I’ve written dozens of posts over the last two years about authoritarianism in the tea party movement. The crisis in Wisconsin is drawing this element out into the open. Governor Walker’s threat to use the National Guard against tens of thousands of teachers, police, firefighters, students, and workers is pure, unbridled authoritarianism. Reaction from FOX News and the wingnutosphere has been openly authoritarian. They are just fine with big, bad government so long as it is their government. They are all about the Constitution until the people of Wisconsin peaceably assemble to petition for redress of grievances.

I’m glad. Whenever the tea party sides with oligarchy and against working Americans, that Frankenstein creation of K-Street exposes its real purposes. Tea parties were supposed to whip up the illusion of popular support, and tea party crowds have been consistently inflated to maintain this illusion. The sight of tens of thousands of “red state” Americans protesting Walker’s overreach scares the hell out of Dick Armey and friends.

Little wonder, then, that FOX and friends keep trying to frame the Wisconsin resistance as violent. It’s not — unplugging a sound system is not a violent act until Gateway Pundit says so. Getting arrested for refusing to move? Classic nonviolent action — until Michelle Malkin reports it. As the tea party falls in line with the Koch brothers, so do its leading voices — and I couldn’t be happier about this.

So let them do it. Let the Gadsden flags fly for Scott Walker and the billionaires, and set themselves against working Americans. They were always this way, but now the false frame of a freedom movement can be cast aside at last. They are the fear they want us to feel — let the mask drop away so we can all see this monster for what it is. Pass the popcorn.