De oprichter van de nieuwe Coffee Party beweging zegt “we need to wake up and work hard to get our government to represent us.” Boos over de overweldigende media aandacht voor de conservatieve Tea Party beweging, roept Annabel Park, een 41 jarige documentaire maakster uit Washington, op haar Facebook pagina op tot een Coffee Party. Vrienden begonnen te antwoorden en Park besloot een fan pagina te creëren getiteld: “Join the Coffee Party Movement.” Het resultaat was overweldigend en Park heeft nu al zo’n 68000 fans, de meeste fans hebben zich de laatste week aangemeld na artikelen over de Coffee Party in de Washington Post en de New York Times.

Maar wat is het doel? “Just like in the American Revolution, we are looking for real representation right now. We don’t feel represented by our government right now and we don’t really feel represented well by the media either”, aldus Park tegenover “American Morning” van CNN. “It’s kind of a simple call to action for people to wake up and take control over their future and demand representation. And it requires people standing up and speaking up.”

Zo is de Coffee Party een progressief antwoord op de Tea Party? “It’s a response to how they are trying to change our government”, aldus Park. “It’s their methodology that we are against. We may want some of the same things, but their journey is so alienating to us.” Park werkte als vrijwilliger in de campagne van Barack Obama in 2008 en voor de campagne van senator Jim Webb van Virginia in 2006 en zegt dat de Coffee Party beweging “is not aligned with any party” en noemt het twee partijen stelsel “out of date.” “It encourages people to think of politics as a kind of game, like a football game, in which there are two sides, and it’s a zero sum situation. If one person wins, the other person loses. That’s really not a healthy way to conduct collective decision making. That’s not a democracy. We feel like the health care debate showed not only that we are a very divided country, but there’s something really wrong with our political process. We kind of got to see the innards of the political process and realize there’s something very broken. I think that’s what we’re responding to.”

Maar wat vindt de Tea Party beweging van de Coffee Party? “This Coffee Party looks like a weak attempt at satire or a manufactured response to a legitimate widespread grassroots movement”, aldus Brendan Steinhauser, directeur van FreedomWorks, een conservatieve non-profit organisatie dat vrijwilligers traint voor de Tea Party beweging. “Coffee Party gatherings have taken place from coast to coast the past five weeks”, aldus Park en ze groeien. Verschillende bijeenkomsten en houseparties staan gepland, aldus Park.

Klik hier om lid te worden van de Coffee Party beweging.