I have yet to read an account of the Tea Party movement which makes any sort of comprehensive sense. What passes for "commentary" on the subject is mostly ideologically-driven spin from the "left" or "right," both of which see the movement as a handy rhetorical device they can mock or co-opt to make their same old tired "talking points."

My own sense is that a coherent account of the Tea Party movement must be far more nuanced and historically informed. The standard-issue pundit/commentator's ignorance of American history is so abysmal that it is little wonder that commentary on the movement is so threadbare.

To the frustration of those MSM pundits and Party ideologues seeking a sound-bite summary, the Tea Party movement is neither fully formed nor monolithic. There are Democratic Tea Party types, quasi-Libertarians--an entire spectrum of causes and emotional drivers loosely bound up under the one banner.

The comically self-serving frenzy of the Democrats and the blatant desperation to co-opt the movement by the Republicans are less reflective of the Tea Party than they are of the parties' own fears and failures.

The "progressives" either ignore the Tea Party's influence and gatherings, hoping not to encourage it with exposure, or they mock and discredit it by focusing on the inevitable self-aggrandizing grand-standers who appear like locusts whenever a new political movement is self-assembling.

What is striking to me is how the MSM coverage reflects--but does not comment on in a self-aware fashion--the stark terror aroused in the status quo by the Tea Party movement.

The Tea Party is creating fear and loathing in the status quo (Demopublicans and Savior State/Financial Plutocracy partnership) because it is the only potential political threat to the Savior State's protected fiefdoms and the financial/corporate Elites.

The Savior State is unprepared to deal with anyone who can't be bought off with a few crumbs of entitlement/bread and circuses. As I discuss in Survival+, the Savior State is partnered with the nation's Financial and corporate/cartel Power Elites.

To keep the lower-income masses politicially subservient, compliant and thus complicit in the rule by Elites and Savior State fiefdoms (public unions, sickcare and defense cartels, etc.), the Savior State distributes food stamps, extended unemployment, tax credits and other forms of "free money" to the underclass to keep them distracted, fed and politically neutered.

The status quo's private-sector propaganda division, the Mainstream Media (dominated by a handful of global corporations), provides plentiful "entertainment" to the masses while the Government Ministries of Propaganda distribute endless reams of phony data and manipulated statistics to support the "confidence building" view that the status quo is firmly in charge and thus resistance is both needless (because everything's going great) and futile (because you're so powerless and we're so powerful).

The ideal state of affairs for the Savior State status quo is complacency, complicity and a pervasive fatalism that the status quo is permanent and godlike and there is no point in resisting it.

The incentives are all to join in the fun and game the system as rapaciously as you can via liar loans, credit card debt you never intend to pay off, speculation in stocks and housing as a replacement for actually producing value in the real world, trumped-up resumes, bogus balance sheets, cheating on entrance exams, etc.

Into this comfortable world of protected State fiefdoms, Financial Overlords and fatalistic complicity in an economy based on lies, debt and speculative bubbles comes the Tea Party. The Tea Party participants are fueled by a deep and abiding awareness that the country is going down the wrong path, not just in a political or financial context but in a moral, values-based sense. (The three are interconnected, after all.)

The standard-issue sneering "progressive" pundit openly mocks the working-class roots of the movement, and spares no smear in attempting to discredit it: it's racist, led by show-boaters and nutters, etc.