March 29, 2011 - 8:10pm
Despite momentum, Tea Party movement hasn't made it's way to the Diag
BY CHELSEA LANGE
The Tea Party movement got a big boost earlier this month with their first ever national convention in Memphis, featuring a keynote speech from former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.
But despite the momentum, a movement for the Republican party offshoot hasn’t made it to campus — yet.
Though there hasn’t been a formal University student group dedicated to supporting the Tea Party movement — known for its vocal opposition to big government — some students say they want to see a repeat of the protest that took place on the Diag last April on the original Tax Day Tea Party. The April protest was one of hundreds around the country that spawned the formation of the movement.
LSA freshman Brian Koziara, the freshman chair of the College Republicans, said he has been involved in the Tea Party movement since the original protest. He added that he wants to organize another protest in the Diag sometime in the near future, but there aren’t enough organized supporters of the movement to make that possible yet.
“If we’re going to do something on the Diag, we want to have at least 50-100 people out there,” he said.
Koziara said he believes students can relate to the criticisms members of the national Tea Party movement are levying against the federal government.
“People are fed up with the lack of representation in Washington. They’re fed up with the size of the federal government,” he said. “They’re fed up with the amount of money the federal government taxes and spends. They’re fed up, honestly, with the deficit spending that’s going on.”
LSA senior Sam Marvin, chair of the College Democrats, said he feels that the ideology of Tea Party members are a result of the anxiety that many Americans are feeling about the current state of the economy and the health care situation.
“A lot of people are having gut reactions to the election of Obama, the stimulus package, health care, things like that,” Marvin said. “They’re having gut reactions, but they’re not following that up with any sort of investigation.”
Marvin equated the Tea Party politicians to obnoxious kids in a class. He added that though the movement isn’t getting too much attention on campus the reason why it’s featured so prominently in the media is because Tea Party politicians have different beliefs than the majority of politicians.
“The thing about the tea parties is that they’re very vocal and they are very visible, and they’re an interesting story, so they get hyped up a lot more than they actually deserve,” Marvin said.
However, Koziara said he believes the Tea Party is misunderstood, which he said is a large problem for the movement and part of the reason there isn’t a student group dedicated to it on campus.
“It’s not a bunch of Nazis, it’s not a bunch of right-wing fascists, it’s not a bunch of evangelicals,” Koziara said. “The people who are there are everyday citizens who have never, ever been politically involved before, and they’re so upset and so alarmed by the current policies coming out of Washington that they’ve jumped into politics for the first time ever.”
Whether the movement is misunderstood or not, Marvin said he was impressed to see a group using civil liberties to their advantage in expressing their ideas.
“It’s a great testament to the strength of our civil liberties and civil rights,” Marvin said. “They are exercising their rights to organize, and their rights to free speech and free expression.”
