Has Everyone Gone to the Tea Party?

Image by Fibonacci Blue via Flickr

It's true that life is currently consumed with trips back and forth to the hospital and consulting with doctors and I have no idea what's happening in the world. That much is true, but there was still something that made me go "Hmmm"  I pretty much only travel the route to the hospital when we have someone there, but that's happened plenty in the last decade. I go past a Planned Parenthood office and there has always been one, two or three protesters outside with the usual signs. And now I've passed the place on Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, every one of them featuring fine weather for protesting and there's no one. Nada. Not one angry soul hoping to harass some hapless female going in there for services - of which abortion is only one. Mentioning this  to someone who passes a different Planned Parenthood office on her route to work caused  her to realize she hasn't noticed anyone there lately either. So where'd they go? Nothing's changed recently and they were so dogged in the face of vast public indifference to their existence for so long. I can only conclude that they have probably taken up teabagging. The teabaggers have taken to setting up at local Post Offices, presumably to harass people who want to buy stamps, when there isn't a big event happening.

It does seem very  likely that the Tea Party draws from the same group of sadsacks of disontent who were around anyway, with time on their hands since their income so often derives from SSI.