Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) appeared on Nevada public radio today and took a couple of shots at the Tea Party and Republicans.
Early in the 50-minute segment, Reid directly compared the Tea Party to anarchists before World War I.
“Who is the Tea Party? Well, understand [that] when I was in school I studied government, among other things,” Reid said. “And prior to World War I and after World War I we had the anarchists. Now they were violent, you know, some say that’s what started World War I, the anarchy movement. But they were violent. They did damage to property and they did physical damage to people.”
“The modern anarchists don’t do that, that’s the Tea Party. But they have the same philosophy as the early anarchists: They do not believe in government. Any time anything bad happens to government, that’s a victory for them,” Reid said.
Later in the segment, a caller brought up Rush Limbaugh’s infamous “I hope he fails” comment from 2009. In response, Reid said that Republican legislators had certainly acted to try to make President Obama fail, and he hoped it wasn’t due to Obama’s race.
“And I hope, I hope that it’s — and I say this seriously — hope that their – [opposition is] based on substance, not the fact that he’s African-American,” Reid said.