When Tea Party wants to go back, where is it to?

[Lasher]

As battle cries go, the Tea Party's "Take our country back" is a pretty good one. It's short and punchy, and it addresses a very widespread sense that the nation that Americans once lived in has changed, and not for the better.

When the Tea Partyers get around to identifying how America has changed and to whose benefit, however, they get it almost all wrong. In the worldview of the American right -- and the polling shows conclusively that that's who the Tea Party is -- the nation, misled by President Obama, has gone down the path to socialism. In fact, far from venturing down that road, we've been stuck on the road to hyper-capitalism for three decades now. The Tea Partyers are right to be wary of income redistribution, but if they had even the slightest openness to empiricism, they'd see that the redistribution of the past 30 years has all been upward -- radically upward. From 1950 through 1980, the share of all income in America going to the bottom 90 percent of Americans -- effectively, all but the rich -- increased from 64 percent to 65 percent, according to an analysis of tax data by economists Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez. Because the nation's economy was growing handsomely, that means that the average income of Americans in the bottom 90 percent was growing, too -- from $17,719 in 1950 to $30,941 in 1980 -- a 75 percent increase in income in constant 2008 dollars.

Since 1980, it's been a very different story. The economy has continued to grow handsomely, but for the bottom 90 percent of Americans, it's been a time of stagnation and loss. Since 1980, the share of all income in America going to the bottom 90 percent has declined from 65 percent to 52 percent. In actual dollars, the average income of Americans in the bottom 90 percent flat-lined -- going from the $30,941 of 1980 to $31,244 in 2008.

In short, the economic life and prospects for Americans since the Reagan Revolution have grown dim, while the lives of the rich -- the super-rich in particular -- have never been brighter. The share of income accruing to America's wealthiest 1 percent rose from 9 percent in 1974 to a tidy 23.5 percent in 2007.

More here

[Turbineguy]

1. For teabaggers

everything has to fit on a bumpersticker.

[Kolesar]

2. Back from the blacks, Jews, and cripples that are running everything

Pardon the crude language, but that was an approximate quote of what one of Reagan's guys said.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_G._Watt

[Lasher]

3. Teabaggers are worried about the national debt

But they still sing the praises of Saint Ronnie, who tripled the national debt. Clinton's fault, you see.

[ejpoeta]

4. my guess is they want to go back to when women and blacks knew their place.

Back when white men made all the decisions and women were barefoot and pregnant instead of out working and expecting the men to help with the housework.

[Lasher]

5. Yep, back to the Dark Ages

The time before FDR as the article points out.

[66 dmhlt]

6. Certainly near the top of their List would be this ...

[FailureToCommunicate]

7. Good article by WaPo's Meyerson. Thanks!

[HughMoran]

8. They just want 1950's white dominated society back

They want people of color to get "back where they belong". They don't even understand economics, they just don't want money spent on poor people in cities who are "mostly minorities" in their bigoted heads.

[jberryhill]

9. Their own youth

It's really not about any particular political situation at any time in the past in the US.

The "good old days" were just that because I had 20/20 vision, my knees didn't hurt, and I could run 220 yards in 28 seconds.

What it is really all about is that things used to "feel good" and they don't feel as good as they used to.

It is an easy thing to take political advantage of, by convincing them that what's "not right" is the result of some external situation, rather than simply not having a fresh oversupply of hormones.

[Kablooie]

10. Back to the Spanish Inquisition, which nobody expects.

[felix_numinous]

11. Tea partiers ally themselves with authoritarians

because it is easier and requires less thought. They are people who do not understand the complexity of this world, so seek a simpler model. They make the mistake that a simple life involves willful ignorance, and that their loyalty to their corporate backers promises some kind of reward.

What they do not get is that their loyalty to the corporations means nothing, they are being used and as soon as their usefulness is over, they will be discarded. And when that happens, it will be important they see who the real perpetrators are, or it could get rough.