A few weeks ago, we were on the brink of a financial meltdown thanks to the Tea Party. Back then, I said there was plenty of evidence that the Tea Party is rising on the unhealed and unreasonable belief that the South should have seceded.

I got into a fight with a former friend over the subject when it became apparent that she was convinced it was one wacky yahoo with a misplaced view of reality, and that such whack jobs were not the norm.

I begged to differ, but there wasn’t enough proof other than my strong and growing belief that the proof was out there.

Mother Jones appears to agree with me. Right here.

GOP Senate Candidate Addressed Conference Hosted by Neo-Confederate Group That Promotes Secessionism

From the article, posted October 23rd:

“Mississippi Republican Chris McDaniel, who is challenging Sen. Thad Cochran and backed by the Senate Conservatives Fund and the Club for Growth, took the stage with a historian who says Lincoln was a Marxist.”

When you read that these people fear the government is coming for their guns, it is founded in the paranoid belief that without them, the South will not rise again. Far from maintaining guns for personal safety, the most extreme of these hold firm to the belief that they stand any sort of chance against the US military because, after all, that’s what their forefathers did in the last Civil War.

No matter how much distance the traditional GOP try to give to the Tea Party, there’s always someone who brings it home that the Tea Party is a part of the GOP and that they are inextricably linked. Like, for example, former VP Dick Cheney:

Washington Times: Dick Cheney calls tea party a boon to GOP

Think the mess is over just because the government is back to work? Think again.

Still a year to go before the next general election. My prediction: It’s going to be an ugly, ugly year.