Tea Party suporters are mostly white males over 45, wealthier than average Americans, more conservative than other Republicans and very, very, angry, even though their kids (mostly) go to public schools, they think their taxes are “fair” and they like Social Security and Medicare. So why so irate? That’s a good question. Here’s the answer as revealed in the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.
Tea Party supporters’ fierce animosity toward Washington, and the president in particular, is rooted in deep pessimism about the direction of the country and the conviction that the policies of the Obama administration are disproportionately directed at helping the poor rather than the middle class or the rich.
The overwhelming majority of supporters say Mr. Obama does not share the values most Americans live by and that he does not understand the problems of people like themselves. More than half say the policies of the administration favor the poor, and 25 percent think that the administration favors blacks over whites — compared with 11 percent of the general public.
They are more likely than the general public, and Republicans, to say that too much has been made of the problems facing black people.
I’m not saying that Tea Party supporters are selfish and dislike poor people and in particular African Americans. They said that about themselves.
What seems so wacky about these “beliefs” is that they are just so objectively wrong. Health care was about working poor, not Blacks. Poor people were already covered. The lower taxes being paid this year are mostly benefit working folks. So who is middle class? It’s a broad label. If you work and own a home, I think you’re middle class in this country, right? My opinion all along is that these folks are afraid of the day when they are in the minority in the country (which will be soon). Minorities will be the majority (a la New Mexico) and these folks won’t like it one bit. Obama, the product of a mixed marriage, scares them because this is what will happen with their grandchildren! They will marry outside the race to some nice Pakistani or Indian or Asian or Hispanic boy or girl. It’ll be quite an adjustment. But change is always hard.
Anger is a natural emotional response for a whole class of people who previously felt part of the ruling class and who now feel they are being increasingly ruled by “people not like them” even if objectively, as you say, they are still a privileged group and the Obama administration has done nothing to change this.
The expression of their core belief is objectively wrong, but their core belief itself is (arguably) not wrong – he’s not one of them; he’s not part of their tribe. From that core belief flow any number of suppositions – many of them errant, obviously – but it’s the reason why politicians kiss babies, down shots, go duck hunting or ride in tanks during election season: to convince the electorate that they are part of their tribe, that they’re one of them.
It’s BS, of course, but it’s quintessentially American.
It works the other way too – when people believe that you are part of their tribe you get the benefit of the doubt. Dubya sold the social conservatives on the notion that the drunken frat boy was reborn as one of them, so he got a 7 year pass on doing nothing for social conservatives – by the time they realized he really wasn’t one of them he was on his way to retirement.
It’s the American way, unfortunately.
It’s not nice, but there’s just no way of ignoring the role played by sheer inability to think. It’s always amusing to hear righties cry out for teaching “critical thinking” in the schools, when, if done effectively, that would wipe out their base.
When there’s no thinking going on, the void is filled with gut reaction and tribal identification. The good news is, that provides the most unstable kind of base there is. If the left/liberal side was doing its job, it wouldn’t take much to move these people to our side. Witness the astonishing and pathetic insty conversion described in the NYT story’s last paragraph:
Just amazing.
Many of the working poor are black. How do you figure “black” and “working” are disjoint sets?
gee, I couldn’t tell that from the Palin Rallies.
They bring a new meaning to the Party of Suckers or even the ends justifies the means, as they could care less that the men behind the curtain are using them.
And what the GOP is just starting to get is that their cute little PAC and TeaParty Express, well funded as it is, and as well promoted through Fox as it is, is now populated by a mob thoroughly indoctrinated with misinformation that is looking for action. And from this morning’s crowd, they’ll go Rep but they want to oust all the RINO’s, to purify the Rep Party.