6/20/2010

Fringe On The Right

"...What most animates the tea partiers, it seems, is their fear and loathing of the federal government, a government they believe taxes and spends too much, and is trending under President Obama toward “socialism.” No surprise there, given the rhetoric emanating from their rallies. More particularly, the tea-party faithful are angry about Democratic Washington’s supposed excessive concern with helping racial minorities (especially blacks) and the poor, who neither need nor deserve help, and with its wasteful and unnecessary efforts to create jobs and expand health care. The tea types self-righteously view such actions as running counter to their own moral imperative: cutting the budget and reducing the size of government...



One inconvenient truth revealed by the Times survey is that the broad groundswell of national indignation the doting mass media see in the tea-party uprising just doesn’t exist. Americans who identify as tea-party supporters make up, according to the polling data, only 18% of the population (barely one person in five), and only 4% of our fellow citizens have either contributed to the cause or attended its rallies. Moreover, those who have imbibed the Kool- Aid, so to speak, are overwhelmingly concentrated in the Republican party. Interviews reveal three-quarters of the tea partiers to be self-described conservatives who regularly vote for the GOP; contrary to the media-generated image, only a minority are independents, and only a tiny minority are Democrats. Most telling, fully 57% hold a favorable view of George W. Bush, nearly the exact percentage of the general public holding an unfavorable view of the former president. Based on their political views, tea partiers are essentially the far-right fringe of the Republican base..."

Read more @ Progressive Populist.

2 comments:

Roadkill said...

"Based on their political views, tea partiers are essentially the far-right fringe of the Republican base..."

Right. In other real-world news:

Associated Press
22 June 2010

"Republicans overwhelmingly chose Nikki Haley, an Indian-American woman, to run for governor in South Carolina and easily nominated Tim Scott, in line to become the former Confederate state's first black GOP congressman in more than a century.

"Haley, a 38-year-old state legislator with the backing of tea party activists and Sarah Palin, brushed aside allegations of marital infidelity and an ethnic slur to come within a percentage point of winning the gubernatorial nod outright on June 8. With 98 percent of the precincts reporting in the runoff, she had 65 percent of the vote to 35 percent for Rep.
Gresham Barrett, a four-term congressman who has had to answer for his 2008 vote for the unpopular Wall Street bailout.

"Scott, 44, also a state lawmaker, beat Paul Thurmond, the son of the late U.S. Sen. and former segregationist Strom Thurmond in the runoff after securing the backing of Palin, the anti-tax Club for Growth and several Republican leaders in Washington. With 100 percent of precincts counted, he had 68 percent of the vote to 32 percent for Thurmond."

So that fringy bunch of tea-partiers chose two ethnic minorities over white male opponents, who had the baggage of being either big-spending, big government types and/or the heirs of a former democrat/dixiecrat.

Looks like that "fringe group" of tea partiers may be a bit more progressive and polulist than the "Progressive Populists" give them credit for.

Sunny B. said...

RK:

I believe you are talking about Republican primaries. There is no credible political party in the US called the TEA Party. These are the Dick Army Republicans.

Scott Brown was the big TEA Party success story a few months ago and he is voting more like a Democrat than Russ Feingold.

The TEA Party is the best thing to happen to a media that thrives on pandering to the bullet-point, lap dogs that have the corner the fruitcake fringe on the left and right. In a couple of years "TEA Party" will be an answer on Jeopardy. Face it, the today's TEA Party is the political hot tube for those with a weak mind and a strong back.