Little more than “fundraising, trying to scare a bunch of little old ladies to cough up money.”
A new attack by the Southern Poverty Law Center charges the tea-party movement is “shot through” with radical ideas and tied with “hate groups,” “furious anti-immigrant vigilante groups” and “so-called ‘Patriot’ groups.”
The SPLC report, “Rage on the Right, The Year in Hate and Extremism,” assails Rep. Michelle Bachmann, R-Minn., for “plugging” anti-government ideas and Gun Owners of America Executive Director Larry Pratt for daring to promote Second Amendment gun rights.
The SPLC’s Mark Potok warns “so-called ‘Patriot’ groups – militias and other organizations that see the federal government as part of a plot to impose ‘one-world government’ on liberty-loving Americans – came roaring back after years out of the limelight.”
The report echoes themes in a U.S. Department of Homeland Security report last year that characterized “right-wing extremists” as opponents of abortion and illegal immigration and supporters of gun rights and third-party political candidates.
The SPLC said the “radical right” “caught fire last year.”