The One Person I Know Who Belongs to the Tea Pary Is Wealthy

[Thirties Child]

I knew her in high school 60 years ago, and we reconnected at our 50th class reunion 10 years ago, and more recently, on Facebook. She regularly posts Tea Party snapshots, brags that she supports the Tea Party. Most appalling of all, she posted a message that we should do away with social security. She's intelligent and talented, sensitive to friend's quandaries, but blind to the problems of those she doesn't know. She responded sensitively when I posted a Facebook message about my daughter's hospitalization in England, when I said that maybe someday we'd have a similar health care system. My friend is not racist, but she's rich. With connections to oil companies. Also Texan.

The main difference between us, besides money, is exposure. I came out of our High Plains Texas upbringing with the same attitudes and beliefs, but I got away. I lived in different parts of the country, read different newspaper editorial pages, knew different people. When I look at my high school friend, I have to ask, if I had stayed what would my politics be? And truthfully, I don't know.

So - is the difference between us exposure or money? I'm opting for exposure. Maybe exposure blinded by money. Oil money.

[AlinPA]

1. The 12 or so people I know who are teabaggers are all ignorant, racist,

bigoted slobs. I have known them for over 20 years.

[bemildred]

2. I think it's mental.

Dumb people with money always think they are special. Happens over and over.

[Recursion]

3. Self-proclaimed tea party supporters are richer and more educated than the median American

This is consistently found in all polling.

[Fawke Em]

8. ...and whiter.

[Recursion]

9. "Whiter" implies a comparison. They're white, period

It's a subset of middle-aged white voters.

[handmade34]

4. reasons vary

but exposure is obviously one key element… when we travel, read, meet others, explore different cultures… we are able to relate better, empathize more… key to your example is that money can open up possibilities for travel/exposure, but it can also insulate… in fact I think many people want to be wealthy solely because they can isolate themselves from the supposed "riffraff"… there is an element of fear, of xenophobia, to all that is going on with the Tea Party...

[unblock]

5. it's the circles we draw around ourselves

we all draw circles around ourselves and place others either inside or outside those circles.

these circles have names like race, religion, family, country, friends, people who went to the same school, people who visit the same websites, etc.

one of the many reasons we talk past each other is that most people feel they are highly ethical and responsible. the difference lies in those circles. people think they are responsible and upright if they are "good" and take care of the others within their circles, especially the innermost ones. but it's often the difference in how we treat those *outside* our closest circles that distinguishes us.

in my experience, right-winger can spew the most vile, hateful, bigoted speech and threats and think nothing of it. they don't think they're doing anything wrong. in fact, they think they're doing something right! because the harm of that hate is being inflicted on people outside their furthest circles, and so it easily dismissed; meanwhile, they are defending and supporting those inside their circles.

so if a right-wing hurls insults at "illegal immigrants", believe it or not, in their own minds, they think of it as a loving act -- obviously not toward the undocumented worker, who is a non-entity as far as they are concerned, but to the people inside their circles, the "real americans" who are having their jobs taken away, etc.

and that's why we never get through to them by calling it hate, because to them it's not hate at all. they hear us as saying something nonsensical, or at best, sticking up for these non-entities.


anyway, travel and so on can give them greater exposure, but still one sees what one wants to see. until they recognize that we're *all* human, that we're all inside the same giant circle, they'll continue to find a way to be "good" to those inside while being horrible to those outside.

[Thirties Child]

13. Circles around us make a lot of sense

My wealthy friend isn't the only ultra-conservative from the top of the Texas Panhandle - my hometown's website brags that in 2004 the county gave a higher percentage of votes to Bush than any county in the country. The circles there are extremely tight, and yes, they are good to each other, horrible to those outside.

The only fight my mother and I ever had was in 1968, when my class held an impromptu class reunion when several of us happened to be home at the same time. I ended up in an argument with the entire class - me on one side, everyone else on the other. One woman, who got government subsidies for her oil and wheat, said she'd let a three-year-old starve to death before she gave her parents welfare. The next day my mother told me I could go back to Atlanta but that she had to stay there and live with these people. At least in my mother's eyes, you could only be in the circle if you agreed with them.

[gopiscrap]

6. the ones I know are 3 grade graduate

white crackers, ignorant as fuck!!

[kysrsoze]

10. Yup. The one I know is uneducated, former union member(!) and RACIST

His comments about blacks, the poor and liberal "hippies" are just embarrassing. He comes off looking like an idiot.

[gopiscrap]

11. Exactly, I hate having to be in the same room with folks like that!

[gopiscrap]

7. welcome to DU

[ScreamingMeemie]

12. The OP has been here for almost a year.

[Thirties Child]

15. Actually, the OP has been here since 2004.

Came onboard when Wes Clark dropped out of the presidential race in February 2004. I mostly lurked, had close to a thousand posts when, in 2012, we moved and simultaneously changed servers, got a new computer, and forgot the password. DU wouldn't recognize me and I had to start over. I'm back to my lurking mode, learn so much here.

[AngryAmish]

14. I know a lot of wealthy people and none of them are teabaggers.

But I live in Chicago so there are few teabaggers around here.

[Populist_Prole]

16. Exposure more directly than money I think

Though it should be said that money affects one's exposure. Also, a sentence from your post piqued my interest:

She's intelligent and talented, sensitive to friend's quandaries, but blind to the problems of those she doesn't know

I see that dynamic all the time. All the time with conservative friends or family members, and it's due to ignorance and confirmation bias. They'll hate, or rail against certain groups/blocs what have you but if they know personally a person from those groups/blocs they make an exception. For example, they dislike latin-american immigrants...except the friendly one who cuts their lawn. They think union members are greedy and lazy...but they don't mean me of course, even though I'm in a union. They sneer at the poor or disabled, say from an OJI, as dissolute and malingering...but those they know personally in those circumstances "deserve" a helping hand. It goes on and on, and despite the clear empirical evidence that blows holes in their prejudiced thinking, they still can not/will not connect the dots.

[leftynyc]

17. Would she still be rich

if the oil companies weren't being subsidized by the rest of us?

[Thirties Child]

18. Of course not.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, a woman who was heavily subsidized by the government for her oil and wheat said she'd let a three-year-old starve before she'd give the parents welfare. This was in 1968. In November 1994 I happened to be in Texas and we had another impromptu class reunion. It happened on a Tuesday night, and I got to watch Newt's revolution in the midst of a bunch of people who would have been in the Tea Party, if there had been a Tea Party then. They were thrilled, I was sick.

My parents are both gone now, and I'll never go back.