Billmon. Go.
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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.
I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.
Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.
No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.
Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.
Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.
When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.
“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”
Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.
And we’re all out of bubblegum.
Presidents are not kings, and Plaintiff is not President.
A last alliance of elves and men. also pet photos.
Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.
Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.
I was promised a recession.
It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.
Peak wingnut was a lie.
A dilettante blog from the great progressive state of West Virginia.
JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?
You cannot shame the shameless.
Impressively dumb. Congratulations.
Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?
Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.
T R E 4 5 O N
Zifnab
Is there a point where you are no longer allowed to call yourself a “news” paper? I’m a bit confused, because it seems like the NYT decided to strip or avoid as much factual information as possible, in order to fluff the piece into a feel-good reach around to America’s craziest constituency group.
Pigs & Spiders
The only good that can come from this is the first tea bagger who defends the NYT. That will be a trip…
Bill Arnold
Tea-baggers (tea partiers) will call it hit piece.
I’m surprised people are reading it as a fluffer piece. It ends with a very indicting quote:
And over all it’s saying that the tea partiers are in no way representative of America at large.
burnspbesq
I’m a little unclear on what the problem is here.
Are you proposing that the Times turn into the Post, and run a screaming (and arguably unsupported by the data) headline something like “BAGGERS TO NIGGERS: DROP DEAD?” And if so, why?
Brian J
At the risk of being raked over the coals, unless there’s something in the numbers themselves that suggest something different, race isn’t the biggest issue for the majority of the Teabaggers. Look at this paragraph from the article in question:
That is a startling large number of people who believe something pretty damn stupid. It’s more than double the population in general. But it’s still not the majority of the Teabaggers, or even anywhere close to it.
I won’t deny that there is a lot of racism mixed in, but I don’t see from what was written that it’s necessarily the biggest problem. I suspect a lot of the anger over spending “their” money on “other” people doesn’t focus on race so much as people in general. For me to believe that a lot of the wealthier people in this country think the money is going to minorities, I’d need to see some direct proof, something which is absent in the Daily Kos post.
MattF
What I’d like to see is more and clearer coverage of the dog-whistle messages coming right-wing politicians and commentators. We’ve become inured to it, but it really is disgusting and, y’know, newsworthy.
danimal
I used to love heading over to the Whiskey Bar, and I really respect Billmon, but I think this is a little forced. Most liberal analysis of the tea partiers is a little too focused on race. The tea partiers are the energized core of the conservative movement and they don’t care that Obama is black. They just care that Obama is a Democrat. That’s enough for them. Bill Clinton is pasty white and they lathered themselves in their own spittle while he was president.
Bill E Pilgrim
At the risk of repeating a comment I made last night (or last night for me, who knows when it was here), it’s truly remarkable when you stand back and realize that this has been nothing but a marketing effort by the Republican party, and one that pretty much worked.
The complete rout of the Republican party would have left these people seen as white, bitter, older, extreme-right wing Republican racists who make up what’s left of the core of the GOP these days, impotently yelling at clouds because they lost. Big time.
Instead, the entire freaking country it seems at times is talking about this group that’s “new”, “third party” “grass roots” and all the rest of it, and that’s basically one giant win for the GOP, with FOX and virtually the rest of the media serving as their PR department.
Brian J
@danimal:
The problem is, his description isn’t necessarily wrong. It’s that it doesn’t apply to the majority of the Teabaggers.
Bill E Pilgrim
@danimal: A significant number of tea baggers say things like “I want government out of everything and don’t touch my social security and Medicare”.
Listening to them when they explain that “No, race has nothing to do with why I’m unhappy” makes about as much sense as believing what they say about entitlements. They’re not likely to put it down on poll answers. I’d go by the witch doctor images and racial slurs on the signs, to get a more revealing picture.
Sure, Clinton had right wingers up in arms but this is far beyond that, believe me.
de stijl
@Brian J:
Think of it this way – these were the people who were willing to say that over the borderline racist crap out loud to a person who was going to record their answer.
Brian J
@de stijl:
What’s your point? That the number would be higher if more people responded truthfully?
slag
I’m wondering when (if ever) it will occur to teabaggers that government programs don’t materialize out of thin air. When hearing these people talk about people being “conditioned” to depend on the government, you’d think that social programs just started springing up because government representatives just had too much time on their hands and now people have learned to adapt to them.
Social Security? A welfare program started because old people were “conditioned” to prefer not eating cat food in their later years. Medicare? A welfare program started because old people were “conditioned” to want medical treatment in their most vulnerable years. Food stamps? A welfare program started because poor children were “conditioned” to need food in their growing years.
It would be nice if just a few of these people would stop for a moment to consider the various reasons these social programs got started in the first place. Maybe then, they would get their causal relationships in order.
Bill E Pilgrim
@de stijl:
Bingo.
jwb
Race is the tool, not the reason, and if you want the reason, a good place to start, as always, is by following the money. Does anyone really doubt that we’d be having this same discussion only inflected toward gender had HRC been elected?
“Sure, Clinton had right wingers up in arms but this is far beyond that, believe me.”
Perhaps, but that could be explained largely on the basis that the teabaggers are just picking up where they left off on Clinton. Every Democratic president in my lifetime (Johnson, Carter, Clinton, now Obama) has had to suffer these attacks of delegitimization from the right, and each attack has been worse than the previous one.
nathanlindquist
My favorite part of the Times article was this one:
Asked what they are angry about, Tea Party supporters offered three main concerns: the recent health care overhaul, government spending and a feeling that their opinions are not represented in Washington………The 18 percent of Americans who identify themselves as Tea Party supporters tend to be Republican, white, male, married and older than 45.
Yes, because old, rich, conservative white men are not represented in Washington! Fucking spoiled babies.
Bulworth
God, I miss Billmon.
“Aid for Dependent Wall Street Banks program” is just gold.
And what’s with the “welfare” whining? Didn’t we essentially “end welfare as we know it” about 15 years ago, as Billmon notes at the end? Is it too much to ask for these idiots to know at least a little contemporary history?
Bill E Pilgrim
@jwb: Well race is the tool to Roger Ailes, Newt Gingrich, and so on. Sure. But it’s racism itself, existing, latent, you name it, in certain people that they can call on.
Though I’d say actually the stirring up creates more of it, gives people encouragement to go feel even more of it, when they’re told who they should resent, who is being given “their” money, and so on.
Saying “Clinton was attacked by the right too” is not a convincing argument that racism isn’t a big part of what’s going on now.
Bob K
I refuse to acknowledge a reality where doing a cut and paste from “Conservapedia” counts as journalism.
Mnemosyne
@Brian J:
So when the teabaggers picture the person who is getting “their” money, do you think they’re more likely to picture a white woman in Appalachia or a black woman in the ghetto?
I know people are probably tired of my hobbyhorse, but race and class are deeply entwined in this country. In our society, African-Americans are automatically lower-class, which is why pretty much every prominent black man has a story about being mistaken for a waiter or a valet at a fancy party.
Saying that the teapartiers are “only” thinking about poor people is disingenuous because, when they picture poor people, they mostly picture black people. For most of them, this may be an unconscious association, but it’s still there, which is why it’s so triggering for them to see a black family in the White House. They may not entirely understand why it’s so disturbing to them, but they know that it is.
Pam Spaulding has a good concept where she talks about “color arousal” and differentiates it from racism. As I understand it, it’s when people’s unconscious racism gets triggered but they don’t entirely understand why (because it’s unconscious), so they come up with a rationalization for it. That makes them vulnerable to talk of “extremism” or the S word.
So I guess I would say that a lot of the teabagger stuff is at a minimum race-related, but not everyone has looked at their own feelings and motivations enough to realize it.
Mnemosyne
@Brian J:
Argh. I have a reply to you that’s stuck in moderation.
lotus
Well, they didn’t stop with headline-editing. This passage Billmon quotes:
NYT has disappeared it from the story overnight: * poof *
That’s an editorial decision Clark Hoyt really needs to explain in his next ombudsman column, doncha think?
Gus
Yes. SATSQ.
Bulworth
@Gus: I’m sure if we could just end Welfare the budget would be balanced, we could cut taxes, and we’d have ponies.
fourmorewars
Considering the administration spent the better part of its first year in power shoveling money into the Aid for Dependent Wall Street Banks program it inherited from the Bush Administration, or rebuilding public infrastructure that primarily benefits suburban commuters and long-distance truckers, or promoting middle-class tax cuts, or pushing Congress to enact an elaborate and very generous system of subsidies for working-class and middle-class people who can’t afford (or like to pretend they can’t afford) health insurance, you’d think Obama would get a small break here. God only knows what the teabaggers would be saying about him if he really did try to do something big and expensive specifically to help those people.
I wish he’d inserted Joe Biden’s unbelievable comment about ‘we don’t need to put any stimulus money into public swimming pools’ right there. Quick search of digby wasn’t able to find it and I have to go, but maybe somebody can dig it up. Prime candidate for the most rightwing pronouncement from the administration, in a crowded field. Be nice to point it out as further evidence of the ‘no matter how much they kiss right wing ass it’ll never be enough.’