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The Narrative

What the tea partiers are vs. what the left and the press (but I repeat myself) paint them as. A lot more here.

This whole tea party thing is almost exactly like two other recent political figures: Sarah Palin and Joe The Plumber. One side propped them up a little bit. The other side set out to utterly destroy them with the help of a compliant press corpse (misspelling intentional). In all cases, each has plenty of baggage and are far from perfect but the narrative against them got out of control.

20 Responses to “The Narrative”

  1. Guav Says:

    According to the first link, 57% of Tea Partiers are Republicans and only 13% are Democrats; 67% call themselves conservative and 8% call themselves liberal. Most are white, the majority are males, and they largely get their info from FOX News.

    How that is different than what “the left and the press” thought they were?

  2. SayUncle Says:

    They typically paint them as a republican party shill group. You know, when they’re not portrayed as white-hooded haters of everyone who isn’t white or male.

  3. Guav Says:

    They overwhelmingly ARE conservative Republicans—(the first part) is a completely accurate characterization of the movement, politically.

  4. SayUncle Says:

    Sure. But they are not usually associated with the party and seem to be upset at politicos with Rs after their name too.

  5. Nate Says:

    The way the press tells the story you would think that the tea party movement is full of pre-cogs who know to pull the white hoods off and ditch the burning crosses right before a picture is taken.
    And 57% isn’t EXACTLY overwhelming is it? Seems to me like they are barely a majority, whereas 43% are dems/independents. If you agree that 57% is overwhelming you have to agree that Obama is now overwhelminly unpopular as president.

  6. Guav Says:

    Uncle: Yeah, but that’s generally the case with both Republicans and Democrats alike—everybody hates Congress 🙂

    Nate: I said “overwhemingly” referring to the 57/13% of Repubs to Dems, and the 67/8% of conservatives to liberals. Many people are posting about the polls putting the Indies and Dems together in a way to make it seem like the Tea Parties are really quite bipartisan and/or representative of a broad range of Americans with very varied political views, and they aren’t—The Tea Parties are predominantly conservative, right-leaning, older white males.

    Nothing wrong with that.

  7. SayUncle Says:

    everybody hates Congress

    I’m just glad someone is taking it to the street, though.

    And most are women, according to one poll.

  8. Nate Says:

    So actually they are tri-partisian. You can’t leave out a large part of the minority. The conservative segment is overwhelming, ill give you that.

  9. Guav Says:

    I’m not leaving the independents out, I’m just noting that of those who identify with a political party, they are overwhelmingly Republicans, not Democrats—lumping the Dems in with the Indies, especially listing them first (“40% are Democrats/Independents”) is pretty misleading, making it sound like the Tea Party position enjoys broad support from Democrats and/or liberals, and it doesn’t.

    The Tea Party Express, for example, is basically a professionally coordinated corporate PR effort, and many of the people behind the Tea Party “movement” are Bush-era Republican operatives.

    And of course, a large portion of those calling themselves “independents” at any given time still identify much more with one party than the other. If the other results are any indication, most of the Independents probably vote Republican most of the time, if I were to speculate.

  10. Hartley Says:

    I’m gonna bet that most folks describe themselves as “conservative” because “libertarian” hasn’t lost it’s “radical fringe” connotation yet..
    And, if the poll gives you a choice of “liberal” or “conservative”, which one would YOU pick? (No, I don’t know what the poll asked)

  11. JD Says:

    “The Tea Parties are predominantly conservative, right-leaning, older white males.”

    Not the two that I’ve been at here in Bismarck, ND. Mostly white, yes but thats how ND’s population is. There was no dominant age group, it went from teenagers to elderly men and women.

  12. ATLien Says:

    If by overwhelmingly male you mean 51% male, then you’re right. I’ve been right there from the beginning from the job I had, and there a lot of women involved with the movement.

  13. JKB Says:

    Well, the Tea Partiers are by an large not normally concerned with the chattering and foolishness of Washington as they pursue life, liberty and happiness. Obama and the Dems mistake was going to war against average Americans pursuit of happiness, enjoyment of life and exercise of liberty. Having been disturbed by this and the recession, in which this administration has been unsuccessful in supporting job growth, the average folks have had to take a direct interest. The Dems would have done better to continue their slow creep for when someone slaps middle America, they slap back harder.

  14. Nylarthotep Says:

    Gallup has 32% of Democrats supporting tea partiers. I guess there must be a lot of disgrutled conservative old white men in the democratic party.

    http://themoderatevoice.com/68364/the-tea-party-narrative-just-jumped-the-shark/

  15. Guav Says:

    Hartley: If asked, I’d have chosen “liberal” because it describes me far more accurately than “conservative,” and I’d have chosen “independent.” But, of course, I’m not actually a tea partier.

    ATLien: I didn’t say the tea partiers were overwhelmingly male—pretty much every poll has shown large female partcipation—I said a majority were male (by a slim margin), and that they were “predominantly” conservative, right-leaning, older white males.

    Nylarthotep: Read the link you provided and the Gallup poll again, it says nothing of the sort. It says that 32% of US adults are Democrats, and that 8% of the tea party supporters are Democrats. It also says:

    Tea Party supporters are decidedly Republican and conservative in their leanings. Also, compared with average Americans, supporters are slightly more likely to be male and less likely to be lower-income.

  16. Guav Says:

    JD: Nationally, almost 80% of tea party supporters are non-Hispanic whites, whereas only 65% of Americans were non-Hispanic whites (as of 2008). Not a gigantic divergence as far as racial demographics go, but still a little bit of over-representation of whites as compared to their proportion of the population.

  17. Steve H Says:

    OK, we’re down to “slightly more white than the average population and barely male dominated (though other poles show mostly females, with a lot of independents”. Wow, strong point, yeah that’s *exactly* the way MSNBC was spinning them, right?

  18. emdfl Says:

    Considering the last number I saw was that obunghole got 97% of the black vote, it seems only reasonable that tea partiers would tend to be white…
    and while we are on the subject, when are we going to hear what the white congressional caucus has to say about anything?

  19. Guav Says:

    No Steve H, we’re not “down” to anything–that makes it sound like I’ve walked my comments back, and I haven’t. We’re right where I started in my first comment:

    “57% of Tea Partiers are Republicans and only 13% are Democrats; 67% call themselves conservative and 8% call themselves liberal. Most are white, the majority are males, and they largely get their info from FOX News.”

    Nothing I said in that initial comment has been refuted.

  20. Guav Says:

    OK emdfl, but WHY do African Americans and other minorities vote mostly Democratic? Even though they tend to be more socially conservative than whites on average? Why does that appear to be the case with many hardworking, socially conservative minorities?

    They just do not feel welcome in the Republican party.

Remember, I do this to entertain me, not you.

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