I wish more people would admit that this is at the bottom of a lot of teatardism:
“The tea party is not just about politics and size of government. The data suggests it may also be about race,” says Christopher Parker, assistant professor of political science at the University of Washington.
The survey found that those who are racially resentful, who believe the U.S. government has done too much to support blacks, are 36 percent more likely to support the tea party than those who are not.
[…..]“While it’s clear that the tea party in one sense is about limited government, it’s also clear from the data that people who want limited government don’t want certain services for certain kinds of people. Those services include health care,” Parker says.
TenguPhule
In other news, lack of oxygen may contribute to death.
beltane
It’s not that people won’t admit it; it’s that the media is actively engaged in hiding the obvious from the public.
furioso ateo
Well, that’s just the liberal academia elitists trying to slander god fearing, patriotic teabaggists with racism. Obviously you can’t trust a word they say.
Cerberus
No shit.
It’s been pretty obvious that the main objection is the idea that “those people” may end up going to “their doctors” and may even end up getting treatment before “real americans” simply by virtue of being first there or by being in greater need.
They literally would love to see brown people die before receiving any form of social services, especially medical services, but they aren’t allowed to put it like that anymore because we’ve evolved out of the lynching mind-space as a society. And so it becomes the many dogwhistles of racism such as soc.ialism (for Southern racists, this means MLK Jr and the civil rights movement more than anything to do with Russia) and the like.
It’s always been about race in no uncertain terms. This study while nice is sort of an “official confirmation” of what we already know.
Ashley Cartwright
I can’t seem to find the specific questions being asked, but it doesn’t seem like a great logical leap to think that people who think that the government shouldn’t be supporting anyone would also think that the government is doing too much to support a particular race or ethnicity.
There’s hardly specific evidence of racial bias in this observation.
OC
I think you should create a “No Shit Sherlock” category for stories like these.
Comrade Mary
Nitpick: the set of the racially resentful, which, theoretically, could be a very small set among the population as a whole, may be drawn more towards teabaggery, but that’s not to say that race may be a motivator for a plurality or majority of teabaggers.
But the movement’s inability to shut down the mouth breathers among them is pretty damning. I remember a post Ta-Nehisi Coates made a few weeks ago, describing how the Million Man March organizers made damn sure that everyone attending knew that they should be on their best behaviour. In contrast, teabaggers don’t seem to have a history of confronting or even scolding the illiterate racists among them.
DougJ
@OC:
I realize that this stuff is obvious, but I don’t think it is discussed enough anyway.
Bob K
MAY BE ABOUT RACE? That’s like saying McDonald’s has something to do with hamburgers. Ford has something to do with cars. Rush Limbaugh has something to do with anal cysts. Glenn Beck has something to do with magical underwear. etc. etc. etc.
JenJen
I woke up today to this glowing Teabagger write-up in the Cincinnati Enquirer.
Yay. So now they’re teabagging my local Democratic Party mechanism, too? Did these people learn nothing from Rush’s “Operation Chaos”?
Teabag Hint: Obama won the nomination and the election, despite your cynical efforts. Expect a repeat.
OC
@DougJ: Just to clarify – that wasn’t a slam on you Doug. It’s just so rare you see articles that point out what is obvious to so many people. I think they deserve their own category.
RSA
The tabulated data (part of it, at least [PDF]) is pretty interesting, because it gives a bit more context for summaries like this, from the article:
Kirk Spencer
I’d like to add a thought for discussion.
The tea party is the militia. And the main thing about the militia is not race. Yes, many are racist, but race isn’t the big thing.
The tea party membership isn’t southern. Oh, it is, but its heavier membership is in the midwest and west. Michigan and Missouri and Idaho and all the big militia states. Go look at some polls that ask (among other things) if the respondent is a tea party activist or member, not just supporter, and crosstabs the answers with region. West and Midwest have higher proportions – larger percentage of respondents there are TP members than in the South and Northeast.
It will have an impact over the next few months.
Ailuridae
@Comrade Mary:
Nitpick: the set of the racially resentful, which, theoretically, could be a very small set among the population as a whole, may be drawn more towards teabaggery, but that’s not to say that race may be a motivator for a plurality or majority of teabaggers
I think there is very little chance that those who are racially resentful could represent a small portion of the population as a whole. If that were the case it wouldn’t make a whole lot of sense to one of the two parties in the government to have been actively and openly stoking racial resentment for four decades
Cerberus
@DougJ:
True. I know that my statement may have seemed harshly stated as this is sort of no, duh territory, but science and academia are great when they aren’t being abused by wingnuts because they can confirm more scientifically things we “already know” and confirm that they are real rather than the result of bias or “everyone knows” stereotypes.
Having actual social scientists saying, yeah, race is a factor is basically the official confirmation of what has been pointedly obvious to most of us on the sidelines, which is that the tea partiers are half racist old people who can’t handle the cultural shift of having a black president and female speaker of the house and how white men no longer feel as central as they once were. And half really racist fucks who would gladly bring down society around them as long as it makes brown people suffer more than they personally do.
I think there’s been several good posts on how it’s all about who may be receiving health care that they don’t think “others” have earned floating around for awhile. I know I and you have both written versions during the extended fight.
And also yes, we can’t state it enough.
Tea partiers are not new, they are just Klansmen wrapping themselves in 18th century cosplay and pseudo-libertarian “philosophies”.
It also can’t be stated enough that they are not a large movement, but are being heavily promoted in the media. The actual marches, rallies, etc have been dismally attended, even compared to things like Code Pink. But the media is desperate to find a way to say that wingnuts are a new suddenly radicalized tide that will end all this Democrats being victorious mess and so they are made to seem like big deals while actual big deal marches like the Immigration Rally or several of the Repeal DADT or ENDA actions, etc… have been wholly ignored.
Ailuridae
@Kirk Spencer:
In Chicago we have an expression: the is no where as Southern as Southern Illinois. Once you leave major metro areas and get into more agrarian areas whites there are overwhelmingly conservative. This map of the 2008 Pres election by county demonstrates that well.
dan robinson
Racism is in our genes. We will either rise above it or be buried by it.
Ash Can
@Kirk Spencer: The Tea Party isn’t the militia, or small-government patriots, or anti-tax activists, or any of the things they or the press or the Republicans say they are. The Tea Party is the Sore Losers Club of the United States of America. It’s the last refuge of the truly butthurt left in the wake of the 2008 general election. It’s an organized and sustained temper tantrum, nothing more and nothing less, on the part of thousands of people who can’t grow the hell up and accept the outcome of a popular vote.
The racist element that this survey quantifies is just a symptom.
Cacti
I would think it should be plain as day to any moderately thoughtful political observer that the Teabaggers are a white resentment movement.
The difference this time around is that they’re even more fearful, and consequently, more dangerous. Barack Obama won the Presidency handily while carrying only 43% of the white vote.
In Barack Obama, they see the beginning of the end for white privilege and it scares the sh*t out of them.
John Cole
Reason magazine refutation coming in 5…4…
Short Bus Bully
There tends to be a false equivalence that appears amongst the Tea Party apologists that goes along the lines of: “Well the Libruls called Bush a nazi!” as if that kind of protesting is at all similar to the racist stuff we have seen the Teabaggers put together. The truth is that no one in those groups will say anything when one of their ilk stands up and starts spouting some racist shit. Everyone either nods quietly or pretends they didn’t hear it.
If that stuff shows up at a Librul protest, those motherfuckers would be kicked to the curb in a heartbeat by everyone there. That is the reason the durty Libruls continue to get my support.
M. Bouffant
@Cerberus:
It also can’t be stated enough that they are not a large movement, but are being heavily promoted in the media.
Absolutely. One-quarter to one-half of virtually any population is reactionary, because Shut Up, That’s Why! Such clowns will always be there. Fortunately, these specific clowns are on the down-hill slope, & don’t look likely to be replaced in significant numbers.
(Wishing I weren’t of T.P.er age, just so I could watch them disappear before I go.)
Ailuridae
@John Cole:
Well yeah. But there are only two ways to get to being a “principled libertarian” and one of them is thinking that poor minorities are getting a free pass while your family struggles to make it” in Winnetka or Bethesda or Scarsdale or Port Washington etc.
DougJ
@RSA:
Interesting.
frosty
@Ailuridae:
Interesting comment, because I’ve been telling people my county “puts the South in Southern Pennsylvania”
In the last two years two places put people on trial from the civil rights battles in the 60s: Birmingham Alabama and York Pennsylvania.
Two places had a court fight over Intelligent Design: Cobb County Georgia and York County Pennsylvania.
And we have more confederate flags than Maryland. Also, too.
JUST A NORMAL GUY (THE ORIGINAL)
WELL SO MANY OF MY BLACK FREIND’S WHO ARE SOME OF MY BEST FRIEND’S OUR BLACK SUPPORT ME IN MY TEA PARTY EFFORTS, AND THEY’RE SUPPORT MEANS SO MUCH TOO ME SO REALLY I DO’NT SEE HOW LIB’S CAN SAY ‘OH WELL IT JUST A RACIALEST MOVEMENT’ BUT I GUESS YOU PROBABLY RECIEVING FUNDING FROM JESSEY JACKSON THE NUMBER #1 RACE HUSSLER.
Mike G
I would think it should be plain as day to any moderately thoughtful political observer that the Teabaggers are a white resentment movement.
Call them what they are — the Republikaner Resistance Movement. All they need is a cracker Eugene Terreblanche.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eug%C3%A8ne_Terre'Blanche
The Tea Party is the Sore Losers Club of the United States of America. It’s the last refuge of the truly butthurt left in the wake of the 2008 general election.
It’s more than just election loss. They are waking up to the fact that they’ve been screwed by the system, but have such a cringing serf mentality toward the powers doing the screwing that they misdirect their anger in hysterical ways at ridiculous targets chosen by those same powers. As Matt Taibbi put it, you don’t dare question the exploitative lord in his castle, you hate the tribe in the next valley because they braid their beards differently.
Bubblegum Tate
@Cerberus:
There was an amazing comment thread on Big Hollywood a couple days ago in which teatards were saying, “Hey, why does this country think so much of MLK, anyway? He was a filthy commie, and conservatives should quit trying to co-opt him…you know, because of the filthy commie thing.”
Ailuridae
@frosty:
Have you never heard the famous James Carville quote re: Pennsylvania?
“It’s Philadelphia on one side, Pittsburgh on the other, and Alabama in the middle”
And broadly the mainstream American media buys into the tripe that “real America” is these sparsely populated rural counties (not that York is rural) despite the vast majority of the country 1) not living anywhere like that and 2) not having any interest in anywhere like that.
Its a shame that dengre’s repost of the debtor/creditor map couldn’t be on a county level. A lot of people would be shocked to find out that a whole lot of “Real America”is basically a welfare state dependent on urban centers’ taxes for its existence.
Kyle
Sorry, JANG (#26), you’re no MERKIN PATRIOT.
Linda Featheringill
@Cerberus:
Really? I knew they didn’t know what [that unspeakable political and economic philosophy] really consisted of, but it never occurred to me that it might be a euphemism for something else. Wow.
And as a long-time follower of [Chuck, the guy who wrote Capital], I would like to say to all of them, “Thank you. That is the most complimentary thing I have heard today!”
And yes, I do know that both Chuck and Fred wrote that series of books.
Kirk Spencer
@Ash Can: Oh, you’re almost right, but you miss the point.
Go read what the militia folk were saying in the early 1990s, particularly late 1993 through early 1995 (Waco through Oklahoma City). Even better, look up the names of who was saying these things. THEN take a look at what is being said now and who is saying them.
And notice how it’s the same people saying the same thing, only this time they’ve got a lot of useful idiots.
Bob K
I hope that when the “real americuns” get behind their guns and “TAKE THEIR COUNTRY BACK” they remember to line up and shoot all the corporate hacks that have been living on corporate welfare. Exxon Mobil – paying no federal taxes in 2009, all the bastards with their corporate subsidies. (Michelle Bachmann herself got $250,000.00 last year) Strapping bucks and welfare queens. IOKIYAR – eat shit and die you hypocritical bastards.
binzinerator
Shocked, just shocked I tells ya.
Jamey
In other news:
Peanut butter isn’t just about butter; the data suggest it may also be about peanuts…
Cerberus
@Linda Featheringill:
Oh yeah. The big meme during the civil rights movement was “they” (i.e. blacks) didn’t have enough intelligence to do this on their own, so they were obviously the pawns of Russian forces come to (unspeakable word as verb) our great nation and destroy the proud nation our forefathers formed where blacks were properly held down.
This was “supported” by investigations by Hoover and the like into civil rights leaders to show how they were all commies and the fact that Russia liked to mock the U.S. for their treatment of blacks and women while claiming to be “more free”.
This eventually evolved into (the unspeakable word) being used as entirely about thinking of blacks and to a lesser extent women as human or being a dreaded black (or jew). It’s now pretty much solely a code word for black or black-lover with black in that sentence being replaced by a much more, shall we say coarse, term that means the same thing.
The right-wing, if it isn’t projection, it’s code.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
I think it all depends how you define racism. If your a lumper, then any consideration of race could be called racism. I have never thought the base sentiments of the tea baggers comes from racism, but more ideological, especially in mistrusting government and liberal belief it can do good. Racism, that I would split out into racial anxiety, is the element creating the emotion that has gotten these fat white people off their couches and out onto the streets. And rampant racial anxiety, as opposed to flagrant racism is causing a lot of non tea bagger indies and repubs, and maybe even some democrats to believe shit that makes no sense, and to tell pollsters they think tea baggers have a point and to sympathize with them
It seems ludicrous to us that they would, but the tentacles of racial fear run deep in this country, even amongst those not overt racists. The wingnut lizard cortex braintrust understands this phenomena well, being the political predators they are in exploiting base fear for pol gain. I never underestimate their skill in this department. Nor do I Obama’s skill in changing their minds with his no drama fu and faux wingnut inclusiveness. He understands the game very well/ I just wish more liberals did too, and would quit pounding the dude for not acting like the Great White Hope progressive that always leads with his libtard chin.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
Adding, that is not to say the tea baggers are not replete with a fair number of full on racist types, though generally they could be the minority, with many others in the racial anxiety camp, if you care to separate such things like I do.
Restrung
@Cerberus:
Sweet!
I got lost looking for a YouTube, but I remember Michele Bachmann saying some shit about how “we” won’t be able to see doctors if more people have better access. Not necessarily racial, but shit, lady.
Restrung
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
See Reagan Democrats. That guy was the master.
edit: duh, as evidenced by the title of this post. anyway
JR
Mike at #27 says:
You know, that is an interesting point. With the help of the internet, everyone is waking up to just much they’re being screwed by the financial elites.
But.
Current conservatives are just coming off their 9/11 era, and during such crises conservatives tend to bestow blind obedience on their leaders. It’s been documented. In other words, they are not in the mood to question authority at the moment (to the extent that they ever were). Whatever their leaders say, they accept. That’s their current mentality.
What the hell party leaders fueling this chaos think will happen should the right gain control of Washington again is beyond me however. If they continue acting like republicans after all their tea party proclamations their constituents will bun this country down. If however a new republican majority starts acting like Democrats and tries to help anyone but the rich and powerful, they will be called traitors by their peers.
That’s why they’re obstructing Democrats. They have to make the country hate the left more because it’s the only thing that will get them back into power right now.
kommrade reproductive vigor
D.U.H.
This is one of the many reasons I’m sooo looking forward to the GOP’s next bout of “Yo. Vote Republican, darkies,” ads.
Uloborus
This is fairly clear evidence that racism is a part of the Tea Party movement. Of course, so were the witch doctor signs. It’s not like they’ve been subtle.
It’s not clear evidence that the movement is about racism. Just that racists are drawn to it. I still think it’s about a refusal to believe that Democrats could legitimately hold power, magnified by all kinds of crazy fearmongering crap from the people they do trust.
Linda Featheringill
@kommrade reproductive vigor:
I think the RNC should hire you as a campaign consultant!
El Cid
National Review writer & mathematician John Derbyshire gets invited to a UPenn law forum discussion of racial disparities in education and employment by the Black Law Association there and tells the darkies that it’s biology from, you know, the Africa, which make the n****** so stupid.
frosty
@Ailuridae:
Yep, I know the quote. And I’m living it.
It’s really amazing what a jumbled-up bunch we are all over the US. I like to generalize, but when I was canvassing awhile back I could run into the entire political spectrum, sometimes on a single block.
binzinerator
A scary and I think accurate post at Orcinus on sedition, militas, teabaggery and the right wing. It supports Kirk Spencer’s comment that the tea party is the militia.
It’s a disturbing post because Orcinus IMHO has been anything but alarmist.
kommrade reproductive vigor
@Linda Featheringill: If I were to put on a suit and tie, walk into RNC HQ, announce I’d seen the error of my Islahomodemoncratic ways and spout a few talking points, I’d get hired on the spot.
That’s how fucking stupid those stupid fucks are.
But, I’d rather sell my ass to members of the Jeffery Dahmer fan club.
Dino
@JenJen:
It sucks to live in the Cincinnati area. There is a tradition of learned myopia. Discerning the truth is too taxing, better to rely on the old verities.
As far as Cincinnati teabaggers, they’re ubiquitous and they love to share their opinions with anyone within spitting range. Walking epistemic closure. Almost every bar/ restaurant /gym is tuned to Fox News, Rush Limbaugh in the barber shops, etc.
Some of these people are very pleasant when not hopped up some “issue” pushed by Hannity. They interact with minorities decently well on a personal basis. You don’t find many cross burners. Nonetheless, there is a subtext that all of their problems are the fault of the Other. Race is a convenient proxy for that Other — those that disagree.
someguy
It’s not about race. A teabagger friend of mine insists he’s become an activist because some other teabaggers provided him with New Information about Grievous Government Entitlements, Regulations, and Services. Race doesn’t even enter into it…
But seriously, Neiwart’s right. The conservatives are a bunch of seditious bastards, and their whole agenda is nothing but sedition and treason. It’s time somebody did something about it. That means sedition charges for a whole bunch of these right wing fucksticks, maybe starting with some the talk show hosts and members of congress who are encouraging it.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
Turnip Truck Liberals
West of the Cascades
I spent last Wednesday at the National Civil Right Museum (in Memphis) – after a thorough review of the nation’s history from 1955 to 1968, it’s pretty evident that the teabaggers are just the Klan without the hoods and sheets.
someguy
@ General Egali Tarian Suck
Guess I better spell it out for you, Dumbass.
I guess capital letters were just too subtle for your worldly liberal mind. Do I need to add italics too?
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@someguy: LOL. Well, of course, one person, your friend says it’s not about race for him, but about some grievous entitlement jibberish. So you go from that to “Race doesn’t enter into it” for the tea party movement, despite all the evidence to the contrary. So yea, Turnip Truck Liberal, or dumbass. Whichever.
ksmiami
Just turn off the friggin tax spiggot that has bled the cities and had our revenues sent to these agrarian utopias, erect some walls and let it burn MOFOS
General Egali Tarian Stuck
I nominate this for a new code word for minorities. Or, folks of color.
Church Lady
@West of the Cascades: Steve, is that you?
Mustang Bobby
@West of the Cascades; it’s not like all teabaggers are going to put on a hood and burn a cross on the White House lawn…. but they might stop by and toast a marshmallow or two.
zoe kentucky in pittsburgh
This is like saying water is wet.
Honestly they aren’t even subtle about it– Glenn Beck, the actual leader of the teabagger movement, has claimed time and time again on his radio show that Obama is pushing HCR because Obama wants “reparations.”
Beck doesn’t even use code words most of the time so I don’t understand why this doesn’t get more play. It’s the difference between his tv show and his radio show– his radio show is actually far more extremist. I assume he plans out what he’s going to say on tv and his radio show is whatever pops into his tiny little, paranoid brain for several hours a day.
zoe kentucky in pittsburgh
Not to mention all of that language they use about “taking back our America” or repeated references to an all white crowd as “real Americans.”
They don’t like that we have a black president, plain and simple. These are many of the people that would admit on camera and in polls that “America isn’t ready for a black president,” and some of them would go so far as to admit that they personally weren’t ready for it. Where do we think those people have gone since 2008? They didn’t disappear.
Now a lot of them are angry about a lot of things– economy, etc.– but a lot of it is cultural resentment that America is changing. The fact is that America is changing, it’s not all white, male elites runnings things (ok, not as much anyways) and the teabaggers are in a camp that clearly proclaims that change upsets them.
Dannie Egelston
I’m a huge lover! Thank you posting this