I mean, it WAS a Tea Party. That’s good. They were protesting TAXES! Yaay! And everyone dressed up as Indians so they were demonstrating political incorrectness AND pushing blame onto a troublesome minority at the same time. Great, a twofer! Come on, what’s not to like?
Well, hold on a minute. What about the violence part? I mean, they destroyed somebody else’s PRIVATE PROPERTY. You know tea doesn’t grow on trees (well, bushes), and it came on a boat all the way from China or India or someplace far away and those sailors had to go through storms and stuff and that cost somebody a WHOLE LOT OF MONEY and those violent protesters just threw it into the harbor! What if the owner didn’t have enough insurance? Or it didn’t cover acts of war or insurrection—and you know that’s what the insurance company would say, even if it was “Indians” who did it.
AND, even worse, they were protesting the legal actions of their OWN GOVERNMENT. It wasn’t that a few rogue tax collectors were out of control and giving a bad name to all the good tax collectors, it was the King and his whole government who raised the taxes! Gosh, you can’t take to the streets (or docks) to protest your own government, you should SUPPORT your government. No matter what. And if you don’t like it, just leave. God Save the King and all that (you DO stand up when they play that tune, don’t you?).
Gosh, what’s a good Republican to think? People with a just grievance but who are both protesting against the government AND destroying private property! Republican heads are spinning. We hate taxes but we hate violent protests against the government too! Where are my cognitive dissonance pills? I know, if the violent protest involves white people upset about money, it’s good and I’ll name a wing of my party after it. If it’s dark-skinned people upset about being beaten and murdered, it’s bad, and I can go on happily ignoring whose knee was on whose neck.