Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) says that the end is nigh!

“This happened and as of today the United States is willingly, knowingly, intentionally sending arms to terrorists, now what this says to me, I’m a believer in Jesus Christ, as I look at the End Times scripture, this says to me that the leaf is on the fig tree and we are to understand the signs of the times, which is your ministry, we are to understand where we are in God’s end times history," Bachmann told Jan Markell, radio host of "Understanding the Times," on Saturday.

“Rather than seeing this as a negative, we need to rejoice, Maranatha Come Lord Jesus, His day is at hand,” Bachmann added later.

Yes, Bachmann is referring to our policy in Syria, but don't think her End Times theology doesn't inform the rest of her politics (to the extent that it is informed by anything). And the same can be said of much of the rest of the Tea Party right.

Yeah, sure, some of them just don't understand how money works, and thus have no idea what sort of economic disaster they are courting. But some of them do, and just don't care. Because the end is nigh! So who cares about destroying the full faith and credit of the United States government within the context of an impending divine apocalypse?

Really. There's an unmistakable millennialist spirit to the Tea Party movement, even when it's expressed in a purely secular form. These are people who are courting some sort of apocalyptic confrontation—who almost seem to welcome it and the purifying suffering it would bring. Individual teabaggers may not even be aware of their End Times inspiration—in the same way that you don't need to be a Protestant to be an unknowing adherent to the so-called "Protestant ethic"—but the End Times inspiration is clearly there.

So don't underestimate the willingness of these people to destroy an economy they believe is already destined to be destroyed.