Paul Ryan and House Republicans helped fuel – and enthusiastically benefited from – the Tea Party wave, ushering in a movement that fed off of the same anger and hateful sentiments that have given rise to Trump.
But don’t take our word for it. This week, Speaker Ryan’s campaign arm is directly appealing to its Tea Party supporters, using the below image from a 2009 Tea Party protest that according to the NY Times, featured these civic-minded signs about President Obama: “One sign called him the ‘parasite in chief.’ Others likened him to Hitler. Several people held up preprinted signs saying, ‘Bury Obama Care with Kennedy,’ a reference to the Massachusetts senator whose body passed by the Capitol two weeks earlier to be memorialized.” This NRCC image is also easily confused with those from a subsequent Tea Party event where participants hurled anti-gay and racial slurs at Members of Congress, and even stooped so low as to spit on one.
Make no mistake – House Republicans are not just the Origin of Trump, they’re desperately continuing to stoke those same angry sentiments among their supporters to this day. The NRCC’s own polling says that Trump and Cruz will hurt them down the ballot, and this image is more proof that they only have themselves to thank for the rise of Trump and all of the damage he has done to the GOP brand.
