San Francisco Tea Party - Union Square

Baby Free Will and I went to the San Francisco Tea Party this afternoon. After 20 years of getting caught up in downtown lefty protests, it was certainly a change to attend a right wing one. Obviously, these folks were cleaner, quieter and more prosperous looking than the usual SF protest crowd. While there were some young people, most of the crowd definitely fit the Tea Party demographic: white, middle aged, solidly middle class, prone to carry funny signs.

There were some fringe types there. The Larouchites had a table, complete with pictures of Obama-with-Hitler-Mustache, which was attracting some heated debaters. I guess I could be upset, but the Larouche people had a table outside my post office for years, and that didn't make me think any worse of the mail. There were also a few punks trying to "crash the party." One dork was even wearing a black mask. Luckily they were accompanied by guys carrying signs saying "Infiltrator," so no one was the wiser.

How was the event? Well, mostly there were a lot of ordinary people making short speeches, along with semi-celebrities like Melanie Morgan. A number of the speakers were immigrants. One old fellow was from Burma and gave an impassioned speech about that benighted country's socialist leaders. There was a young woman from Venezuela (I think) who also spoke about against socialism in a speaking style derived from Sarah Palin ("These liberties which we are losing, and that we are fighting for"). Everyone spoke from the heart, but I have to say that the Left could teach these folks a thing or two about rabble rousing.

Here are a few pictures I took with my camera phone:

Plenty of flags in attendance. A rarity at SF protests!

Here's a shot of the crowd around the Dewey (as in "You may fire when ready, Gridley") Memorial. Manifest Destiny!

The Littlest Rebel

And, here's a panoramic view of the crowd at Union Square.

When I moved to SF in 1991, you had to work real hard to find any sort of Republican. Starting in 2004, people became much more vocal in their alternative lifestyle views. You began to see plenty of Bush-Cheney bumper-stickers. In 2008, Ron Paul developed quite a cult following in SF and the Bay Area. Now, you can bring a couple thousand people out to Union Square in the middle of the work week to protest Obama, Pelosi, Boxer, and the rest. If you can do that in San Francisco, I can only imagine how things are in the rest of the country.

UPDATE: linked by Dan Riehl. Thanks!

UPDATE 2: linked by Smitty at The Other McCain. Thank you!