Same As It Ever Was
by tristero
There’s a new survey out of the teabaggers, this one courtesy of U of Washington and Bruce Bartlett which separates out those who are hardcore from those who are at least partially sane. Guess what? The Tea Party is just another name for the standard Republican base, having the same standard obsessions with black people getting more than their fair share; fear and intolerance of immigrants; and restricting marriage to couples whose love they approve of.
Who knew this was just the same old Republican rightwing bigots at it again and not some genuine post-partisan, multi-party, multi-ethnic populist uprising declaring a pox on all houses and the corrupt politics-as-usual? Well, actually, most liberals knew. As we knew about the madness of Bush/Iraq and the dangers of offshore drilling, to name just two that popped to mind.
From Bartlett’s post:
A new University of Washington poll sheds light on these observations by separating TPM agnostics, who may somewhat approve or disapprove of the TPM, from those that strongly approve of it. Released on Tuesday, it sampled 1,695 Washington State voters—a large sample—and asked them to define themselves as strong TPM supporters (19% of the sample), those that somewhat approve or disapprove of it (26% of the sample), and those that strongly disapprove (27% of the sample; not included below).
What I think this poll shows is that taxes and spending are not by any means the only issues that define TPM members; they are largely united in being unsympathetic to African Americans, militant in their hostility toward illegal immigrants, and very conservative socially. At a minimum, these data throw cold water on the view that the TPM is essentially libertarian. Based on these data, I would say that TPM members have much more in common with social conservatives that welcome government intervention as long as it’s in support of their agenda.
That’s basically how I see it, the one area of disagreement – ie, I think there is only an academic distinction between libertarians and conservatives, at least in this context – isn’t worth a tea drop of difference to argue over.
Can we please stop seeing seemingly sensible people pretending these people aren’t the bigoted rightwing nuts they so clearly are? Can we also please see at least the semblance of skepticism towards the latest Republican/corporate re-branding of their boilerplate bullshit? “We told you so” really gets boring, you know. Ehhh….”No” and “No?” I thought not.
Same as it ever was.