The Tea Party's Phony Populism

[babylonsister]

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-04-15/the-tea-partys-fake-populism/?cid=hp:exc#

The Tea Party's Phony Populism

by Peter Beinart

A new New York Times poll shows Tea Partiers are grumpy, older, well-off Americans who think white people are oppressed—in other words, Republicans.

snip//


The Tea Partiers aren’t standing up for the little guy; they’re standing up to the little guy. We’ve long known that their leaders, like Sarah Palin, opposed against real regulation of Wall Street. Now we learn that what the Tea Partiers dislike about Barack Obama’s economic policies is that they don’t do enough for the rich. According to the Times, Tea Partiers are more likely than other Americans to think Barack Obama’s policies favor the poor, and they’re mad as heck about it. Not exactly William Jennings Bryan stuff.

The Tea Partiers aren’t too fond of racial underdogs either. They’re more likely than other Americans to believe that the Obama administration favors blacks over whites, and that black people’s hardships have been exaggerated. America does have a history of right-wing, often racist, populism. Segregationist Alabama Governor George Wallace called his party the Populists in 1968. But at least Wallace’s economic views were reasonably progressive. The Tea Partiers favor the economically and racially privileged. They fail the populism test on both counts.

So the press has a problem: what to call this intriguing new force in American politics? What kind of adjective suits older, grumpy, well-off Americans who believe Democrats are communists, the poor have it too easy and white people are oppressed? The term “Republican” comes to mind.

[liberal N proud]

1. Tea Party supporters are wealthier

Of course the supporters are wealthier, they are paying the bill while the morons are riding along giving the whole movement a sense of strength.



The Tea Partiers aren’t standing up for the little guy; they are using the little guy to protest against his own best interest.

The rich are paying the tab for the morons to shoot themselves in the foot.

[saltpoint]

2. Yes. And there's kind of an adrenalin rush to being angry, complicated

by having to stay angry to keep getting the adrenalin rush.

Limbaugh and Hannity and Beck stoke anger. They sort of cheerlead while their fans show up at these Bagger events with their idiotic signs.

But it's hard to stay that angry that long. At the very least, the Baggers will need a leader, a George Washington of the Fools. And it looks as if Lou Dobbs will be leaping into the fray. :puke:

[babylonsister]

3. And guess what? I read yesterday that the next 'topic' the

teabaggers are about to get angry over is immigration. Dobbs will fit right in. :scared:

:hi:

[saltpoint]

4. Hey there. Good morning, babylonsister. Yep. Ol' Lou is ready for

this fight from the git-go.

What a hack he is. A total hack.

[rurallib]

5. Gee, there's a surprise. That is like the cadillac for hate mongering.

[rurallib]

6. Armey, Hannity, Beck, Palin laughing loudly all the way to the bank.

[Peacetrain]

7. The media was falling all over itself to cover this.. what will they fill that time with now?

They keep giving the top 10% all the media, because they (the media) are part of that group.. The rest of us are not part of their reality..

Long gone are the working class reporters who dug up stories of the everyday person.. replaced by media celebrities who think 500,000 a year classifies them as middle class.

[JohnnyBoots]

8. Manufactured dissent. Freedom Works sparked all this just to create a

vocal minority to obstruct and give Obama a headache. Couple this with constant media attention overblowing numbers and what not and you've got yourself a 'movement'.

[patrice]

9. War has made Right to Lifers LOSE face, so Republicans need some new suckers.

[awoke_in_2003]

10. "what to call this intriguing new force in American politics?"

white supremacists?