For this week's
on the local Tea Party movement, SFR interviewed Bob Wright, commander of the New Mexico Milita First Brigade. Not only do the Tea Parties borrow some style and substance from Wright's militia movement, Wright has played an active role in Tea Parties in his corner of the state.
(To wit: Here's a
of his speech last year to a Lea County Tea Party rally. And
from someone who didn't think his borderline call for uprising was radical enough.)
Wright believes that most of the American public would side with him, if only they could hear his views unfiltered. Given that he considers the Republicans to be a left-wing party, and that the United States started going downhill after 1913, that seems unlikely.
Right now, there is a struggle for the future of the Tea Party movement, with radical, violence-praising purists like Wright—who is
called a "nativist" by the Southern Poverty Law Center
—in the minority against the taming forces of mainstream corporate Republicanism. Yet, as this interview shows, Wright has one thing in common with the "pretty hair" Republicans he claims to despise: He is no fan of "snarky, frat-boy, smart-ass report[ers]."
"The thing is, guy: You got to get your head out of your ass," Wright told SFR. "You've got to realize that what you have here is something you haven't had in this country in a long, long time. And it actually is a very real grassroots movement. It is a spontaneous, and its loyalty does not lie to a party or a person."
Read the interview after the jump.
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Wright: Yo.
SFR: Hey, glad we finally connected.
Yeah...
Hey, guy, I did look you up there. Boy, they don't get much more left than you, do they?
Some people would say that. But...I'm not easy to pigeonhole.
I'd be interested if we started this thing off—in your first communication, you said you knew what the militia movement was about. I'd like for you to tell me what it's about.
Uh, well, you know, I knew a lot of people growing up who basically, every time they had an interaction with the federal government, it was to screw them over...So, what I understood, this was a group of people who basically wanted to be left alone, didn't care what their neighbors did, as long as they didn't hurt anybody, and believed in their view of the Constitution, what it said about liberty and personal rights.
See, it's not their view of the Constitution, let's get that straight right up front: It's the Founders' view of the Constitution, the people that actually wrote the document. Minus the 70 or 80 years of Marxist 'filtration.
Say again?
I said, what it is, what the militas are about, is the Founders' view of the Constitution. Minus 70 or 80 years of Marxist 'filtration.
OK. Well, so—
It's not about personal things, it's not about 'my land' being taken away, it's the fact that our Founders guaranteed us a certain form of government, certain rights, and those things are being infringed upon and dramatically changed.
So, explain to me then where the militia movement was in the '90s and what's up with the Tea Party movement now—I mean, is there some overlap here?
If there's an overlap it's the desire to see Constitutional governance returned. Uh, you know, back to a Founders' view of the Republic.
Um, let me ask you—how did you feel about—I was just talking to Sheryl Bohlander, who's organizing some of the Tea Parties up in Santa Fe, and she said, 'You know, we're sticking to the fiscal issues, we're not bringing up Second Amendment stuff'...
Well, this has got be a Santa Fe thing, because every other Tea Party I'm aware of, they want the whole deal. The Constitution is the Constitution is the Constitution. The Bill of Rights is the Bill of Rights is the Bill of Rights. My right to keep and bear arms is equal in status to the right to free speech, equal in status to the right of assembly and everything else.
So if the Santa Fe Tea Party is shying away from that stuff, they're—
It's an isolated thing, yeah. Probably because y'all have been Caliaforniacated out so bad you're not even part of the state anymore.
I think there's probably a lot of people that might...well, I don't know if they'd tell me...
You've all become like San Francisco, see? Isolated unto yourself. You've created your own little culture and somehow you think that is New Mexico. But the New Mexico that I live in is a place where we work for a living, and people actually participate in things, and we don't just sit around with snarky little frat-boy smart-ass crap, trying to pretend we have intelligence or personality.
[Pause] Is there something specific—
I gotta tell ya dude, looking at your writing, that's how you write. Now, you got that snarky, frat-boy, very chic cynicism about everything.
OK, well, I'll take it for what it's worth. So, what—
Gee, can you minimize me a little more there, fella?
I called because I wanted to hear what you had to say.
I'm pretty clear this is where this is going. I don't believe, in my heart, I do not believe that you are interested in what I have to say. What you are interested in is how you can twist what I say or filter it through your snarky, frat-boy, smart-ass reporting. Am I wrong.
I take offense to the frat-boy thing. I wouldn't deny being a smart-ass, Bob. But frat-boy, that's just going too far. I was going to ask you, on the Constitutional stuff–and this is the same thing I asked Sheryl—if you're concerned about the Constitution, where were y'all during the Bush years?
Fighting Bush. Fighting Bush, partner. If anybody tells you anything else, they're full of shit.
The most anti-Constitutional law ever passed was the Patriot Act.
So was it—
Bush Senior! This starts a long time ago and it runs through every administration since Ronald Reagan, for all practical purposes. The Tea Party you see today is a culmination of that frustration, that anger, that watching everything we were told be turned into something else. You can try this crap of trying to say we support George Bush, and you're going to be just as ass-backward as everybody else. The Tea Party movement started under the Bush administration, because of his insane spending.
So why is it only getting some attention now?
I think, uh—one thing is, why don't you tell me? Why didn't you listen to us in the '90s? Why did you demonize us in the '90s?
I was in high school, in the '90s, Bob.
Oh, no shit?
Yeah.
How old are you?
I'm 27.
Oh, crap. That kinda gives credence to that frat boy thing doesn't it [laughs].
Except I wasn't in a frat—I didn't like those guys, Bob.
If you're honest, and you really want to do something, you have to understand that the Tea Party is a culmination of decades of frustration. You know, the first Bush and his lying about no more new taxes, that sense of betrayal. The idiot Bush who cut the throats of all conservatives by labeling himself a compaaaaassionate conservative, thereby implying that other conservatives weren't compassionate—and his whole betrayal of every conservative principle I can think of.
What do you think: a lot of people are trying to tie the Tea Parties—which, from what I can tell, is a pretty diverse bunch who don't agree on a lot...a lot of people are trying to tie the Tea Parties to Sarah Palin, and saying this is going to be Sarah Palin's—
No, no, no—you leftist people are trying to tie Sarah Palin. Because you need a straw man you can tear down. What you cannot wrap your mind around is we have a grassroots movement here, who our leader is the Constitution. That is the altar at which we worship, although I hate to use that kind of terminology. We are here without Sarah Palin, or any other man—or woman—or a party. And you know? I make this in every speech, I say, 'No man or party will save this Republic. What will save this Republic is a militant, belligerent, relentless effort to force this government back to its Constitutional limits.
I'm not saying that tie is legitimate or not, I was going to ask you what you thought of Sarah Palin.
I think she's probably a really nice lady. I think she did a fine job in Alaska. I have ties in Alaska. I know people who know Sarah Palin. They say that she's very genuine, she's very real, you may not like what it is that she is but what she portrays is real—it's not an act for the cameras. Is she the leader of the nation, is she the savior? No, of course not.
Neither is Scott Brown. We're pulling this idiot thing just like you people did with Obama, where you've got a guy who's never done anything—never accomplished one single damn thing, but now I watch the CPAC here, they're trying to turn him to our messiah. And that's insane.
What about Adam Kokesh?
I don't have any use for Adam Kokesh. Personally. Because as far as I'm concerned Adam Kokesh is in the same boat as John Kerry. When you undercut the troops in the field—and in the interest of full disclosure I have a boy in Afghanistan—uh, when you undercut the troops in the field, you're scum. Period.
And you think he did that with his protests, or what?
Yes. You want to argue this point? We don't do it in the street, undermining the troops. You know. I can't help it if you're a little fucking weenie and the Army didn't turn out like you wanted.
Wow—I missed that forum you both were scheduled to speak at, but did this come up there?
Yeah, I've told him this to his face.
At the time, I'd heard of him, and I'd met him one time before, but I wasn't aware of this 'Veterans Against the War' shit.
So you didn't know about it until more recently.
Until this last forum you're talking about up there.
The thing is, guy: You got to get your head out of your ass. You've got to realize that what you have here is something you haven't had in this country in a long, long time. And it actually is a very real grassroots movement. It is a spontaneous, and its loyalty does not lie to a party or a person. And I know that's so hard in our world, where our whole country revolves around this professional-wrestling mentality of politics.
The people that I know, the people that I associate with, they're motivation is the belief—and I think a very correct belief, and I don't think it takes any intellect to look at what's happened and understand—that we have strayed very far afield from the Constitutional limitations that were placed upon the federal government. The federal government is in fact a usurper government. That has exceeded the powers which it is legally entitled to. And that the country and human liberty in the country suffers because of that usurpation. Period.
And yes, people have the areas they're comfortable talking about, because it's their particular passion, be it Second Amendment, be it the First Amendment, be it Birthers and Truthers and whatever. But the simple fact of the matter is a return to Constitutional government will solve about 99 percent of the problems in this country. ....
You talk about a real grassroots movement, and I see that. But I also see a lot of different interests trying to steer it their direction.
Oh, I agree. I 100 percent agree. The Republicans are so desperate to get ahead of this thing. They are buffoonish, actually, in their attempts to get ahead of it.
[Laughs]
I know you probably agree, but you think Republicans are buffoonish, period.
Some of the people I've talked to here who claimed an interest or a stake in the Tea Party, to hear them talk I just don't understand why they don't see that it's Republicans trying to get them back into the fold. But it seems like you're trying to take that grassroots energy in your direction, too, right?
Here's the thing. You know this as well as I do. This is how you corrupt a real grassroots movement. When people start becoming effective, you go to them and you say, ‘You're a freaking genius. And you are the future of our party. However, we're not quite ready to be this radical yet, so why don't you come on in, start attending our fundraisers—let people get to know you. In three months, they're so enmeshed in that party crap, they become worthless.
Right.
And that's what the Republicans are trying desperately—because the Republicans are no different than you. They're not capable of wrapping their minds around a genuine grassroots movement whose motivation lies solely in the founding philosophies of the nation, and the fear that our children are going to be much poorer than we are.
And I think that's beyond doubt. I think you're going to experience that, partner, you're young enough. You'll never know the prosperity I had. Being a reporter, you wouldn't anyway [laughs].
[Laughs] You're probably right about that. Even if we weren't headed into a great depression, I would probably never have any money because I decided to be a reporter. You have a point there.
I'm sorry if I seem somewhat hostile. I'm really frustrated. I've sat here and I've watched this crap on CPAC today, and I just want to puke, you know.
Well, who do you think is going to come out ahead of this thing?
I think the Republican Party is going to gain a lot of seats this time. And I think if history bears us out, they'll fuck it up, just like they did in '94. And then god help us, I don't know where we're headed. If the population goes through another betrayal—Obama betrayed everybody who voted for him. Your side truly honest-to-god believed you were ripped off in two consecutive elections. You honestly believed it because you don't understand the Constitution, you don't understand how the electoral college works, or anything else. But your side honestly, deeply believed that those elections were stolen. And now this President, who they finally had their messiah, has not behaved in the manner they thought he would, so now your side has the same sense of betrayal that we had with Bushes.
That's why I think it's an interesting time, don't you?
I think it's a terrifying time, actually. If sane men don't stay in the forefront of this thing, temperate men don't stay in the forefront of this thing, on both sides, we're going to wind up in places none of us ever wanted to go.
Yeah, but the milita movement's been saying that stuff for 10, 15, 20 years now.
And your point is?
Look at historical context. There are people who argue the American Revolution actually started in 1757.
You're playing the long game, is what I'm hearing.
Life is a long game. This is where we get into trouble, is when we go reaching for these short-term solutions that satisfy an immediate need, as opposed to looking at the long-term repercussions of those short-term actions. It's like this moron now and all the money he's spending trying to pay off these special interests groups—it's going to have repercussions for our grandchildren. That is wrong. Absolutely wrong. He is robbing future generations, and I believe this with all my heart—this is not rhetoric, bud—he is robbing future generations of prosperity.
So what's the hope—what would you like to see happen?
My hope is that we will, and it is, it's happening right now: The Constitution is cool, man. People are starting to rediscover what the country was actually meant to be and how far afield it's gone. And if people are telling you that somehow or another this is about Republicans and Democrats, that's because they're still ignorant. This is about our country, it's about the Constitution, it's about those things that each and every one of us are entitled to as Americans. You may not like it, and one of the things that's amazing is how we've changed.
See, I actually am a liberal here: Because I believe that people should have all the liberty they can stand, with only enough control to keep us from eatin' each other. Through that, you turn loose that kind of human energy, there will be prosperity, and there will be all kinds of good things.
Your side wants to control everything. You don't trust fellow human beings. I do. Are there bad people out there? Yeah, but we outnumber them. It's only when we are restricted from stopping the bad people, that we—if one decent German had stood up in that damn beer hall in 1929 in Munich and knocked the little Austrian corporal on his ass, there probably wouldn't have been World War II. But they were too conventional.
I talked to some Tea Party folks who had different politics than yours. They were going on and on about Obama was infringing their civil liberties, and I said 'What do you think about the TSA?' I put the same question to you.
I think it's a joke. I think it's more short-term solutions—we call it boob bait. That way when you go to the airport you can feel like your government is trying to protect you.
You think it's consistent with the Fourth Amendment to search everybody?
No, of course not. Of course not. Any more than saving us with the Patriot Act was consistent with anything in our Constitution—that was the most anti-Constitutional piece of legislation that's ever been written.
You said you've got a son in Afghanistan. Do you support the mission there?
Yes I do.
And how would you characterize it? What do you think they're doing in Afghanistan?
Well, again, you're going to have to understand that I look at the long term. And I know history. I think that Rummy and his boys truly, naively, stupidly believed that it would be Paris 1944 when we went into Afghanistan and Iraq. OK? I think the idea was to break up the Al Qaeda training centers and to bust up the power of the Taliban. But it is a naive and stupid assumption that once that's done we can just walk off. We did that in the '80s when we helped the mujahideen defeat the Russians—and this is what allowed something as perverted as the Taliban to come to power.
The simple fact is, we need Afghanistan to be stable. And if we need to spend 20, 30, 40 years to teach these tribal-type people how to integrate and become a state, then that's what we need to do. Because we need Afghanistan for the whole world to be stable.
I get somewhat frustrated with guys on your side, who are supposed to love everybody, and write these people off as, 'well, they've been doing this for 1,000 years, we're never going to change them.'
I never said that. I think if you read my stuff you wouldn't say 'you guys.'
Look, I know who Alexander Cockburn is. And that guy's so left it's unbelievable. I know you write for his, uh, what is it? CounterPunch or whatever it is?
Yeah...
I looked at what you do write: It's for every leftist publication on the—I mean—[laughs]—you are left, dude!
How far right would you describe yourself?
It depends. In 1960, I probably would've been a Kennedy Democrat. Uh, by '69 I think I certainly would've been a Nixon Republican. I claim to be a Reagan Republican, now. But see, we don't have a right-wing party in this country, we have a left-wing party and then we have an ultra-left-wing party.
So, I'm not sure.
You would consider the Republican Party to be a left-wing party?
Yes.
A party that has abandoned its roots. Let me make this caveat: The first election I ever voted in was Jimmy Carter-Gerald Ford. Carter won that handily because Ford pardoned Nixon, of course. Then of course the next one was Reagan. I, like a lot of people, made the mistake of thinking I was a Republican, and only in the last couple of years, I've come to realize I never was a Republican—I'm a Reaganite. I believe in the Reagan form of government. Of faith in the people. Of turning loose the people to the maximum possible.
Do you see anybody who's running for office right now, or who's likely going to run for office, who's—
No. No. There are good people out there: Duncan Hunter out of California. Uh, Alan Keyes, of course—I know you guys hate him [laughs]. I've spent three days with Alan Keyes, and he's probably the smartest man in American politics. Certainly one of the best-educated men in American politics. And he's a guy who shares that reverence for the founding and the principles that were laid out in those founding documents.
What are we going to do? Mitt Romney? Which is another Northeastern liberal? You know, whose positions seem to vary with whichever race he seems to be running in at the time? Is that the hope? Or how about a failure like Newt Gingrich? Who threw the Republican revolution right down the toilet in '94? Sarah Palin? You guys have not done half the damage to Sarah Palin that the Republican Party's done to her. Whatever she is is no longer important, because in politics perception is everything, and you guys should be proud: You've destroyed that woman.
I don't know if I'd agree with that—
You talk about how stupid she is.
I would say the more attention she gets, the better for her.
I don't think so. I think what you've done to her is despicable.
What do you think the odds the Tea Party gets co-opted by the Republicans for the mid-terms?
Fifty-fifty right now.
Because even people in the Tea Party, they too are imbued in this professional wrestling mentality of politics in America, where we have good guys and bad guys, and there's a really bad guy in the black mask over here. We swap back and forth every four, five years. The purpose of government in America is to do what—can you answer that question?
I thought it was pretty laid out in the Constitution, wasn't it?
And what does the Constitution say? The purpose of government in this country is to ensure the liberties of the people. Anything else is illegitimate. This is made quite clear in our Declaration of Independence. Anything that does not either secure or increase the liberties of the people is illegitimate.
When you start getting on defining liberty, that's where you start getting into arguments, right? But you would say, if the Founders didn't say it, it doesn't apply.
I'm saying this: That the Founders covered everything. The founders listed 17 specific powers the government was allowed to have and it could have no more. It says that in the Tenth Amendment. Are you familiar with the Tenth Amendment?
Refresh me.
You might find it interesting to read. It says, those powers not specifically designated to the United States—meaning the federal government—are reserved to the states and the people respectively. The Ninth Amendment says just because a right is not specifically delegated to the people doesn't mean they don't have it. We've allowed this government to become the monster that is now destroying us.
What I hear in the Tea Party is a lot of anger at Wall Street, which is a different monster, right? Or is it the same monster?
It's all the same monster. You know, Wall Street and government have been hand-in-hand for how long? Who controls what Wall Street does? Come on. Look at your Democrats you hold up—see how much Wall Street donates to them, partner.
This is why I'm saying you shouldn't just say 'you,' when you talk about 'my side' or whatever—
I've been bitching about it my whole life. You guys, in my opinion, have tried to move us toward socialism, and having capitalism pay for it. You know: You don't like people. You don't like the American form of government. You don't like things that allow people to operate without control. Because in my opinion, you're all afraid of something. I don't know exactly what it is. But you're all afraid of something.
You gave the odds at 50-50 that the Republicans co-opt this. What happens if the Tea Party stays out of the Republican Party?
Then we will have some tumultuous years. And they will continue to hammer. Because I believe with all my heart the bulk of Americans want what we want. If you can ever cut through all the political shit from both sides. When you sit people down and get 'em to actually read that Constitution, they're stunned. Absolutely stunned.
That was when my big awakening come, was in high school, in '75, when we were doing the run-up to the Bicentennial. That whole year before the Bicentennial, the schools concentrated on the Founding and whatnot, and that's when I began to realize, 'Wait a minute, how the hell does Richard Nixon do wage and price controls? He has no power to do that. He has no power to create the EPA. What is this?'
So when people become more and more aware of how bad they're screwed, we are going to win. This country—we're either going back to a Constitutional republic, or I'm afraid it's going to get so ugly that none of us are going to like where it's headed.
I'm going to tell you something, in a fair hearing, where you guys aren't calling us racists, and terrorists and all the other neato little catchphrases you have for us, we win. And you know it. We're able to get out there, and present the information, without all the name-calling you people are so famous for, uh, we win. And that's why you demonize us. And that's why you're going to demonize me. That's another thing—I wasn't going to give you the damn interview and here I've run for what, 30 minutes? Oh, hell—I've got to go to work.
Hey, you might think I'm being a smartass, but you believe the American people want what you want—But doesn't the bulk of the American people really just want to watch TV? I mean—
No! No! No! That is the most insulting thing I have ever heard. 'Oh, Joe Sixpack, he's too stupid to make decisions, so we'll have these educated people do it fir him.' You people are the racists. You people are the ones who hate humanity. Because that really and truly is your very vision of humanity. All we want to do is play with our pecker and shove food in our faces, as long as we can do that, hell, let smart people make the decisions for us.'
All this time that you've been doing your patriot thing, isn't that what the bulk of the country was doing? They were watching. They were watching the Patriot Act. They watched the bailouts.
No. Let me tell you what happened. In my opinion. Our press has utterly failed us. Because all the press now has their own agenda. There's no such thing as a free press in America. There is no free press in America. You all have your agenda. You're not there to report facts, you're there to push an agenda. And you are. Now, you may be honest enough to admit it. You know.
People never actually have a chance to know what's going on. People foolishly, when they're angry—how do I want to put this? Instead of saying, 'I'm scared of this action.' It's because one of the problems we have now is we live in a five-second soundbite world. And if you can't get it out in a five-second soundbite, you lose. Because that's all that you people allow. That's all the media allows. We've become too dependent on the media for our thinking. There's a lot of issues we can't do in five seconds. One of the problems we have is you guys, you want to set the limits of the debate, you want to set the terms we're allowed to use in the debate, and if we don't stay within your rules, you call us dirty names. You call us racists. You call us terrorists. You call us all kinds of things.
And the simple truth is, you illustrate it quite well for me. Because that is the leftist view of America. That we're all just fat, lazy bastards who want to play with our peckers and drink our Joe Sixpack beer, and we just need real intellectuals like y'all to take care of us. Same way you feel about the people who you call minorities. Let me tell you something, dude: Do you really think Hispanics sit around their dinner table and have different conversations than we do. Huh?
I'm not sure what you mean.
You think they ain't worried about gettin' goin' on to college, or whether or not we're going to have to replace the air conditioner this year? You really think there's such a think as 'Hispanic issues'? There are because your side created those issues.
I think we've gone a little far afield, here—
No. No. Maybe for your purposes we have.
I'm telling you, that's what's motivated this. People want to cut through the crap, they want to cut through the partisan, and we want to go back to what this country was supposed to be—we want to go back what it was when we were succeeding. When prosperity was growing. When liberty was everywhere. And where an arrogant class of servants understood their place in the scheme of American life.
Who would that class be?
That would be our political class.
I'm asking you genuinely: When was there such a time? When was this time when liberty was everywhere?
Up until about I think 1913, is when the serious deterioration started. Through the Roosevelt years it got worse. Uh.
But you still had Jim Crow in a lot of the country in that time.
You know, and that's true. This is another false argument you guys like to throw out there, OK? 'Because there was Jim Crow, the liberty argument was negated.' And that's just crap. At the same time there was Jim Crow, there was hundreds and thousands and millions of people working to end Jim Crow. You know, so, your argument is bullshit.
Just like you have these fools who say the founding itself was irrelevant, it's wrong and illegitimate, because there was still slavery in this country. Seventy years within the time of the founding we fought a war to end slavery. You know in the course of human history, to take something that's been established for thousands of years, and place a major component of the economy, and change it based purely on morals is amazing! And is an absolute testament to the goodness of America. But that's not how you people see it.
Well, without getting into a big—
'We condemn our Founders because they didn't free the slaves.' But you haven't come up with an idea of what those slaves would've done once they were freed, would you? With no education, nowhere to go, no property, no money—and a hostile population to surround them.
Yeah, I think we're still dealing with it, frankly.
How?! How, partner? How are we still dealing with it? See, this is the asininity of it all. We have a black President. Where are we still dealing with this? Are there asswipes out there whose lives are so worthless that they have to latch onto something they have no control over to give meaning to their life, like their skin color? Well yeah, there are, and they come in all colors. Is it a part of America, our institutionalized life? No it is not. What do you want to do? You're going to have people who have beliefs that are wrong? What do you want to do about that?
That's—
That too is freedom, fella! That too is liberty.
That's in the First Amendment, I agree with you, Bob. You can say anything no matter how wrong or idiotic it may be.
A hundred years ago, if you said something wrong and out of line, somebody busted your nose for you. So you learned how to interact in polite society. Now, we got all this pussy shit where, you know, 'violence is just wrong,' and decent people have surrendered the streets, we've surrendered our communities, our government to the scum of the earth, so that we can remain polite.
I listened to this crap when I was growing up, man. When I was a kid is when all this stuff we're seeing begin to come to fruition, this leftist shit. And they had these mindless little twats come out of these teaching colleges, and they'd come out at you with this doe-eyed look, and they'd say [mocking tone], 'you can't just a person until you walk a mile in his moccasins, man.' Well you know what I can judge a liar and I can judge a thief and I can judge a child molester, and I don't have to walk a mile in his moccasins. And I can judge a man who will not feed himself and work and take care of his family and I don't have to walk a mile in his moccasins.
Let me go back to the Tea Party, Bob.
OK, let's go back to the Tea Party. I'm sorry.
You said the Santa Fe Tea Party might be an anomaly if they don't care about these Constitutional issues as much.
Yeah, and I think there are some people on the national level who definitely want to keep this on a conservative, fiscal policy, but that's not the Tea Party.
Well, one of the organizers of the Santa Fe Tea Party is also an active Republican Party organizer. Do you think that just presents an inherent conflict?
Yes I do. And this is the thing. All the Tea Parties are dealing with this right now.
Everybody thinks the Republicans in their party, their countywide, they're goooood—and they may well be. But nonetheless they are part of the machine that brought us to where we're at.
Barack Obama was not elected because people thought he was such a great guy. He was elected because George Bush was such a major fuckup and John McCain was worse!
Right. I think there's people on the left who would agree with you about that. So, to conclude, if the key organizers of the Santa Fe Tea Party are Republicans, there's no legitimate Tea Party in Santa Fe?
No, I'm not going to say that.
There may be—I just haven't found it yet.
But I think there's certainly a conflict of interest. There was a dirty, dirty doing—You've heard of the Tea Party Express.
Yeah.
That was run by, who?
Dick Armey or somebody like that.
Tom DeLay. Yeah. Was it Armey too? OK. Here's the deal man, these guys are shilling for the Republican Party. It's like this song I get in the email: 'We're gonna take it back in 2010 / We're gonna vote 'em out.' OK. Let's take that to the next logical step: Who are we going to vote for? Why, the Republicans!
You know, I'm surprised: With as clearly as you see that happening, you didn't cast your lot in mainstream politics, because you understand how they operate. I'm sure they'd make room for you.
There's no place for an honest man in mainstream politics. What we have to have are these little mama's boys with their pretty hair, who spent their whole life hiding their indiscretions so they would remain viable for politics. And you've got guys like me who lived life, buddy: Large. And enjoyed our youth [laughs].
I could tell.
And, uh, until we get over that aspect of things: Until we're willing to elect a guy who's bald-headed and got scars on his face, because, you know, he's actually gone out and fought the battles—instead of these little pretty boys like Mitt Romney and, well, name one—pick one, you know.
