Tea Party: Uninformed Leading the Angry

Tea Party: Uninformed Leading the Angry

Tea Party: Uninformed Leading the Angry

Who’s inflammatory: Tea Partiers, or the critics calling out the Tea Party’s extreme slogans and signs?

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Nearly four out of five Americans say they don’t trust the federal government, and The Nation‘s Ari Melber appears with Mark Williams, chairman of Tea Party Express, on the Joy Behar Show to talk about why. Debate turns to who’s inflammatory: Tea Partiers, or the critics calling out the Tea Party’s extreme slogans and signs?

Tea Partiers, says Melber: "People have to the right to speak…but they have to take some responsibility for the extremists in their midst and in many cases the extremism they are pushing."

"Middle-class median income taxes are the lowest since 1955, and then you have Tea Parties and other folks making arguments saying, often falsely, that taxes are higher in this administration and they’re not," argues Melber, "When people are making these arguments on facts, a lot of their policies are wrong."

What’s really going on? Melber concludes: "The uninformed are leading the angry."

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Katrina vanden Heuvel
Editorial Director and Publisher, The Nation

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