people there, more than anything, was fear. The right latched itself onto moral panic and the mystical (nonexistent) America of yesteryear in the 1980s and is now feeling the effects. These people see minorities, they see gay people, they see young people, and it scares them to death. Only now those groups represent well over half the population. Slate noted the intense irony of conservatives- who embody the mainstream- staging a protest at all. And they suck at it. Seriously, there wasn't even any real tea!

Moreover, these were obviously working-class people. I didn't see but one or two people I could even imagine making over $200,000 a year. It kept popping into my head, "These people should be Democrats!" That they were actually out there of their own free will lobbying in vain to try and get more money for rich people. How a single one of them could blindly buy that "socialism" tag obviously without doing a bit of research into it. It's sad.

At the same time, the stuff they pull is so nutty that it never fails to be entertaining. I mean it, their nuts.