Henry Rollins Quotes

Even at its most outrageous early moments, the Tea Party movement was treated to sober and at times breathless media coverage, to the point of being invited to co-host a presidential debate.

'Rage' is the word that most often attaches itself to the Tea Party movement, and it's true that, from the outside looking in, their public demonstrations appear to be more enraged than any political events in America since the race riots and anti-war protests of the 1960s.

The Tea Party ended up being a shill for corporate America.

While the vandals are on the street corners, the Tea Party conservatives, they're working state houses, the governorships, the mayorships, the Senate, the House.

Much like the Tea Party, Occupy Wall Street's message has gotten wrapped up in stereotypes. The Tea Party was weighed down by the birther movement, and Occupy Wall Street has gotten looped in with hippie culture.

The Tea Party is almost solely grassroots-based; business interests have almost no grassroots organization. The Republican Party has for too long been run on behalf of business interests who favor candidates the grassroots hate; the minute that those candidates begin to flag, only loyal Tea Partiers stand behind them.

The greatest propaganda coup of the American Right has been to convince its citizens that we are in the grip of a liberal conspiracy.

Because I have an opinion, I have become public enemy number one to the Fox News Channel and the right wing.

I have been unsure, from the start, what the Occupy movement was all about, although I did suspect that it was just fatuous, anti-enterprise, left-wingery.

Social issues have been used to distract Americans from their own self interests since Nixon's southern strategy, and now people are paying the price.

You know, the Tea Party is a - first of all, it is a significant movement, and I think the media and some pundits have tried to write it off as a bunch of cranks or something. But, in fact, it's really a very legitimate and fairly significant swath of voters out there.

The Tea Party did not run me out. If you know me and my personality, I would welcome the challenge.

Tea Party protesters are corporate America's useful idiots.

The Occupy movement is - it was a big surprise.

It requires some intelligent reframing to make people see commonalities that they don't otherwise see. To me, the Tea Party and the Occupy movement are, in many ways, saying the same thing, but it requires a bit of imagination to get people to see that.

The Tea Party has definitely increased political involvement, not only among Tea Party members but among people who oppose the Tea Party members. It's been a general stimulus.

The Conservative party now exists largely to misinform the public, to convince voters struggling through austerity that they have the same interests as billionaires and corporations.

Glenn Beck and others were pretty outrageous and extremely conspiratorial in the pre-Trump years. I don't mean to totally gloss over some of the nuttiness that was airing on Fox pre-Trump, but I do see a distinction between those years and the Trump years.

The Berlin Wall comes down in '89, so then there's basically a vacuum of who was the enemy and then Fox News comes along in '95 and it becomes Democrat versus Republican. Now people on the right are fed a steady diet of anti Democratic party propaganda so they believe Democrats are the enemy and they will not believe anything.

I think the media has portrayed conservatives as these cold, heartless people who want poor people to die and let half the population starve and all this. They've done that so effectively because they've owned the narrative for so long.

The Tea Party movement itself is maybe 15, 20 percent of the electorate. It's relatively affluent, white, nativist. You know, it has rather traditional nativist streaks to it. But what is much more important, I think, is the - is its outrage.

I don't believe Rush Limbaugh has a racist bone in his body.

Fox News has been a force in converting the party of Lincoln into the party of Trump. The network's allegiance to Trump approaches mindless adoration.

You can debate when the conservative movement became a racket - I nominate 1996, the year Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes created Fox News Channel to monetize right-wing outrage - but there is no doubt it has long since passed that point.

I am not saying Russia is not important, but Trump's base is very well defended against that: 'the liberal media is out to get him', 'it's fake news', and all the rest.