Alex Pareene reveals how the Tea Party works: A lot of anger and fear is stoked, often with bogus charges. Angry and scared people donate large sums of moola to try and elect candidates who will correct these alleged outrages…and then the folks who collect this money spend little or none of it to help candidates and put some or all of it into their own pockets.
I think this kind of thing is a lot more common in politics than we think. I may have mentioned this but I have a special e-mail address that I only use when I have to sign up on a website that seems likely to bombard me with junk messages. A lot of what this address receives is extreme wacko political stuff because I have been known to explore those sites and most of it seeks to get me riled-up about someone or something with what is usually a fraudulent account of something. And of course, it all leads to a pitch to send them money.
We know that's what they're trying to do — get us mad so we'll give the bucks — but I don't think we realize how much of that money just goes to the folks doing the riling. I wonder how much outrage there would be in this country if there wasn't so much money in it.