A New York Times/ CBS News poll last week examined the issue of what makes the Tea Party backers tick, what motivates them, and who they really are. It is all very revealing!
The poll shows that the Tea Party has 18 percent of the people behind them. It depicts them as more likely to be wealthier and well educated than the general public, and are very likely to be white, male, married and Republican. They are also older and define themselves as very conservative, and see Barack Obama as very liberal.
More than half feel Obama is more concerned about the poor than about them when it comes to policy making, and one out of four think that the administration favors blacks over whites.
The Tea Party people resent the Health Care overhaul and increased government spending, and think by overwhelming numbers that Obama is a Socialist, and do not like the President on a personal level. Many believe, wrongly, that he has increased taxes for most Americans.
And more than half hold a favorable opinion of President George W. Bush, and blame Congress for what has happened in the past two years.
They have the view that programs should be cut, by getting rid of “waste”, meaning those who are poor and deprived being supported by various social programs. But don’t dare cut Social Security and Medicare, while cutting spending and lowering taxes!
When one analyzes this poll date, it is obvious who the Tea Party people are. They are angry, white, upper middle and upper class people, who don’t like the fact that the country is changing so rapidly with growing minority groups, and they don’t want taxes to go up, but also don’t want their programs that benefit them to go down.
They are conservative and Republican in orientation, who have troubles dealing with a Democratic administration, which is led by an African American President, an African American Attorney General (Eric Holder), and has a Latina Supreme Court Justice (Sonia Sotomayor). They would be the first to applaud the new Arizona immigration law, failing to see it as what it is–a racist, discriminatory law, not all that different than African Americans faced in the South for more than a century until the Civil Rights laws were finally passed and enforced in the 1960s.
The Tea Party people want an America which is no longer that of their youth, and have trouble adjusting to rapid change. And they are certainly self centered and selfish, only concerned about “ME” rather than “WE”, the good of the nation at large! They would claim they are patriotic, but they are far from it, as they see the advancement of the nation only in the sense as to how they avoid taxation and have the least responsibility to their fellow men and women! And yet, many would claim to be “religious”–a mockery of the true meaning of having faith! 🙁
I completely agree. As a member of the TRUE Libertarian Party, it is an embarassment that many members of the Tea Party Movement see themselves as an extension of our party. I support a Fair Tax but I also understand that people need help from time to time, so as a Christian it is my personal responsibility to help them. I am proud of President Obama and realize that based upon the traditional planks of the GOP, that he is really more of a moderate Republican much like Ronald Regan than he is a socialist. Many teabaggers want to rewrite history, forgetting that change is part of the fabric of American history. Change brought the women’s rights movement, the civil rights movement, the gay rights movement and equality for people who, without the help of federal legislation, would not have realized it. History has shown that when the upper class and upper middle class are threatened, they respond violently. I sincerely hope that this movement will not culminate in violence, although the rhetoric of its members may prove me wrong.
Totally false.
We object to our country being turned over to the socialist totalitarianism that is the mark of this administration.
Government continues to take over more and more of our private affairs, and we lose liberties as a result.
The meme that we don’t care about poor people or that we are racist is old, worn out, and doesn’t cut it.
We are a country in debt and under attack by the enemy within. We cannot believe anyone would do what this administration is doing to destroy this country unless on purpose…it is so vile.
We are about to have the biggest tax levied upon us and it hurts everyone INCLUDING the poor.
The poor in our country have no idea what it’s really like to be poor.
We have had billions of dollars worth of programs to help people and still they complain.
How’s that socialism working out for you now?