With the healthcare debate devolving into more and more of a parade of disappointment and stupidity, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the anti-healthcare Tea Party rally I attended in September in Washington. I even wrote an article about it for The Faster Times. That article was a very truncated version of my original piece, which I finally show here to celebrate the relaunch. Enjoy this how-to guide a made for Guerilla Tea Partying!

Step One: Sign Making

Your signs are the key component in subverting a right-wing protest. They have to disarm your fellow protestors and force them to conclude that anyone carrying your sign is obviously misguided, paranoid, or angry enough (preferably all three) to be a true believer. Remember: tea partiers are impervious to contradiction and irony, so feel free to lay it on pretty thick. The golden rule is that as long as you explain your signs with conviction, no amount of crazy is too much. You can carry a sign that says that Obama is, without a doubt, an intergalactic Manchurian Candidate and as long as you carefully explain his abnormally large ears and wide-set eyes, they will listen! Here are a few sign options at your disposal, in order of decreasing subtlety:

1. The Acrostic

This sign is a staple of the Tea Party movement. While it is true that acrostic signs are a presence across the entire ideological spectrum, they possess a special level of idiocy at Tea Party rallies. Remember acrostic poems from grade school? At a tea party, it’s simple: arrange the letters of a person or concept you dislike vertically, and create a telling acronym from it. If it makes sense to a third grader, it’s more than enough to get through to 90% of these folks.

The Acrostic

The Acrostic

This is the acrostic sign that I created for the protest. The beauty of this sign is that none of these terms belong together, yet Obama has been accused of each of these separately by prominent conservatives. He’s a godless communist, arugula-eating elitist who wants to implement Sharia law in the United States. Your first reaction might be that this one is a bit too obvious, but rest assured: people loved this sign. The affirmative nods it elicits from passersby makes it easy to spot your most gullible targets for conversation because they obviously have no idea what any of these terms mean.

2. The Stupid “Concept”

Anything except Jesus and Freedom can be put into quotations and Tea Partiers will conclude that you hate the same things they do.

The Stupid "Concept"

The Stupid "Concept"

This sign is a rare victory because it is true to anyone who reads it. Glenn Beck told viewers on his show that when liberals plead for social justice, they really mean socialism. But people who actually fight for social justice know that it is precisely for the benefit of the losers in society. It’s why our system of government explicitly protects against the tyranny of the majority and also why conservatives think that the ACLU is un-American. The perfectly subversive protest sign is one that people on both sides of the debate can use to call the other side stupid.

3. The Too-Insane-To-Be-Fake

Or is it? This is a high-risk sign. If you don’t have a properly prepared explanation to accompany it, this sign will blow your cover and identify you as a member of the Contradictory Corps. With great risk comes greater reward, though, and it’s hard not to smile when you use the right’s most treasured ideals against them.

The Blatant Sarcasm

The Blatant Sarcasm

To the skeptical Tea Partier, my explanation was simple: “Jesus didn’t heal the sick for free. He healed them and converted them to Christianity. OBAMA is trying to convert us to Communism and that’s NOT WHAT JESUS WANTS!” All but one of the protestors walked away convinced that I was sincere, but all of them concluded that I was at least anti-Obama. It is telling, however, that none of them doubted that Jesus insisted on some quid pro quo for his miracles and that makes the sign worth it.

That rounds out the 3 signs I used during the Tea Party. There were more, of course, but those were my mainstays. Next, we’ll discuss the do’s and don’ts of infiltrating a Tea Party. Stay Tuned!