# The racist Tea Party is in love with Herman Cain **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 26, 2011, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-racist-tea-party-is-in-love-with-herman-cain/600876 "2011-10-26T16:57:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2011, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-racist-tea-party-is-in-love-with-herman-cain/600876/61 "2011-10-26T18:59:52Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > If this were the thesis: > > “A huge supermajority of members of the Tea Party are so virulently and openly racist that they would never even be able to bring themselves to pretend to show any respect or support for a black person in any context at all” > > Then I would be willing to tentatively agree that Bricker had cleverly come up with strong evidence against that thesis. > > However, given that the thesis is something more like: > > “The original catalyst for the popularity of the Tea Party, which seemed to explode so quickly into relevance and visibility, while aided and abetted by financial and logistical support from powerful and rich organizations, was largely Obama’s race. The issues that were their stated reason for existence (taxes and deficits) are in fact important ones, and there’s no reason to doubt that significant numbers of Tea Parties are in fact honestly concerned with and motivated by those issues, but there was no sea change in either taxes (which in fact went down) or deficits (which had started ballooning upwards with Bush many years earlier) that correspond in time with the Tea Party’s creation – so, combined with the xenophobic and outright racial messages frequently displayed, and the general racial makeup of the Tea Party itself, the logical conclusion is that the election of a black president was itself a huge factor. Furthermore, while the proportion of Tea Partiers who are openly racists may not be all that high, the proportion of open racists who support the Tea Party very likely is.” > > I don’t see how Bricker’s point is really relevant at all. Granted, I’m sure many liberals (possibly including myself) have been a bit too eager to glibly condense the above thesis (or whatever version of it they happen to subscribe to) into a punchier, shorter version of some sort… ie, “the Tea Party is Racist”. But of course boiling down complicated and multi-faceted issues into punchlines and catchphrases is about 95% of the public political discourse these days… OK, so how might one rebut your actual thesis? What sort of evidence would falsify it? ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2011, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-racist-tea-party-is-in-love-with-herman-cain/600876/62 "2011-10-26T19:02:36Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > A sufficiently exhaustive and fairly worded set of polls and research could probably give some good evidence. Barring that, try travelling back in time and replace Obama with: > (1) A white man with precisely Obama’s policies > and > (2) A black man named “Dave Johnson” who did not have a Kenyan father or spend some time in Indonesia while growing up, again with precisely Obama’s policies > > and see whether the Tea Party comes into existence and prominence in the same fashion. Sadly, my time machine is in the shop right now, or I’d do it. > (Heck, just for fun, throw in (3) Hillary Clinton.) Time travel being an elusive goal, let’s put it aside for the moment. **Richard Parker** seems to hint that even the exhaustive and fairly worded set of polls and research might face an uphill battle. Do you agree? ---
**Author:** ![DianaG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7ab992/32.png) [@DianaG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DianaG)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2011, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-racist-tea-party-is-in-love-with-herman-cain/600876/63 "2011-10-26T19:08:32Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > I agree that because Kenya is involved, racism becomes something to consider. But despite that, I read this sign as specific to the President and his supposed status as ineligible to the office by virtue of his foreign birth than any generic racism. That’s mighty white of you. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2011, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-racist-tea-party-is-in-love-with-herman-cain/600876/64 "2011-10-26T19:10:52Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > This is an example of error, not hypocrisy. > > Although your post does point out your absolute and continuing inability to understand the meaning of the word hypocrisy. > > But no – my thesis here is that Cain’s support numbers amongst the Tea Party is strong evidence that the claims of racism leveled at the Tea Party are untrue. No hypocrisy involved - just error. Your premise is, the premise of the OP, is false. To be accurate, it should read: Tea Party racists in love with Herman Cain. I doubt you could prove that, so you came up with a way to try and point out that the characterization of some Tea Party members as racists must be false because some members of the Tea Party seem to be supporting a black man. Or do you have some cites where some people on these boards have called the entire organization racist? ---
**Author:** ![Death\_of\_Rats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a6a055/32.png) [@Death\_of\_Rats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Death_of_Rats)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2011, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-racist-tea-party-is-in-love-with-herman-cain/600876/65 "2011-10-26T19:21:43Z")
The Tea Party does not LIKE Cain. They hate Romney. There is a difference. It is just that they hate a black conservative less then anyone Liberal. Even a “Liberal” GOP candidate. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2011, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-racist-tea-party-is-in-love-with-herman-cain/600876/66 "2011-10-26T19:29:50Z")
> [@Death\_of\_Rats](#): > > The Tea Party does not LIKE Cain. They hate Romney. There is a difference. It is just that they hate a black conservative less then anyone Liberal. Even a “Liberal” GOP candidate. If that were the case, why is their support concentrated on Cain, instead of spread out among the other choices? ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2011, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-racist-tea-party-is-in-love-with-herman-cain/600876/67 "2011-10-26T19:30:03Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > ETA: can’t edit titles, but “Harman” = Herman. Fixed it. ---
**Author:** ![Zeriel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/58956e/32.png) [@Zeriel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeriel)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2011, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-racist-tea-party-is-in-love-with-herman-cain/600876/68 "2011-10-26T19:35:16Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > OK, so how might one rebut your actual thesis? What sort of evidence would falsify it? Not being the person who proposed the thesis, you might show the Tea Party as an organization is not racist by showing they (in general) take swift, decisive, before-the-press-blows-it-open action that comes down hard on people at Tea Party rallies with racist signs or Tea Party-affiliated politicians who send racist messages. I’ve seen some examples of the former, including the guy who had the “niggar” sign referenced upthread. That still fights an uphill battle, because you have to consider the difference in birther outcry over Obama vs. birther outcry over McCain, given the somewhat stronger legal case for the latter actually having an issue with his eligibility. I suppose one could show that the Tea Party and the Birther movement don’t overlap, but I’m under the impression they generally do. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2011, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-racist-tea-party-is-in-love-with-herman-cain/600876/69 "2011-10-26T19:37:00Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > Or do you have some cites where some people on these boards have called the entire organization racist? Maybe. By that I mean: I have plenty of cites which read that way, but those cites could certainly be parsed to also mean your interpretation. For example, someone said that the Tea Party’s claim of desiring fiscal responsibility was false, unless “… ‘fiscal responsibility’ [is] a code phrase for ‘get that black man out of the White House,’ because I truly don’t believe they want anything much deeper than that.” To me, that clearly indicts the party. But I guess you could say that it didn’t mean the entire organization. But if such a clear phrase as that is held to not mean the entire organization, then I can’t imagine a comment that would. So you tell me: if someone says, “And please, don’t respond with that tripe about how the Tea Party is all about fiscal responsibility unless you mean ‘fiscal responsibility’ as a code phrase for ‘get that black man out of the White House,’ because I truly don’t believe they want anything much deeper than that,” does it meet your standard? Or is that not about the entire organization? ---
**Author:** ![Zeriel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/58956e/32.png) [@Zeriel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeriel)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2011, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-racist-tea-party-is-in-love-with-herman-cain/600876/70 "2011-10-26T19:42:30Z")
NETA: I’m also going to have to agree with the general sentiment upthread–Herman Cain’s plurality support in the Tea Party is not evidence of their non-racism, as there are two phenomena that could explain it–1, “he’s sufficiently politically representative of their views that a supermajority of the non-racist minority support him–a white candidate with his exact platform and presentation would capture 90%+ of the Tea Party”, and 2, “He’s black, but he’s perceived as an Uncle Tom type who is willing to do the bidding of his majority-white advisers and peers.”. To the extent that the Tea Party is systemically racist, which I don’t myself believe they are in any majority numbers (based on the relatives of mine who are members, I prefer to believe they’re systemically _jerks_ who pride themselves on “telling it like it is”, and would have made woman jokes about Hillary, lawyer and philanderer jokes about Edwards, etc.), I think those two statements explain why Cain’s blackness isn’t terribly important to the Tea Party as a whole, despite the minority racists who are hangers-on at this point. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2011, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-racist-tea-party-is-in-love-with-herman-cain/600876/71 "2011-10-26T19:45:56Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > So why did Cain jump eight points after being tied with Romney at 17 percent three weeks ago? In short: The Tea Party is falling in love with him. > > > > CBS News reports Cain now has the support of 32 percent of all self-identified Tea Partiers, almost twice as many as any other Republican hopeful. > > From [Slate.](http://slatest.slate.com/posts/2011/10/25/gop_2012_cbs_news_nyt_poll_shows_herman_cain_up_by_four_points_o.html) The only conclusion we can draw from that news item is that 32% of Tea Partiers are not racists. Right? ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2011, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-racist-tea-party-is-in-love-with-herman-cain/600876/72 "2011-10-26T19:47:18Z")
**Bricker** , I’m interested in your view of how such claims about the motivations of groups of people are proven or disproven. For example: some conservative posters on this board have said that OWS is motivated in part by jealousy of the rich. How would you go about disproving that claim? Or would you say such a claim cannot be disproven? Do you avoid making such claims because they are too hard to support either way with objective evidence? ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2011, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-racist-tea-party-is-in-love-with-herman-cain/600876/73 "2011-10-26T19:55:35Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > OK, so how might one rebut your actual thesis? What sort of evidence would falsify it? An interesting question. And it’s a bit unclear whether you’re asking “what sort of evidence that Bricker and MaxTheVool might be able to practically find if they set their mind to it would falsify it” vs “what sort of evidence that an eccentric billionaire who hired a crack team of researches and sociologists and political scientists might be able to practically find would falsify it”. As I said, it’s an interesting question, partly because in this day in age everyone knows that being a racist is bad. So if you just go up to people and say “hey, here’s an opinion poll… do you agree that black people are inferior to white people” you are presumably not really going to get an honest answer… particularly if you had already asked them about their political affiliations. But there are some interesting tricks you can play. For instance, there was a study a while back involving showing people resumes and asking which one they would hire, and the resumes were identical except that one had a “stereotypically black” name like “Laquesha” and one didn’t; and people were more positive towards the non-black-named resume. So I think it’s possible to come up with some type of study/research data that gives at least some meaningful insight into how racist a particular person is. Do this to a large enough sample of people, compare this to their political affiliations (which hopefully they will give you honestly because they don’t realize you’re trying to decide if they are racist), and you can come up with some correlation between racism and political affiliation. Of course, that doesn’t address the first part of my thesis, concerning what catalyzed the initial growth of the Tea Party. Frankly, I can’t think of an easy way to falsify that. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2011, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-racist-tea-party-is-in-love-with-herman-cain/600876/74 "2011-10-26T20:08:37Z")
> [@Zeriel](#): > > Not being the person who proposed the thesis, you might show the Tea Party as an organization is not racist by showing they (in general) take swift, decisive, before-the-press-blows-it-open action that comes down hard on people at Tea Party rallies with racist signs or Tea Party-affiliated politicians who send racist messages. I’ve seen some examples of the former, including the guy who had the “niggar” sign referenced upthread. > > That still fights an uphill battle, because you have to consider the difference in birther outcry over Obama vs. birther outcry over McCain, given the somewhat stronger legal case for the latter actually having an issue with his eligibility. I suppose one could show that the Tea Party and the Birther movement don’t overlap, but I’m under the impression they generally do. There’s a non-racist distinction to be made between McCain and Obama. For the majority of the population, “natural born citizen” means a citizen born on US soil. And for many people, especially those that remember that Carter “gave” the Panama Canal back to Panama, there was a sense that that Canal Zone was part of US soil. So while you’re correct that the actual legal issues make both weak cases, but McCain’s marginally more questionable, that’s not how it translated to a sound-bite populace. We have only to look at the Truther movement to realize that we don’t need racism to have a group of people believing the outlandish if it happens to coincide with their desired political outcome. Indeed, we don’t even need partisan politics: look at tax protesters. They cling to outlandish theories in the face of all evidence, and no racism is needed there either. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2011, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-racist-tea-party-is-in-love-with-herman-cain/600876/75 "2011-10-26T20:10:01Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > The only conclusion we can draw from that news item is that 32% of Tea Partiers are not racists. > > Right? Post #22 addresses this argument in detail. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2011, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-racist-tea-party-is-in-love-with-herman-cain/600876/76 "2011-10-26T20:13:09Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > **Bricker** , I’m interested in your view of how such claims about the motivations of groups of people are proven or disproven. > > For example: some conservative posters on this board have said that OWS is motivated in part by jealousy of the rich. How would you go about disproving that claim? Or would you say such a claim cannot be disproven? > > Do you avoid making such claims because they are too hard to support either way with objective evidence? I try to avoid such claims because they are facile and unsupportable. While I have criticized OWS for their lack of clear goals, I would not say they’re jealous of the rich because I have no idea if it’s true, and it can’t really be rebutted. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2011, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-racist-tea-party-is-in-love-with-herman-cain/600876/77 "2011-10-26T20:14:40Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Not in a vacuum, no. > > But let’s reason this out a bit. We’re assuming that 32% of the Tea Party are egalitarian, and the other 68% racist. We have no information whatever about the other 68%. The news item only supports the conclusion that 32% are not racist. > [@](#): > > To get to 32% that support Cain, you must concede that a majority are not racists, or posit that Cain is so oibviously the best choice that no reasonable person would choose another candidate, except on racial grounds. Absolutely unsupportable by the information you supplied. ---
**Author:** ![Scot\_Dutch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@Scot\_Dutch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scot_Dutch)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2011, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-racist-tea-party-is-in-love-with-herman-cain/600876/78 "2011-10-26T20:15:47Z")
Post #46 eloquently sums this debate up. The OP really proves nothing. Personally I think the whole “Is the tea party racist?” Debate is just a distraction from a more important question, “Is the tea party entirely ignorant of how government and economics work?”. ---
**Author:** ![DianaG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7ab992/32.png) [@DianaG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DianaG)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2011, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-racist-tea-party-is-in-love-with-herman-cain/600876/79 "2011-10-26T20:16:55Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > There’s a non-racist distinction to be made between McCain and Obama. For the majority of the population, “natural born citizen” means a citizen born on US soil. And for many people, especially those that remember that Carter “gave” the Panama Canal back to Panama, there was a sense that that Canal Zone was part of US soil. As opposed to Hawaii? ---
**Author:** ![LonesomePolecat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a88e57/32.png) [@LonesomePolecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonesomePolecat)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2011, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-racist-tea-party-is-in-love-with-herman-cain/600876/80 "2011-10-26T20:25:15Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > Is hating Mexicans racist in your opinion? Is not hating most Mexicans but hating the border jumpers and the Anglo haters racist in your opinion? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-racist-tea-party-is-in-love-with-herman-cain/600876.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-racist-tea-party-is-in-love-with-herman-cain/600876.md?page=5)