You could argue that they're a mixed bag — some left-behind racists from the mid-1930s, some confused low-information victims of the Billionaire's Coup. That's the kind assessment, and I've made that case myself.
Or you could argue that, peel a teabagger, find a vicious little sex-loving sex-hating abortion-killing über-Christian — you know, the kind of Christian that isn't one; the kind that worships the Serial Murderer of the Apocalypse, He Who walks in screaming Amen and trailing clouds of ... blood.
Enter Michele Bachmann (h/t Digby):
She graduated from Winona State University and later received her J.D. degree from Oral Roberts University and an LL.M. degree in tax law from the William & Mary Law School. She was a member of the final graduating class of Oral Roberts' law school, and was part of a group of faculty, staff, and students who moved the ORU law school to what is now Regent University.Abortion seems to have been an early motivator for early Bachmann:
While she was still a Democrat, Bachmann was involved in anti-abortion activism. She and her then-fiance Marcus were inspired to join the pro-life movement by Francis Schaeffer's 1976 Christian documentary film, How Should We Then Live?. They frequently prayed outside of clinics and served as sidewalk counselors in an attempt to dissuade women from seeking abortions. Bachmann was a supporter of Jimmy Carter and she and her husband worked on his campaign. During Carter's presidency, Bachmann became disappointed with his liberal approach to public policy, support for legalized abortion, and economic decisions that increased gas prices. In the next presidential election she voted for Ronald Reagan.Creationism, anyone?
The first time Bachmann's political activism gained media notice was at an abortion protest in 1991. She and approximately 30 other abortion opponents went to a Ramsey County Board meeting where a $3 million appropriation was to go to build a morgue for the county at St. Paul-Ramsey Medical Center (now called Regions Hospital). The Medical Center performed abortions and employed abortion rights pioneer Dr. Jane E. Hodgson. Bachmann attended the meeting to protest public tax dollars going to the hospital; speaking to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, she said that “in effect, since 1973, I have been a landlord of an abortion clinic, and I don’t like that distinction.”
In 1993, Bachmann and other parents in Stillwater, Minnesota opened New Heights Charter School. The oversight of New Heights soon encountered problems when a group of concerned parents and the school district questioned if the insertion of Christianity into the school's curriculum amounted to using public tax money to fund a religious school. One such parent, Denise Stephens, a longtime Republican, charged the board of directors of the school (which included Bachmann) with trying to set up classes on Creationism and advocating that "something called '12 Christian principles' be taught, very much like the 10 Commandments." According to Stephens, school officials also refused to allow the in-school screening of the Disney film Aladdin, saying that it endorsed witchcraft and promoted paganism. Along with other directors, Bachmann appeared before the Stillwater School Board to address the parents' concerns. According to Stephens, Bachmann became angry and asked, "Are you going to question my integrity?", before she and four other members of the board resigned on the spot.No kidding. Click through to see the footnotes and documentation.
Bachmann became an outspoken critic of public education[.]
Don't think Bachmann is stupid; she's not:
From 1988 to 1993, Bachmann was an attorney representing the commissioner of the I.R.S.This is why we're seeing such a flurry of sex-hating abortion-killing legislation from these pretend deficit hawks. As Digby notes:
The Tea Party and the Christian Right are not only not at odds, they are basically the same people. If the press is alert at all they will use the opportunity of the presidential campaign to explain that this time instead of falling for Dick Armey and his millionaires' marketing.I still think it's the best strategy to treat Tea Party people as approachable, as individually amenable to reason until proven otherwise. The only way to reduce their numbers is to peel away the merely confused. But good strategy doesn't always track to correct analysis, and Digby's analysis may well be right.
If so, a Teabag president, enabled by a Billionaire-financed Teabag Congress, will represent the triumph of Christian Reconstructionism and Dominionism over that silly old fool, the Enlightenment.
As long as the Billionaires get their eleven-cookie cut, it's all good. And we know they will. After all, Billionaires are God's truly chosen; it's the money that proves it.
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