The Tea Party

http://www.teaparty.org/

Teaparty.org is a prime example of the Tea Party, in the way that it holds very Republican views on issues such as immigration, taxes, jobs and Obamacare.

The website features many icons that you can click on in order to join the Party. It also has many icons that link to sending donations to the army. The power of military and military presence is one of the historic values of the Republicans and this shows that the Tea Party strongly advocate the values that first started to the Republican Party. Another example which highlights some of the Tea Party’s ideals is; “Due to the devastating effects of mass illegal immigration” (taken from http://www.teaparty.org/article.php?id=1600, 7 Billion and Still Counting). This shows that immigration is a big problem as the population around the world, as well as in America, is growing rapidly. In this article it claims that “those illegally entering will produce more children who will be undereducated and not inculcated in American culture.” As the Republican Party are conservative, they would be interested in making sure that all American citizens are immersed in American culture, so it would make lots of sense that the Tea Party would also be very concerned for the levels of immigration, but especially illegal immigration, something that Governor Brewer claims that Obama needs illegal immigrants in order to gain votes as seen in http://www.teaparty.org/article.php?id=1604.

However, the credibility of the website should be taken into account. Although it features many news articles and has links to donations and joining the party, the website is not an official Tea Party website. From having looked at many different Tea Party websites, this is merely one of many that have been set up. Looking at the layout and presentation of the website, it looks as though it was set up by a member of the Tea Party and gained followers through Facebook and Twitter (it also has links to these websites as well). Also, as it is hard to determine how many Tea Parties there are, it also raises the question of how valid this website is, as it could have been written by anyone.

Having researched a few Tea Party websites and party groups, it is fair to say that the Tea Party do hold on to the conservative and historic values of the republic as well as the Republican Party. Although some of their views may be a bit extreme and nonsensical (as seen in the youtube video shown in Wednesday's workshop), a lot of their views are indeed valid but are mostly based on some of the Republican views.