The Tea Party's Got Issues to Work Through - Boy, Do They

AP

Not all people who identify themselves as Tea Partiers are ethnocentric wingnuts who get their information about the world spoon-fed to them by televised talking heads. But apologists for this movement are going to have a hard time explaining away the fact that a sizable minority qualify for that very description.

The latest CBS News/New York Times poll presents a picture of an aging cohort of pessimistic white folks, rattled by economic and cultural changes which have rocked their increasingly Twitter-fied, multicultural and multi-polar world (one led by a charismatic black guy who can swoosh 3 pointers with the best of them.) And their unhappiness with the verdict of the 2008 presidential election has led them down the rabbit hole.

More from the Poll:

Tea Party Supporters: Who They Are and What They Believe
Most Tea Partiers Believe Too Much Made of Problems Facing Blacks
Tea Partiers View Palin, Beck and Bush Favorably
Tea Party Activists Small but Passionate Group
"Birther" Myth Persists Among Tea Partiers, All Americans
Most Tea Party Supporters Say Their Taxes Are Fair

Read the Complete Poll on Who They Are (PDF)
Read the Complete Poll on What They Believe (PDF)

Judge the poll data for yourself but for me the clincher was the birther issue. An astounding thirty percent of the people who identified themselves as tea partiers still believe that President Obama was born in another country, while another 29% still don't know. Don't know? I'm not sure which is worse: being paranoid delusional or potentially paranoid delusional but too lazy to find out the facts.

Everything else flows from this bogus controversy. It so happens that I have it on good authority that the birthers were dropped off on Planet Earth from an asteroid penal colony near the farthest rung of Saturn. Prove it, you say? Au contraire; first they prove they're not from outer space and then perhaps I'll reassess my suspicion. Yes, that's how insane it is.

Some other gems:

• 75% don't believe that the president shares the values of most Americans. Fascinating. I'd pay money to sit down with these folks to learn more about their belief system. They must think of Obama as something of a cross between Eldridge Cleaver and a Maoist Mao-Mao. As for the over-achieving, doting wife and those ridiculously cute kids? Obvious stage props to divert attention from the revolutionary hordes massing on the other side of the Rio Grande.
• 88% say the economic stimulus has had no impact on the economy. Two possibilities here. Either they aren't paying attention or they the tea partiers are so ideologically blinkered that it really doesn't matter what the facts are. By any measure except one - jobs - the economy is demonstrably stronger than it was when George W. Bush left the White House. We can argue about economic theory but data remain immune from ideology and they are beyond contestation.
• 92% say that Obama is moving the country toward socialism. I'll wager two means of production and one Saul Alinsky union card that most of these folks never read Das Kapital and wouldn't know a Hegelian dialectic from the man in the moon. Obama, a bourgeois intellectual who has surrounded himself with mainstays of corporate capitalism, has a plan to take us to the socialist paradise? Yeah, and I suppose the New York Mets are a lock to win the World Series this year.
• 54% identify as belonging to the GOP while 41% claim to be Independents. Just 5% are Democrats. This isn't surprising. Nor is it any shock to learn that 57% have a favorable view of George W. Bush. It apparently did not register that the Great Recession began under Dubya's watch (as did the haphazard Wall Street bailout.)
• Asked what they liked least about Obama, 19% simply don't like him. Another 11% say he is turning the U.S. more toward socialism, and 10% mentioned health care reforms. (9% said he was dishonest.) I'm not sure how far to extrapolate but 89% of these folks are white and a majority feel that too much has been made of the problems facing blacks.

At least they're being honest.

[NeuronFlash]

I can understand Tea Party members feeling that something wrong has happened to the USA. But do they, as a whole, have a handle on the root cause problems? Do they they have a coherent action plan for fixing said problems?
The answer is no. They need to quit their whining and work together to form a workable plan for fixing what is wrong. Perhaps they would get my respect if they could accomplish that. But of course, that does require the use of critical thinking and analyses which is mutually incompatible with birthers.

[wafeguy2012]

Coop, does your CBS poll take into account the fact that most of those "pessimistic white folks" used to watch 60 Minutes years ago when there were real point/counterpoint debates?

Neither side of congress is willing to work with the other and the tea baggers are fed up. So now is the time for the worried leaders to divert the "CrAzY" attention to their movement, thus they are made out to have commonalities other than the good of the country as their main interest.

I hoped our Bi-Racial (had a white mama) president would bring the nation together. He only seems to polarize the people even more.

Congress and the President are like a lying child doing drugs, you can love or hate him but you don't have to put up with him ransacking your house. Because you see..."We the People".... are the father to get them in line, not We the Corporation.

[duoknows]

@Wafeguy

Point and counterpoint? Lol. Here's what you do to your own people when they say something you don't want to hear.

http://www.milkandcookies.com/link/200491/detail/

I'd like to hear a counterpoint to that.

[lakota2012]

element51: "....if I had any doubts before, I certainly didn't after watching speaker after speaker, ALL REPUBLICANS, parade across the stage, each and every one bashing Obama and the Democrats."
---------------------------------




Exactly!....I see this also as a angry "bashfest" for those out of power, only trying to incite the rabid far-right conservitards of the republiCON miNOrity party of NO -- parroting the same LIES and DECEPTIONS from the FAUX NoNooz bozos and conservitard talk radio, and still offering absolutely no NEW IDEAS or SOLUTIONS for the plethora of American problems!

All bachmann/palin and the other idiots can spew is highly-partisan political rhetoric meant to divide America further, and throw out the usual frank luntz key labels like "socialism," "marxism," "communism" and "fascism" to those with the preconceived opinions and partisan ideology!

The racist teabaggin' KKKlan is despicable and easily manipulated.

[lakota2012]

Actually, I'm quite surprised with all the mistakes that michael steele has made, that the operatives haven't replaced him with the queen of mean and red meat -- caribou barbi, who incites the rabid far-right conservitards the best!

[DongWork4Yuda]

I would never align myself with this movement. I don't trust these hardcore rightwingers.never have and never will, and that's all that the tea party is.

[libertarianone]

There are none so blind as those who will not see.
After reading this piece and then the comments,I believe a lot of people need to do a lot more research before forming an opinion.

[G H M]

You all got a tax decrease so why are you tea jerks doing-
I know you want Bush back

[lakota2012]

brian: "Lakota -- The Fairness Doctrine?"
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Yes, The Fairness Doctrine that the rabid rightwads had to repeal under "ronnie the rat" raygun, in order to get one-sided conservitard talk radio and the republiCON network of FAUX NoNooz LIES and DECEPTIONS on the air, to incite the far-right republiCON base, much like the racist teabaggin' KKKlan.

Everything I see and hear on ALL the other networks provide both sides of an argument, whether it is on video or in person -- even MSNBC -- but the FAUX NoNooz propagandists continue their demonizing rhetoric and continuous political attacks in such a one-sided display, it is no wonder they have incited the far-right base of the racist teabaggin' KKKlan.

[lakota2012]

larry0304: "the majority of Americans in every poll taken supports the right to carry...."
----------------------



So what?.....Your paranoia is frightening!

There has not been one piece of legislation that is trying to take away your sacred 2nd Amendment rights of bearing arms, so demonizing the Dems and especially Speaker Pelosi for something she has not done, is delusional and very assinine.

The rabid right paranoia and ignorance is what has increased gun/ammo sales over the past 18 months beyond belief, which in turn has vastly increased pricing spurring the redneck economy, and increased rhetoric of armed anarchist insurrection against our government, only because the conservitard republiCONS are no longer in power!

Get a clue larry, nobody is coming for your sacred guns, so put your ignorance and paranoia to bed.

[lakota2012]

Attack the teabaggin' KKKlan????.....Nah....It's the racist teabaggin' KKKlan that has been spewing their anger and hatred through demonizing vitriol and ugly partisan signs, with a good percentage of them "birthers" in order to attack President Obama without saying it's racist.

This is just a far-right fringe extremist group of conservitards, still angry over the 2008 election outcome and losing power, that will do everything they can -- including support of armed anarchist insurrection -- to belittle the Obama administration and federal government, despite the fact that the economy imploded during the bushevik years of deregulation, lack of oversight and lack of accountability.

Only true HYPOCRITES like the teabaggin' KKKlan would all of a sudden worry about deficits and rising debt, since they just condoned the bush/cheney regime BORROWING and SPENDING SPREE, that DOUBLED the debt!

[progressvrap]

This is part of the effort to attack the Tea Party. Obviously many of the critics here aren't very objective nor smart....like COOP, who got it very wrong. Kiss your messiah Obama's ass.

[DongWork4Yuda]

better then licking Bush's butt (check the mirror, the brown is still there).

Obama is doing a rock solid job, and I will be supporting him in 2012