Yes it is true, I love the Tea Party and all those conservatives around the country whom they endorse and persuade. I love Sarah Palin, I love Glenn Beck and I love Rand Paul. I love that on Tuesday night an upstart political newbie with outlandish views on sexuality (including a college campaign to stop masturbation) beat a well entrenched moderate Republican in the Delaware Senate primary. This upstart, Christine O’Donnell, a Tea Party doll endorsed by Sarah Palin, is the epitome of what I love.

However, this love does not stem from admiration nor does it grow from mutual views. In actuality, I cannot comprehend what goes on in the party member’s minds. What I do love about these ultraconservative candidates and pundits, however, is what they are doing for the Democratic Party. In an election season that is looking dark for the Democrats, a silver lining has appeared – a silver lining in the image of O’Donnell, Rand Paul and all the other candidates who won their primary on a wave of far-right enthusiasm, but now are set to crash in the general election against moderates and independents.

How can a reasonable independent or moderate vote for somebody who has said that the government should not force private businesses to abide by the Civil Rights Act of 1964. How can a thinking person vote for a woman who believes that there is more evidence supporting creationism than evolution?

In a rational world, these types of candidates would have no chance at defeating a more moderate and GOP-backed nominee (which both O’Donnell and Paul did), but the anger incited by pundits like Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck has given these campaigns some sort of legitimacy. However, when it comes to the voters that actually change general elections, moderates and independents, these mouthpieces have no bearing.

All these people receive their support from one greatly lovable entity, the Tea Party. From the outside, it looks like a mass of confused anger with no real purpose other than to be upset about almost everything. I envision the Tea Party as a snake that is perpetually eating itself. As it grows in national attention and membership, the greater the number of people disgusted by their actions.

For example, the hugely insensitive and idiotic “Restoring Honor Rally” on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial a few weekends ago.That is precisely the disrespect and groveling for attention that alienates the middle away from the Tea Party. Of course such a venture got a lot of attention from the media but at the cost of whatever reasonable political position that the Tea Party still had. This is why I love the Tea Party, because the more they succeed, the more the Democrats win.

While I say that I love these ultraconservatives for what they will do for Democrats in this election season, I also fear them. It scares me that people with such outlandish views can even get past the primary stage. I fear their ability to utilize confusion and the feelings of disaccord with government that people feel and manipulate it into some sort of doomsday prophecy which they use to perpetuate their agenda. The new breed of social conservatism that has manifested itself with the aforementioned candidates challenges both the ideals that America upholds and, ironically, the very liberty for which the Tea Party supposedly champions. Their power at this point is isolated to the far right as well as to the evangelicals, but if it ever grows, America might enter a dark age where fear and social conservatism rules.

Hopefully, this is just a temporary phenomenon that will pass when America regains its sensibility and stops allowing anger to be the controlling emotion in our lives.

William Basham is a freshman in the College.”