Tucson: When Tea Party, Anti-Immigrant Rhetoric Collide

[Editor’s Note: This column by Somos Republicans founder DeeDee Garcia Blase is being reposted with permission, for more from Somos Republicans visit their website.]

Not all Tea Party members are bad, however, in states like Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, Florida, and Texas, it appears that extremist anti-immigrant supporters have hijacked the Tea Party rallies. What began as a positive movement to embrace the nations’ founding principles to lower taxes and promote limited government, has gone awry.

Whether well-intended conservatives care to admit it or not, there are factions within the Tea Party movement that have been overtaken by extremists and xenophobes like former Congressman Tom Tancredo and JD Hayworth. This does not mean that all Tea Party groups are the same, for instance, the Boston Tea Party in Massachusetts does not blame immigrants for severe economic conditions; and in some cases Tea Party members have attacked bigotry and removed the offenders from the public political discourse.

However, in August 2010, a Tea Party rally was held near Mexico’s and Arizona’s border where Congressman David Schweikert (endorsed by State Senator Russell Pearce), former Congressman JD Hayworth and Sheriff Joe Arpaio joined by “angry right wing housewives”, Pamela Gorman, Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery and several more displayed bumper stickers that screamed, “Right Wing Extremist”. In Florida, Tea Party member, Joyce Kaufman advocated “hanging illegals” which sent herpacking as the newly elected Congressman Allen West’s Chief of Staff.

In Colorado, the national Tea Party state leader said she preferred Tancredo over Republican candidate Dan Maes who convincingly stated on January 5, 2011, that “race” definitely had influenced the Colorado 2010 election. Of course there is the Tea Party candidate, Sharron Angle who stoked voters’ anti-immigration fervor by producing anti-Hispanic videos with borderline racist messages.

The blatant bigotry that has snuck into the ranks of the Tea Party movement cannot be overlooked. Tea Party leaders’ who allow extremists to speak by handing them a microphone to relentlessly expose their disdain toward immigrant communities instead of focusing on lower taxes and responsible government stewardship must be confronted.

On January 8, 2010, Sheriff Clarence Dupnik clearly stated at the press conference following the shooting of Congressman Gabby Giffords: “Arizona, I think, has become the Capital or Mecca for prejudice and bigotry.

The heightened spiteful rhetoric has even influenced the media. FOX News should receive well-deserved criticism for “vitriol” in political and media discourse. During the Maricopa County GOP Meeting held this past Saturday, we heard the sponsor of Arizona’s harsh immigration bill, Senator Russell Peace, gloat how “we turned FOX News into an Arizona Station”. The remark was followed by laughter and applause by my fellow GOP cohorts, and was anything but humorous.

It appears that FOX News has not done responsible media due diligence with Pearce and continues to have him and other extremist officials like Sheriff Joe Arpaio, Governor Jan Brewer, John Kavanagh provide the viewing audience misleading and inflammatory immigration information that contributes to the palpable hate so rampant in the Arizona immigration debates. What happened to Fox’s concept of “fair and balanced” by offering the public in-depth viewpoints from a variety of informed expert sources on such controversial issues that impact not only public perception but real person’s lives?

The result of such undisciplined and run-away spiteful rhetoric mixed with or promulgated as Tea Party principles, is confusion. A sad irony occurs when the Tea Party movement combines forces and “air time” with the anti-immigrant promoters, in that those who defend the anti-immigrant movement conveniently omit a fact that by continually introducing unconstitutional legislation millions of tax payer dollars are wasted – the very core issue the Tea Party attacks for reform! Isn’t the original intent of the Tea Party to eliminate tax payer spending abuse while holding politicians accountable for good fiscal stewardship? So then why have Tea Party leaders allowed fiscally irresponsible anti-immigrant representatives access?

Studies show that immigrant labor has boosted the US economy, not harmed it (even during the recession). The Tea Party movement is better served by sticking to its’ core principles and not allow “hateful rhetoric” and uninformed individuals access to their podiums. Hatred has no place in a movement to restore true core conservative principles.

The attempt to combine the two movements only leads to confusion and unintended harmful consequences, which will only cause a train wreck that is waiting to happen.