@ tonyb
“I have of course heard of the Tea Party, but in what ways do they differ materially from mainstream Republicans?”
It may be useful to remember that the name ‘TEA Party’ came from the acronym Taxed Enough Already (TEA).
While the people who feel that we are ‘Taxed Enough Already’ are (obviously) more likely to be sympathetic to Republican views rather than Democratic views, those who self identify with the TEA Party come from a wide variety of political backgrounds. It is not formally associated with the ‘mainstream Republicans’. In fact, the Republican Leadership is at least as implacable in its visceral hatred of the TEA Party as the progressives and in political races where candidates sympathetic to TEA Party principles are polling strongly, the progressives are usually happy to stand back and let the ‘mainstream Republicans’ destroy them. Sorta like the Consensus vs Dr. Curry.
The tarring of the ‘TEA Party’ as racist, sexist, homophobic, religious fundamentalist, anti-science, totalitarian bigots was done by–surprise–progressives, using Alinsky’s ‘Rules for Radicals’ as their playbook. A favorite tactic is for progressives to attend TEA Party rallies and wave racist etc and shout racist etc slogans. Why? It obviously works. Their efforts are picked up by the (progressive) MSM and featured prominently in their coverage of the TEA Party. See the comments on this thread which accept the above description of the TEA Party as gospel and assumes that anyone who defends it is–you guessed it–a racist, sexist, homophobic, religious fundamentalist, anti-science totalitarian bigot, just like the TEA Partiers. And all for the sin of thinking that we are ‘Taxed Enough Already. Never a safe slogan in the presence of a progressive.