I think the Tea Party movement will collapse next December. The Republicans are going to find it’s a lot easier to get these people to march and yell than it is to get them to register and vote.
Well, that, and the President’s race.
Nah, I think they’ll be around for a long, long time. Never underestimate the staying power of willful ignorance. If Obama loses the 2012 election, the TPers will take that proof that their tactics worked and be ever more emboldened. If Obama wins in 2012, the depth and breadth of outrage TPers exhibit will know no bounds and will rally more to the cause.
The “movement” may officially collapse, but it’s so incoherent it doesn’t really matter. The crazy fringe will still be there; they’ll just change the name of the “movement”. It’s not like there’s a real organization that can go bankrupt or something like that.
What the Tea Party movement most reminds me of, is Ross Perot’s presidential bid in 1992 and the United We Stand movement of his supporters.
While some to the issues are different it seems to me to attract the same group of people. The more publicity that the Tea Party gets, the more I feel like I’ve seen this song and dance before.
Anyone else get the feeling that the Tea Party is a newer version of United We Stand?
NY Times: Poll Finds Tea Party Backers Wealthier and More Educated. So much for my faith in the great insights provided by the Straight Dope forum posters. :dubious:
What they remind me of are the anti-WTO protesters in Seattle. Once the Democrats realized they couldn’t harness the crowd into voting, they pretty much ignored them. And I think that’s what’s going to happen with the Tea Partiers. Most of them won’t vote and the Republicans will drop them. Without any organization propping them up, they’ll be a spent force. Sure, they’ll still have the anger but nobody will be buying them bus tickets.
I don’t mean to be a contrarian, but what makes you believe the Tea Partiers won’t vote Republican? It seems to me the Republicans are successfully courting and stoking their ire.
I hadn’t thought about it like that. I wonder how many of them are the same people? Most of them are certainly old enough, and after Perot fell they would have probably gone back to being Republicans.
There’s some big differences though. Palin and Bachmann are no Perot. He’s an overachieving self-made billionaire who graduated from the US Naval Academy. He came off as a crazy little man but he actually had goals and bigger dreams then just having crowds cheer for him. I’m not sure he actually had a good way to realize his goals, but I don’t think he was in it for the popularity.
He also held views that wouldn’t be very popular to the Tea Party. He was pro-choice. He wanted healthcare reform and even suggested a public option to provide a basic level of health care for everyone. He was big on education reform and wanted more government involvement in a lot of things. He didn’t approve of the deregulation of Reagan.
Supporting both Perot and the Tea Party would take some pretty creative mental juggling.
Well, they do come out of that poll as being racist. And the level of education doesn’t seem to mean that they’ve managed to gain any critical thinking skills along the way judging by the quotes.
According to that poll they’re more likely to believe that Obama is running the government to benefit Blacks over other races and that too much is made of the problems Blacks face. Oh yeah, and that he’s a “Very liberal socialist Muslim.” :rolleyes:
They also don’t seem to understand that they take contrary positions on a lot of things, at least going by the last quote.
“Down with Socialism, and Keep Your Hands Off My Medicare!!”
Yes, fast. People that said that the Tea Party members were uneducated were proven wrong. You’re just trying to change the subject.
Um, not necessarily. The OP was asking for differences between TP supporters and traditional Republicans, and that’s what other posters were responding to. The article you found discussed differences between TP supporters and the general public.
The wealthy and privileged are disproportionately Republican, just as the poor and underprivileged are disproportionately Democrat. So it’s not necessarily inconsistent that TP supporters might be better educated than the general public on average but less educated than Republicans in general, especially considering these facts from your link:
Whites and middle-aged males are categories that correlate with higher education levels than the public as a whole, but not necessarily higher than Republicans as a whole.
However, I think what contributes most to the widespread impression of Tea Partiers as undereducated is not so much their documented education levels but dumb stuff like this (also from your link):
By the way, here’s a good article by Jonathan Raban about ideological disparities at the Tea Party Convention:
No. These posters were likely even more wrong if they were comparing the Tea Party supporters to the Republicans. The 2008 elections CNN exit polling data (latest breakdown that I can find that strongly relates to party affiliation) shows that Obama had more support among college graduates than McCain and a lot (18%) more support among postgraduate degree holders.
Why do you think “older than 45” equals middle-aged? It doesn’t. And you are wrong that higher age correlates with higher education levels. It’s exactly the opposite, see http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/education/cps2008.html. There is very little correlation between sex and education as well (larger percentage of females hold bachelor’s and master’s degrees but fewer hold doctoral degrees).
This board is supposed to be dedicated to fighting ignorance. People’s widespread impressions (formed by carefully chosen examples) are what we are supposed to correct here if they are not supported by facts.
Exit polls of voters in a particular election aren’t the same thing as comparisons between party members in general. As these statistics indicate,
And in any case, a more careful look at the data indicates that Tea Party supporters aren’t even better educated than the general public to any significant extent:
All those differences fall within the poll’s +/- 4 percentage points margin of error, so statistically there’s no real difference.
Sure, but you need to show that the facts actually support your attempts at correction.
[del]Republicans wash.[/del]
No. Republicans are organized, & have a coherant agenda.
Tea Partiers are angry, noisy & confused.
But another poll shows a dead heat. Anyway, don’t the politically active of any stripe tend to more educated? (Not to mention that this is one question often answered dishonestly.)
But I wouldn’t recommend citing the NY Times data if your goal is to refute Teabagger ignorance. One teabagger said “[Obama]’s a socialist. And to tell you the truth, I think he’s a Muslim and trying to head us in that direction, I don’t care what he says.”
Also, 66% of Teabaggers said either Global warming has no serious impact (even in the future) or doesn’t exist at all. As few as 12% of the general population gave this response in 2007.
(Oh, I forgot: Rejecting left-wing Islamo-academic global warming nonsense demonstrates critical independent thinking and a supple mind. 
)
Isn’t the difference that Republicans don’t watch Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly, et al. religiously? Fox didn’t invent the Tea Party, but they do seem to run it.
That’s pretty generous. It seems to be a major problem of that party that they don’t have much of an agenda, other than to oppose the Democrats. Some of that, of course, has to do with their limited numbers in Congress.
I think “fractious” is more accurate. The Tea Party movement seems to be made up of various groups-- some that are angry, noisy and confused, but some that are more focused, although not necessarily on the same things. Many seem virulently anti-Obama, but some are just anti-Washington.