Tempest in a Tea Cup
The New York Times has done another major piece on the Tea Party, complete with an opinion poll finding that they "tend to be Republican, white, male, married and older than 45." You don't say. And while the movement is riddled with blatant contradictions, its backers are wealthier and "more educated" than you might've gleaned from their handmade signs . Let the rebranding begin!
The real tragedy of the Tea Party "movement" is that we've been forced to take it seriously at all. Especially when other groups in the long slog for social justice have real, cogent, articulable arguments in favor of their positions, and can point to the real impact of injustice. When sheer desperation — in the form of paranoid conspiracy theories and persecution fantasies — becomes the position of strength, it's time to worry.
But the idea that people will devote themselves with a real passion to things they haven't even taken five minutes to think through is also a source of hope. On the one hand, according to the Times...
When talking about the Tea Party movement, the largest number of respondents said that the movement’s goal should be reducing the size of government, more than cutting the budget deficit or lowering taxes.
And nearly three-quarters of those who favor smaller government said they would prefer it even if it meant spending on domestic programs would be cut.
On the other hand, the article concludes...
But in follow-up interviews, Tea Party supporters said they did not want to cut Medicare or Social Security — the biggest domestic programs, suggesting instead a focus on “waste.”Now, that wasn't so hard, was it?Some defended being on Social Security while fighting big government by saying that since they had paid into the system, they deserved the benefits.
Others could not explain the contradiction.
“That’s a conundrum, isn’t it?” asked Jodine White, 62, of Rocklin, Calif. “I don’t know what to say. Maybe I don’t want smaller government. I guess I want smaller government and my Social Security.” She added, “I didn’t look at it from the perspective of losing things I need. I think I’ve changed my mind.”
Categories: The Agenda, media conspiracy, Them, A Day in the Life
I perused this article; it was quite informative. Same conclusion from the stats at the sidebar, even though the sample was only slightly less than 900 person out of 1,500. I might have thought the Tea Party-ers would have polled their constituencies by now for more accuracy. I discussed with friends in Orange County CA, and got: OMG, The NYT is SUCH the liberal rag, how can you possibly trust ANYTHING from there? Needless to say, I gave up trying for any semblance of coherent conversation. One person did admit, sotto voce, that he thought the movement would never really coalesce. And I had such high hopes for a Third Party.
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