On April 15, 2009, hundreds of thousands of fiscal conservatives gathered nationwide in protest against “out of control spending at all levels of government,” according to TaxDayTeaParty.com.
These protestors rallied under the title of “TEA parties,” their namesake being the Boston Tea Party of 1773 in Boston Harbor.
However, these “TEA” parties mirror each other in name only—and the fact that many bags of tea were present at each event. The acronym TEA stands for “Taxed Enough Already” and was meant to sum up the emotions of the fiscally conservative crowds present at the protests. TEA parties were staged across the country, but here in Denver on the steps of the state capitol the third largest gathering of protestors congregated to demonstrate their disapproval of the current administration’s fiscal policies. This TEA party consisted of around 5000 protestors, according to the Denver Post.
“I’ve never seen so many people so passionately patriotic at one time and one place before,” junior Anna Dreiling, Denver TEA party attendee, said. “They sang the national anthem and said the Pledge of Allegiance at least twice. It was a really moving experience.”
While this patriotic event may have seemed like a professionally planned event, Brian T. Campbell, future candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives and organizer of the Denver TEA party, says it was largely publicized by means of personal media like Facebook and Twitter.
“The first protest in February consisted of about 250 people and saw no media coverage,” Campbell said. “We were still able to organize another TEA party on tax day through email and personal media.”
Campbell also stressed the importance of electronic communication above televised media.
“The press is no longer an entity; personal media is a better way to get the word out,” Campbell said. “[The TEA party] was really a grass roots movement. Someone would bring a microphone and somebody else would bring a podium. It was a people’s event.”
Campbell insists that he played only a minor role in the organization of the event, and he was also present on the steps of the capitol to speak to the excited crowd. He and the other speakers spoke to the crowd about how the government has overstepped its boundaries in the lives of the American people and reminded the crowd that they could spend their money better than the government could.
“Couldn’t a small business owner put that extra 30 percent of his paycheck to better use than the government could?” Campbell asked.
While the event was very patriotic and saw no violent or inappropriate outbursts, critics still have their doubts and concerns about the messages revolving around the conservative rallies.
“At a lot of the TEA parties you started to see messages that were not so much focused on the taxing itself but were focused on things like Barack Obama being a Muslim and I definitely disagree with those messages and think that they are damaging to the situation of our country,” junior Ben Horblit, president of Arapahoe High School’s Young Democrats, said.
However, Dreiling believed strongly in the TEA party’s message.
“I’d say the fundamental message behind the Tax Day Tea Party is that it’s time for us to take our country back,” Dreiling said. “United under a single cause, beyond party boundaries, we can make a difference, just like the founding fathers intended.”
While some believe that the protests were an appropriate means of conveying the conservative dismay towards President Obama’s and Congress’s fiscal policies, all may not agree with the sentiments shown at these protests.
“I think I would say that it’s an appropriate reaction in the sense that it’s a good thing in America to exercise our right to freedom of speech and hold peaceful demonstrations,” Horblit said. “[However] I think a lot of the conclusions drawn at those peaceful protests, as well as some of the policies advocated such as the governor of Texas entertaining the idea to secede from the Union, I think that was in many cases an overreaction and not necessarily an entirely logical response to some of the policies that have been instituted lately.”
Despite the ample criticisms nationwide, the speakers at the Denver rally made it clear that they would continue to have TEA parties on tax day until their demands were heard, calling the event “the first annual tax day TEA party.” If the speakers are correct about the true intentions of their local constituencies, these aggravated conservatives plan to remain publically active in spreading the words: “Give us liberty, not debt.”