What does the Boston Tea Party have to do with todys tea party?

Answer 1

The Boston Tea Party was a civilian-based operation that was a (rather destructive) statement against "taxation without representation" and arbitrary use of power.

Today's Tea Party may not have these exact same statements in mind, but most people involved in the Tea Party feel that the US government has overstepped its bounds and that those in office do not truly represent the will of the people, not necessarily voting how they say they will to get elected. Furthermore, most participants believe in smaller government and fiscal responsibility, qualities in which many supporters of the Revolution also believed.

Today's Tea Parties have also not, to my knowledge, been successfully accused of any destruction of property.

Answer 2

They didn't dress up. This is part of the fable. The Boston Tea Party was a protest of the lowering of the cost of the British tea by the government and the East India tea company who had gotten a bail out from the crown in 1773. The smugglers in the colonies found the Dutch tea that they sold was higher in price than the British tea, so they staged the Boston Tea Party and others in harbors in the colonies ( Hamilton was one of the largest smugglers in the colonies and a founding member of the Son's of Liberty). The cost of tea also went as far back as the Navigation Acts and the restricting of trade to and from the colonies passed from 1650-1733. Tea was also taxed in 1767 in the Townsend Acts.