Tea Party Movement Quotes

Our office corner has really become an area where the Tea party movement congregates and the rhetoric is really heated. Not just the calls but the e-mails, the slurs. ~ Gabrielle Giffords

Washington is horribly broken. We are encountering a day of reckoning and this movement, this Tea Party movement, is a message to Washington that we're unhappy and that we want things done differently. ~ Rand Paul

I think what the Tea Party movement is - I'm all for it; they're out there fighting for our rights, fighting for what our forefathers stood for. ~ Luke Scott

He was undoubtedly intelligent and well informed, but too right-wing for Grane's tastes. It was rare to find a well-educated Swede who was also a wholehearted supporter of the American Republican Party - he even expressed some sympathy for the Tea Party movement. ~ David Lagercrantz

The Tea Party movement went off on a more extreme agenda that I did not support at all, and was very frustrated by it, to the point that not only did I change parties, I decided to do something about it and run for Congress. ~ Patrick Murphy

I know within my organization, within the grassroots of my organization of the Tea Party movement generally, there's going to be a big drive for impeaching Obama. I don't know if that's the right move ... We need to play our cards very carefully and beware of the mouse trap that Obama might be trying to set for us. ~ Niger Innis

Grassroots Tea Party activism therefore marries participatory engagement and considerable learning about the workings of government with factually ungrounded beliefs about the content of policies. If people actively engage in the political process but on mistaken premises, is that good or bad for democracy? Our heads are left spinning. ~ Theda Skocpol

The religious and economic alliance represented in the Tea {arty remains misunderstood and out of the public eye. The Tea Party movement was formed primarily as an antitax movement, and that limiting government spending and reducing taxes, drawing on the symbols of the Boston Tea Party. As important as these initial catalysts were, the power for the movement came from its adoption of white evangelical conservatives. ~ Gerardo Marti

But the thought leaders on talk radio and Fox do more than shape opinion. Backed by their own wing of the book-publishing industry and supported by think tanks that increasingly function as public-relations agencies, conservatives have built a whole alternative knowledge system, with its own facts, its own history, its own laws of economics. ~ David Frum

I ran for office originally as part of this Tea Party Movement because we were upset with Republicans who've doubled the debt. We were upset with Republicans that bailed out the banks. ~ Rand Paul

Don't let any of 'em in the room 'til my guy gets what he needs. We'll be outta here before they get their gloves on.
Tea Party Teddy's Legacy ~ Dianne Harman

The Tea Party has very close affinities with independent third-party movements like the George Wallace movement. The Tea Party is still inchoate, still trying to figure out what it's going to become. ~ Hampton Sides

Herman Cain is probably well-liked by some of the Republicans because it hides the racist elements of the Republican Party, conservative movement and tea party movement. People like Karl Rove like to keep the racism very covert and so Herman Cain provides this great opportunity so he can say, 'Look: This is not a racist anti-immigrant, anti-female, anti-gay movement. Look: We have a black man.' And look he's polling well and he won a straw poll. ~ Janeane Garofalo

Tainting the tea party movement with the charge of racism is proving to be an effective strategy for Democrats. There is no evidence that tea party adherents are any more racist than other Republicans, and indeed many other Americans. But getting them to spend their time purging their ranks and having candidates distance themselves should help Democrats win in November. Having one's opponent rebut charges of racism is far better than discussing joblessness. ~ Mary Frances Berry

My political views have since I was a kid someway or another reflected the concerns of Tea Party movement. ~ Mike Lee

I think there is a real misunderstanding about what the Tea Party movement is. The Tea Party movement is a sentiment in America that government is broken - both parties are to blame - and if we don't do something soon, this exceptional country will be lost, and it will become just like everybody else. ~ Marco Rubio

Remember the Tea Party movement didn't get started in September of 2008 when the bank bailout was passed. It really began on Feb. 19th, 2009 when a television commentator named Rick Santelli stood up and said what the hell are we doing bailing out people who couldn't afford a mortgage by taking money from people like me who are prudent? ~ Karl Rove

The thing they're trying to stop is 30-million people getting health insurance. That's the substance. ~ Chris Hayes

English does not distinguish between arrogant-up (irreverence toward the temporarily powerful) and arrogant-down (directed at the small guy). ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

We owe Clint Eastwood a debt of thanks. Not only because it was truly a hilarious twelve minutes of improvised "awesome" in a week of scripted "blah".
But because it advanced our understanding.
This president has issues, and there are very legitimate debates about his policies and actions, and successes and or failures as president - I mean, tune in next week. But I could never wrap my head around why the world, and the president republicans describe, bears so little resemblance to the world and the president that I experience. And now I know why :
There is a president Obama that only republicans can see ~ Jon Stewart

But I think the - what the tea party movement demonstrates, and I think the, the, the enthusiasm that we're seeing from independents and Republicans, is that if Washington isn't going to change itself, then we're going to change Washington. And I think that's what we're seeing. ~ John Cornyn

I think that's what activates the Tea Party Movement. What they see is the government interfering with their lives and with the inheritance of their children. Are we going to pass down liberty or deficits? And that's really what this movement is about. ~ Sharron Angle

The Tea Party movement as I perceive it is all about recognizing the difference between state and federal powers. And that there are limits to federal power that need to be respected. ~ Mike Lee

The Republican Party would be really smart to absorb as much of the Tea Party movement as possible. ~ Sarah Palin

It's really interesting that we've had this great Tea Party movement that is all about restoring free market capitalist values, but what they completely fail to understand is that what we've got now is a situation where there is a small class of gigantic financial companies that have put themselves above capitalism. ~ Matt Taibbi

The Tea Party movement is a wide and diverse group. It will hurt the Republican Party if some elements of the Tea Party decide to become third party advocates because it will split the conservative vote. ~ Karl Rove

Republicans know well that a change of rhetorical pace is necessary. But efforts by their leaders to damp down the bellicosity of newly elected Tea Party types is running into the fact that the Tea Partiers have only the high volume setting on their amplifiers, just like Palin. They're like a couple having a fight at a funeral; politely sotto voce, then suddenly bursting out fortissimo with their plaints and accusations. ~ Alexander Cockburn

According to the study of human psychology, human behavior is determined, in part, by incentives and decentives. ~ Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr

But to say that Sarah Palin and the tea party movement is responsible for vandalism or threats is just a way to dismiss the American people and, and their dissatisfaction with this health care bill. ~ Laura Ingraham

The tea party movement and its passion arose in response to trillion dollar deficits as far as the eye can see and out of a sense that Washington is in need of dire fiscal reform. ~ Ari Fleischer

I mean, people who say that the Tea Party isn't a grassroots movement, I think, are incorrect. I think in some respects, it is a grassroots movement. ~ Matt Taibbi

Obama is to the Tea Party as the moon is to werewolves. ~ Julian Bond

No faction is better or worse than any other. All come from the same mould; they are all products of capitalist influence in the working class movement. And they are a poison that destroys our Party and the working class movement in Korea. ~ Kim Jong Il

For action makes propaganda's effect irreversible. He who acts in obedience to propaganda can never go back. He is now obliged to believe in that propaganda because of his past action. He is obliged to receive from it his justification and authority, without which his action will seem to him absurd or unjust, which would be intolerable. He is obliged to continue to advance in the direction indicated by propaganda, for action demands more action. He is what one calls committed - which is certainly what the Communist party anticipates, for example, and what the Nazis accomplished. The man who has acted in accordance with the existing propaganda has taken his place in society. From then on he has enemies. Often he has broken with his milieu or his family; he may be compromised. He is forced to accept the new milieu and the new friends that propaganda makes for him. Often he has committed an act reprehensible by traditional moral standards and has disturbed a certain order; he needs a justification for this - and he gets more deeply involved by repeating the act in order to prove that it was just. Thus he is caught up in a movement that develops until it totally occupies the breadth of his conscience. Propaganda now masters him completely - and we must bear in mind that any propaganda that does not lead to this kind of participation is mere child's play. ~ Jacques Ellul

We've clearly seen that Tea Party Republicans are willing to take our economy hostage just to score political points, but I'm not willing to do that. ~ Martin Heinrich

It's not all Obama's fault: His plans to rebuild America's energy infrastructure have been hampered by the recession, and his efforts on global warming have been stymied by Tea Party wackos and weak-kneed Democrats in Congress. ~ Jeff Goodell

She had been to a tea-party with an antediluvian monster, and that they had been waited on by up-to-date men-servants. ~ Bram Stoker

Good evening, Amycus," said Dumbledore calmly, as though welcoming the man to a tea party. "And you've brought Alecto too ... Charming ... "
The woman gave an angry little titter. "Think your little jokes'll help you on your deathbed then?" she jeered.
"Jokes? No, no, these are manners," replied Dumbledore. ~ J.K. Rowling

I can't really criticize the Tea Party people, because I came into the White House pretty much on the same basis that they have become popular. That is dissatisfaction with the way things are going in Washington and disillusionment and disencouragement about the government. ~ Jimmy Carter

Whether it's their Sharia law and birther conspiracies or their unwillingness to buck Grover Norquist's no-tax pledge, the Tea Partiers have hijacked their party and carried it all the way to the right. ~ Jennifer Granholm

A bottle that reads, "Drink me." A tea party, with a dormouse, a March Hare, and of course, one Mad Hatter. A red queen, with as much a fondness for tarts as for saying, "Off with their heads!" When we think of Alice and her adventures in wonderland, we often think of these amazing (and amusing) elements. Although today, your vision of Alice in Wonderland probably includes Johnny Depp and a certain visual aesthetic by Tim Burton, it's difficult not to think of the Alice stories without thinking about the food that appears within the pages of the story. ~ Lewis Carroll

Of course many southern whites did switch from voting Democrat to voting Republican, helping the GOP become the majority party in the South, as the Democrats once were. But remember that racism declined sharply in the South during the second half of the twentieth century. There is quite literally a mountain of scholarly data that documents this. And this was the very period of GOP ascendancy. So as the South became less racist, it became more Republican. I provide evidence in this book to show that southern whites became Republican not for racist motives but for economic ones. The most racist poor whites never left the Democratic Party; they remained loyal to the party of racism until they died. In this sense, the data show that racism slowed the movement of whites toward the Republicans. ~ Dinesh D'Souza

I was warmly embraced by the Tea Party. They openly seek more minorities. ~ Tim Scott

The health care bill is nothing about health care- it's about controlling the people. ~ David Lincoln

The East Turkestan Islamic Movement, named for an old Uighur name for Xinjiang, is a shadowy group that operates largely out of Afghanistan and Pakistan and is devoted to expelling the Chinese Communist Party from northwestern China. ~ Barbara Demick

On closer notice of her apron, he said, "Is that-?"
"The Mad Hatter," she said. "I told you, I have a collection."
"You collect aprons?"
"Since I was little and my mom taught me to bake." When he smiled, she arched a brow. "Some find it charmingly quirky."
"You never wore any to Gateau."
"Shocking, I know. Because I'm certain the staff would have greatly appreciated the humor in them."
His smile twitched wider at that. "You have a point, I suppose. I must say, this dry side of you is surprisingly appealing. What does it say?" He nodded toward her apron front.
She lifted her arms away so he could read the script that accompanied the copy of an original pen and ink art rendering of the Hatter seated at a long table, holding a teacup aloft.
"YOU'RE NEVER TOO OLD TO HAVE A TEA PARTY," he read out loud, then smiled at her. "I rather agree. You make a charming and somewhat more quirky Alice than I'd have expected. I seem to recall Alice spent the better part of her time being irritated and flustered, too. Perhaps if I'd come bearing tea and crumpets, with a bewildered, bespectacled white rabbit clutching a pocketwatch in his paw, you'd have been more willing to give me the time of day. ~ Donna Kauffman

The Tea Party is a rear guard, not a vanguard. ~ Chuck Schumer

When I want my men to remember something important, to really make it stick, I give it to them double dirty. It may not sound nice to some bunch of little old ladies at an afternoon tea party, but it helps my soldiers to remember. You can't run an army without profanity; and it has to be eloquent profanity. An army without profanity couldn't fight its way out of a piss-soaked paper bag ... As for the types of comments I make, sometimes I just, By God, get carried away with my own eloquence. ~ George S. Patton

Top IRS officials specifically targeted tea party groups and misled the public about its secret political targeting program led by ex-official Lois Lerner, according to a bombshell new congressional report. ~ Patrick Howley

American scientific companies are cross-breeding humans and animals and coming up with mice with fully functioning human brains. ~ Christine O'Donnell

When you see John Boehner crying, believe you me, it's because he cannot control, uh, that wild contingency called the Tea Party. ~ Gwen Moore

There are good people and bad people in all organizations fundamentally however, when you look at the basis of the Tea Party it has nothing to do with race. It has to do with an economic recovery. It has to do with limiting the role of our government in our lives. It has to do with free markets. ~ Tim Scott

Thousands upon thousands of government employees take to the streets to protest the bill. Here is Greece's version of the Tea Party: tax collectors on the take, public-school teachers who don't really teach, well-paid employees of bankrupt state railroads whose trains never run on time, state hospital workers bribed to buy overpriced supplies. ~ Michael Lewis

Christ was crucified because he would have nothing to do with the crowd (even though he addressed himself to all). He did not want to form a party, an interest group, a mass movement, but wanted to be what he was, the truth, which is related to the single individual. Therefore everyone who will genuinely serve the truth is by that very fact a martyr. To win a crowd is no art; for that only untruth is needed, nonsense, and a little knowledge of human passions. But no witness to the truth dares to get involved with the crowd. ~ Soren Kierkegaard

Texas senator and tea party favorite Ted Cruz announced he's running for president. He pledged to lead America boldly forward into the 1950s. ~ Conan O'Brien

I've never been afraid of the American Nazi Party, on the grounds that anybody dumb enough to pick a name like that is not a serious threat. Any real fascist movement that's a threat, that's serious and really endangers us, would call itself the Red, White, and Blue Christian American Party, or something like that. They wouldn't be dumb enough to call themselves Nazis. ~ Robert Anton Wilson

Much of my life seems in retrospect to have been spent in the company of putative national leaders passing through the process of being denounced and imprisoned for sedition, as part of the inevitable progression towards the Prime Ministership and the ritual tea-party at Windsor Castle. ~ James Cameron

If the political left weren't so joyless, humorless, intrusive, taxing, over-taxing, anarchistic, controlling, rudderless, chaos-prone, pedantic, unrealistic, hypocritical, clueless, politically correct, angry, cruel, sanctimonious, retributive, redistributive, intolerant, and if the political left wasn't hell-bent on expansion of said unpleasantness into all aspects of my family's life the truth is: I would not be in your life. If the democratic party were run by Joe Lieberman and Evan Bayh, if it had the slightest vestige of JFK and Henry "Scoop" Jackson I wouldn't be on the political map. If the American media were run by biased but not evil Tim Russert and David Brinkley types I wouldn't have joined the fight. You would not know who I am. The left made me do it, I swear, I am a reluctant cultural warrior. ~ Andrew Breitbart

The whole struggle of our Party (and of the working class movement in Europe generally) must be directed against opportunism. The latter is not a current of opinion, not a tendency; it (opportunism) has now become the organised tool of the bourgeoisie within the working class movement. ~ Vladimir Lenin

Well, look, I'm as Tea Party as it gets. ~ Jason Chaffetz

If not for the Tea Party, the Republican Party would not be coming back to its roots. ~ Richard Mourdock

The repeated claim before the 'seizure of power' - that the NSDAP, as a national social-revolutionary movement, and not simply another political party ... would create new bonds of unity through its elimination and transcending of the party system, was highly attractive and conveyed much of Nazism's dynamic appeal. ~ Ian Kershaw