In “What Would Hillary Clinton Have Done?” Rebecca Traister’s smart piece in this week’s New York Times Magazine, the writer offhandedly raises a provocative question in the margins: Would there be a Tea Party if Barack Obama wasn’t President and a white Democrat was? I suppose my answer is “yes.”

The Tea Party is ostensibly a reaction to our financial sector’s gross malfeasance (which does indeed exist), a greater government interference in our lives (which does not) and a rising budgetary deficit (which didn’t seem to bother them while W. was creating it). But you don’t have to look too closely to see the racism barely below the surface.

The biggest tell is the Birther movement. Obama is not the same color as us and has a name that is different than ours, so he is Other. And “non-American” is, of course, just a code word for “non-white.” And the incivility directed at Obama from elected officials and a Supreme Court justice is a disrespect that seems to be driven by feelings of entitlement, perhaps the racial kind.

But let’s recall Bill Clinton’s Presidency and the viciousness directed at him. In Clinton’s case he was labeled “Liberal,” which in many ways was about as accurate as calling Obama “Kenyan.” The Christian Conservative movement that fueled the Reagan ascendancy came up against the first President who wasn’t its choice, and things got ugly in a hurry. Hillary Clinton was likewise smeared, in a sexist way. There was no organized Tea Party, but the same anti-progress strain was driving the movement.

Chris Rock has referred to the Birther Movement in particular and the Tea Party in general as the last angry vestiges of racism, the scary loudness being nothing more than a death rattle. That may be true when it comes to the racial element. But can’t anyone be demonized by this segment of our society if its greatest fear isn’t of a black planet but simply of the future?•