Who are the Teabaggers? Well it turns out they are EXACTLY who we thought they were.

 Courtesy of the New York Times:

Our analysis casts doubt on the Tea Party’s “origin story.” Early on, Tea Partiers were often described as nonpartisan political neophytes. Actually, the Tea Party’s supporters today were highly partisan Republicans long before the Tea Party was born, and were more likely than others to have contacted government officials. In fact, past Republican affiliation is the single strongest predictor of Tea Party support today. 

 What’s more, contrary to some accounts, the Tea Party is not a creature of the Great Recession. Many Americans have suffered in the last four years, but they are no more likely than anyone else to support the Tea Party. And while the public image of the Tea Party focuses on a desire to shrink government, concern over big government is hardly the only or even the most important predictor of Tea Party support among voters. 

 So what do Tea Partiers have in common? They are overwhelmingly white, but even compared to other white Republicans, they had a low regard for immigrants and blacks long before Barack Obama was president, and they still do.

More important, they were disproportionately social conservatives in 2006 — opposing abortion, for example — and still are today. Next to being a Republican, the strongest predictor of being a Tea Party supporter today was a desire, back in 2006, to see religion play a prominent role in politics. And Tea Partiers continue to hold these views: they seek “deeply religious” elected officials, approve of religious leaders’ engaging in politics and want religion brought into political debates. The Tea Party’s generals may say their overriding concern is a smaller government, but not their rank and file, who are more concerned about putting God in government. 

This inclination among the Tea Party faithful to mix religion and politics explains their support for Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota and Gov. Rick Perry of Texas. Their appeal to Tea Partiers lies less in what they say about the budget or taxes, and more in their overt use of religious language and imagery, including Mrs. Bachmann’s lengthy prayers at campaign stops and Mr. Perry’s prayer rally in Houston. 

Yet it is precisely this infusion of religion into politics that most Americans increasingly oppose. While over the last five years Americans have become slightly more conservative economically, they have swung even further in opposition to mingling religion and politics. It thus makes sense that the Tea Party ranks alongside the Christian Right in unpopularity.

Republican racists who want to turn this country into a theocracy.

Color me unsurprised.

Want a second opinion?  Here you go.

When I started going to Tea Party meetings two years ago, I was sympathetic. Just after attending one in North Dakota in August of 2009, I wrote: "Most tea partiers are not bad people. They're just mad. In many meaningful ways, today's Tea Party attendees' lives have gotten consistently worse for the last 20 years, regardless of which party was in power." I concluded that trying to figure out what they wanted was a dead end because what they wanted was simply to complain—that the Tea Party "is not a group of listen and respond; this is a group of respond and respond." 

Two years of Tea Party functions later, and I finally know what the Tea Party wants: A Christian nation.

It appears that these small minded, ignorant racist fundamentalists have completely taken over the Republican party.  And through them they want to take over this country.

What say we keep that from happening.  You with me?

With Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry now two of the three GOP front runners, Dominionism is now getting the scrutiny it deserves. Update!

Sarah Palin may have been the first shiny object to really draw our attention to the Dominionist movement, but now that it has been clearly defined the media is beginning to pick up the signs of its influence on OTHER candidates as well.

Courtesy of The Daily Beast:

With Tim Pawlenty out of the presidential race, it is now fairly clear that the GOP candidate will either be Mitt Romney or someone who makes George W. Bush look like Tom Paine. Of the three most plausible candidates for the Republican nomination, two are deeply associated with a theocratic strain of Christian fundamentalism known as Dominionism. If you want to understand Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry, understanding Dominionism isn’t optional. 

 Put simply, Dominionism means that Christians have a God-given right to rule all earthly institutions. Originating among some of America’s most radical theocrats, it’s long had an influence on religious-right education and political organizing. But because it seems so outré, getting ordinary people to take it seriously can be difficult. Most writers, myself included, who explore it have been called paranoid. In a contemptuous 2006 First Things review of several books, including Kevin Phillips’ American Theocracy, and my own Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism, conservative columnist Ross Douthat wrote, “the fear of theocracy has become a defining panic of the Bush era.” 

 Now, however, we have the most theocratic Republican field in American history, and suddenly, the concept of Dominionism is reaching mainstream audiences. Writing about Bachmann in The New Yorker this month, Ryan Lizza spent several paragraphs explaining how the premise fit into the Minnesota congresswoman’s intellectual and theological development. And a recent Texas Observer cover story on Rick Perry examined his relationship with the New Apostolic Reformation, a Dominionist variant of Pentecostalism that coalesced about a decade ago. “[W]hat makes the New Apostolic Reformation movement so potent is its growing fascination with infiltrating politics and government,” wrote Forrest Wilder. Its members “believe Christians—certain Christians—are destined to not just take ‘dominion’ over government, but stealthily climb to the commanding heights of what they term the ‘Seven Mountains’ of society, including the media and the arts and entertainment world.”

I was talking to a very good, and well informed, friend recently about this topic and was told that someday we may all feel a sense of gratitude toward Sarah Palin for clumsily revealing just how influential and pervasive these Fundamentalist Christian groups had become.

Before Palin people like Leah Burton and Frank Schaeffer were considered "Chicken Little's" crying about a sky that was falling which nobody else could see. But with their help, and the help of many others, we are now able to see great chunks of falling debris and recognize the danger that they represent.

It reminds me of the movie "They Live" in which the danger was all around, but until you put on those special sunglasses you were completely unaware that everything you thought you knew was false.

Those of us who visit here, as well as God's Own Party, and various other informational blogs and websites, have our glasses firmly in place, and KNOW exactly what we are looking at when it comes to a Rick Perry, Michele Bachmann, or Rick Santorum.

Now it falls on those of us who are newly aware, to open the eyes of our friends and families to the dangers that are posed by this EXTREMELY aggressive and determined group of Theocrats.

Sarah Palin maybe yesterday's news, but the headlines for tomorrow may be equally as grim.

Update: A friend just reminded me that Leah Burton has a very important book on this subject coming out soon, called "God, Guns, and Greed." You can check it out for yourself, and even pre-order it, by clicking here.