Coffee, Tea, or Kool-Aid: Which Party Politics Are You Swallowing?

COFFEE, TEA, OR KOOL-AID is the one book that examines the issues and helps Americans tell the parties apart while they laugh all the way to the polls. Filled with party history and characters, side-by-side comparisons and contradictions, as well as memorable quotes, slogans, and scorecards, this little guide spells it all out and injects a little humor back into the political conversation. In 2009, disgruntled Americans started a new movement called the Tea Party, quickly garnering a reputation as the bastion of conservative right-wing hijinks. Named after the Boston Tea Party of 1773, when colonists decried "Taxation Without Representation", the new Tea Party originally lashed out at President Obama's new stimulus package. (However, since everybody's had representation since 1776, maybe a better slogan for them might be, "I Hate Not Getting My Way.") Protests, marches, even a convention abounded, until January 26th of this year when one lone Facebooker named Annabel Park, angered at the media's portrayal of Republicans as the only citizens who cared about government accountability and issues that affect all of us, said, "Enough already." And just like that, the Coffee Party was born. Since then, the Coffee Party Movement has catapulted past 200,000 Facebook followers, and hosted hundreds of organizational Coffee Party gatherings. As well intentioned as the party is, though, they suffer from a lack of tour busses and a glamour-puss ex-VP nominee as a front-chick.

Erin McHugh is a former publishing executive and the author of nearly twenty books. She first went canvassing door to door for a political candidate when she was still too young to vote.