What is the difference between traditional Republicans and Tea Partiers?

[John_Mace]

@ElvisL1ves

(A) As if it matters in a case of false equivalence, and (B) Some yahoo with a website is hardly “The Left”, a term that Sam finds endlessly useful in composing simplistic denunciations of it, but which you must know just doesn’t cut it in a more intellectual arena than, say, a Palin speech.

It’s only a false equivalency is in your head. If you have a problem with Sam’s post, address it to him, not me.

With the difference that that one *actually happened.
*

Both happened. Liberals Crash the Tea Party. It just seems they did a very poor job of it.

[Palo_Verde]

OP here. I have to say this thread has not really further enlightened me as to the essential difference between Tea Partiers and non-Tea Party Republicans. (That was the OP, remember?)

From the facts given, it seems that the Tea Party followers are more educated, more hard-core right wingers, and more politically engaged. A few idiot signs don’t mean anything, you’ll find those in every large group.

They seem to be the group most main stream Republican leaders don’t want to actually represent, but can’t afford to ignore. Right?

[Sam_Stone]

@Little_Nemo

I’m sure you’d have no problems finding somebody from the looney left holding up a stupid sign. I know I’d have little problem doing so. Just this week, I wrote that the Tea Partiers remind me of the anti-WTO crowd that was demonstrating a few years ago.

But where have I claimed that those sign-waving loonies are representative of the left as a whole? I haven’t - because I think they’re an extremist fringe.

You, on the other hand, have said that the Tea Party movement is representative of the greater part.

So answer the questions. Do you still say those people are speaking for you?

Wait a minute… What I’m saying is that the existence of a rare sign that shows stupidity or racism is not indicative of the tea party as a whole. Just as an idiot carrying a Communist flag or a picture with “Bushitler” in a noose is not representative of everyone who attends rallies on the left.

Both sides have a partisan reason to portray the extremist nuts on both sides as being representative, so as to discredit that side. That doesn’t mean the rest of us have to play along. The fallacy here is so large that anyone with half a brain can see it.

And it’s not like the left doesn’t have its share of nuts. Remember the people protesting the Cassini Launch? Ever see an A.N.S.W.E.R. rally? Red stars and hammers and sickles abound. Somehow, the entire left manages to avoid being tarred through association with such groups. But if some yokel shows up at a Tea Party rally with an “Obamma is a muslem” sign, suddenly he’s the freaking spokesman for the movement.

[septimus]

@BrainGlutton

[Obama might be abandoned by] … Those to his left, perhaps, but where else are they going to go?

Have you forgotten 2000, where Gore would have won easily if not for leftists who needed to “send a message”? Anyway, the RW will pick up seats this fall simply because Teabaggers are more likely to vote than rationalists(*).

(* - Before someone argues that it’s “irrational” for rationalists to not vote, be aware (as Freakonomics points out) that that’s not true. If your vote has only a 0.01% chance of affecting an election, it is irrational to undergo $5 inconvenience to vote unless the changed outcome would be worth at least $50,000 to you. It’s another Golden Rule thing. Perhaps voting should be compulsory.)

@BrainGlutton

[It never ceases to amaze me how much of the RW narratives are not merely detached from reality, but the reverse of reality.

Hype has overwhelmed information. Example: It’s mostly bloggers commenting on blogs now, with the primary news suppliers (newspapers) going out of business. Another example: RW is already “up in arms” about Obama’s Supreme Court choice, which hasn’t even been announced yet.

[Sam_Stone]

@Palo_Verde

OP here. I have to say this thread has not really further enlightened me as to the essential difference between Tea Partiers and non-Tea Party Republicans. (That was the OP, remember?)

Yes it did, if you sift through the chaff being spewed by some people in this thread.

Compared to the average Republican:

• Tea Partiers are less urban.
• Tea Partiers are roughly similar in education, or slightly more educated.
• Tea Partiers are more concerned with fiscal conservatism.
• Tea Partiers are less concerned about social conservatism.
• Tea Partiers are more libertarian, Republicans are more establishment.
• Tea Partiers are not as concerned about immigration.
• Tea Partiers are not as concerned about national defense/War on Terror

They’re basically the libertarian side of the right wing, as opposed to the Pat Buchanan, paleo wing of the party that’s still rooted in eastern establishment politics. Their geographic center is more northwest of the Republican party.

They’re no longer a fringe group. 18-25% of Americans consider themselves members of the Tea Party, and about half of Americans rather like them. For a party that has no leadership, no national organization, and no large sources of funding to grow to this size this fast is unprecedented. It’s a movement at least as big as the Perot movement, but that movement existed only because of the guy at the top. When Perot went loopy, the party was doomed. But the tea parties are so far spontaneously generated, with the web being their mode of organization.

In case you hadn’t noticed, the right is really starting to use the web better than is the left, and the tea party is right in the middle of it. This is a big advantage for the right, and it’s what’s keeping the tea parties growing like this. It’s a true grassroots movement - no Soros money here. It’s self-funding. It’s a fascinating turn of events - the Tea Party may be the first political party that is organized primarily through the internet. It’s going to be interesting to watch how this develops, and if the left can come up with something similar. The “Coffee Party” was the first attempt at this, but it was poorly executed. I’m sure there will be more attempts.
From the facts given, it seems that the Tea Party followers are more educated, more hard-core right wingers, and more politically engaged. A few idiot signs don’t mean anything, you’ll find those in every large group.

They seem to be the group most main stream Republican leaders don’t want to actually represent, but can’t afford to ignore. Right?
[/QUOTE]

Maybe the best way to understand them is to actually listen to them. They have a large presence on the web.

Right now on Pajamas TV, there are a whole bunch of videos from various tea party speeches and interviews. If you truly want to know who they are, you can just go listen to them.

[GIGObuster]

I guess **Sam **deftly missed the link (Posted already by ElvisL1ves) showing how the Tea Partiers are more close to Glenn Beck and Fox News. Internet grassroots… my fanny.

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2010/04/tea-party-bears-becks-imprint.html

Wednesday’s NYT/CBS poll on the 18 percent of Americans who identify themselves with the tea-party movement was myth-busting in certain ways. Tea-partiers are wealthier and more educated than most Americans, the poll found. They are largely disinterested in the existence of a third party. And they don’t particularly care about social issues (three-fifths favor some form of legal recognition for same-sex couples).

Another stereotype, however, rings true: tea-partiers are disproportionately attached to, and perhaps influenced by, FOX News. And they are particularly enamored of Glenn Beck. Nationally, just 18 percent of people have a favorable opinion of Beck (the majority have no opinion whatsoever about him). But most tea-partiers do. Do the math, and you’ll find that 59 percent of those who do think highly of Beck consider themselves a part of the tea-party. This is, in fact, the single biggest differentiator of any of the items that the NYT asked about: not ideology, not any particular political belief, but whom they watch on television:

[Little_Nemo]

Wait a minute… What I’m saying is that the existence of a rare sign that shows stupidity or racism is not indicative of the tea party as a whole. Just as an idiot carrying a Communist flag or a picture with “Bushitler” in a noose is not representative of everyone who attends rallies on the left.

So I see it’ll be Plan B: back-pedaling.

Both sides have a partisan reason to portray the extremist nuts on both sides as being representative, so as to discredit that side. That doesn’t mean the rest of us have to play along. The fallacy here is so large that anyone with half a brain can see it.

I do agree that anyone with half a brain would know this.

Hey, you remember the ACORN video controversy? How many right wingers were there who said the actions of two employees were not reflective of the other 400,000 members of the organization? I’m curious because I want to see how many right wingers have half a brain.

[BrainGlutton]

@John_Mace

Both happened. Liberals Crash the Tea Party. It just seems they did a very poor job of it.

Not entirely. From Buzzflash: The Best Fake Teabagger Signs at the Boston Common Tea Party

I like “GENERIC ANGRY SLOGAN,” but “TINA FEY DOES IT BETTER” is out of the park!

[DigitalC]

“Cool Story, Bro” is freaking win.

[BrainGlutton]

Also from FiveThirtyEight: (posted earlier in this thread, I believe, but worth C&P in full):

Last week, the ongoing debate over what we know about the tea partiers took a new turn, with scores of conservative commentators like The LA Times’ Andrew Malcolm and Glenn “Instapundit” Reynolds assuring us that a new Gallup poll proves the TPers are not a “fringe” or “racist” group.

But the Gallup results only confirm that tea partiers are “mainstream” in their demographics, when what really matters are their attitudes. Results released Friday of a new multi-state poll of white voters conducted by the University of Washington’s Christopher Parker paint a more complicated picture. The survey asked white respondents about their attitudes toward the tea party movement–and their attitudes toward non-whites, immigrants and homosexuals.

The charts contained herein show the disparity between whites who strongly approve and disapprove of the tea party movement. In a few cases – attitudes toward Latinos, for instance – the differences were small. But only in a few cases: tea party sympathizers believe blacks are less intelligent, hardworking and trustworthy. They appear to be particularly wary of immigrants. And they don’t much care for gays, either. (Although note that two-thirds of them support gays in the military, an issue on which policy has long lagged public sentiment.)

Again, this is a comparison of white attitudes, not differences between whites and non-whites. Which means that avid white tea party sympathizers do not even hold mainstream attitudes among whites. If we included the attitudes of non-whites, the views of white tea party sympathizers would be even more aberrant.

Some conservatives believe there is a systematic attempt to demonize the tea party movement and their supporters. There is probably some truth to that. But in the same vein, aberrant opinions espoused by tea partiers or their sympathizers should neither be ignored nor papered-over.

Parker’s study shows much higher levels of intolerance among whites who sympathize with the tea party movement. To be clear, the splits compare those who strongly disapprove or approve of the tea partiers, so the differences reflect those whites with polarized attitudes toward the movement. And the study might be more instructive if it compared compared the tea-partiers views toward those of white conservatives or white Republicans, or differentiated between those who are merely empathetic toward the tea-party movement and those who have actively participated in it. But it’s safe to say that those who are sympathetic to the tea party movement do not hold mainstream views on issues related to race and identity politics.

These are not mainstream views in America, thank Jesus, Og and Allah, nor are they sane or sensible or decent. If they were just a bunch of gap-toothed incestuous hillbillies, we might expect them to hold such stupid and hateful views, out of sheer ignorance, but it appears most Teabaggers have not even that excuse. They are simply contemptible, ill-natured, stubbornly thoughtless people.

[John_Mace]

@BrainGlutton

Also from FiveThirtyEight: (posted earlier in this thread, I believe, but worth C&P in full):

These are not mainstream views in America, thank Jesus, Og and Allah, nor are they sane or sensible or decent. If they were just a bunch of gap-toothed incestuous hillbillies, we might expect them to hold such stupid and hateful views, out of sheer ignorance, but it appears most Teabaggers have not even that excuse. They are simply contemptible, ill-natured, stubbornly thoughtless people.

That’s either a very flawed poll, a very flawed analysis of the poll, or both. What is the “mainstream” view of race and identity politics? The analyst is assuming that those who strongly oppose the TP are “mainstream”. Huh? If he wants “mainstream”, be needs a random sample. And where he is getting anything at all about “identity politics” from that poll is beyond me. Maybe I’m missing something…

And your stereotyping of "hillbillies"is what I find contemptible.

[ElvisL1ves]

@BrainGlutton

Not entirely. From Buzzflash: The Best Fake Teabagger Signs at the Boston Common Tea Party

Looks like the teabaggers couldn’t even muster as many people there as their satirizers.

Crowd size estiimates were in the 2000 range - including the satirizers. That’s the crowd at a high school basketball game, not a grass-roots movement.

Dear Og, I love living here …

[ElvisL1ves]

So, Sam, can we call ya Sam?, how ya comin’ on that list of Tea Party agenda / concerns / proposals American mainstream stuff we should be paying attention to?

[ElvisL1ves]

@Sam_Stone

Wait a minute… What I’m saying is that the existence of a rare sign that shows stupidity or racism is not indicative of the tea party as a whole…Somehow, the entire left manages to avoid being tarred through association with such groups. But if some yokel shows up at a Tea Party rally with an “Obamma is a muslem” sign, suddenly he’s the freaking spokesman for the movement.

But previously,

@Sam_Stone

Just look at the effort the left is going to here. … So now they’ve got idiots like Crash The Tea Party trying to manufacture evidence.

That’s one single guy, as your own damn cite explains, whom you yourself are using to try to “tar through association” this something you call “The Left”. You can skip the summary of TP positions that we should consider and respect and simply explain your own reasoning, if that will be easier.

[MovieMogul]

@ElvisL1ves

But previously,
That’s one single guy, as your own damn cite explains, whom you yourself are using to try to “tar through association” this something you call “The Left”. You can skip the summary of TP positions that we should consider and respect and simply explain your own reasoning, if that will be easier.

Jon Stewart demonstrates how this is SOP for Tea Party defenders (though he also takes down the MSM as well for their one-dimensional coverage).

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

@John_Mace

That’s either a very flawed poll, a very flawed analysis of the poll, or both. What is the “mainstream” view of race and identity politics? The analyst is assuming that those who strongly oppose the TP are “mainstream”. Huh? If he wants “mainstream”, be needs a random sample. And where he is getting anything at all about “identity politics” from that poll is beyond me. Maybe I’m missing something…

Dio linked to that poll in some other thread. The total sample size was 1006, but only the results among people who strongly supported (100something) or strongly opposed (60something) the Tea Party movement were actually reported, even in the link that supposedly offered the “full results”.

It’s just a tad suspect.

[Squink]

@Really_Not_All_That_Bright

It’s just a tad suspect.

A search of google news for stories in which the names of various right wing figures are paired with the phrase “tea party”, vs total news stories in which their name appears:

Who        +tea party -tea party tea party ratio
Palin        4,710    9,090		0.52
Bachmann     846      2,670		0.31
Gingrich     1,010    2,540		0.40
Tancredo     62       615		  0.10
Beck         683      2,180		0.31
Armey        749      248		  3.02 (a riddle, wrapped in an enigma)
Cato         49       1,390        0.03 (not really a person)
Huckabee     296      1,010		0.29
Romney       547      2,160		0.25
Hannity      570      1,230		0.46
Obama        10,700   88,200  	 0.12 (not actually a winger)
Bush         2,640    37,500       0.07
Tea Party    20,600   20,600  	 1.00 (not a person, but meta)   

Sarah Palin wins by the ratio, with Dick Armey as an alien outlier from some sort of alternate dimension.

While 1 in 5 tea party stories mention Palin, over half mention Obama.
OTOH, Bush is taboo, at least among tea party following journalists.

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

Armey’s not an alien outlier. He’s [del]the shadowy menace behind the movement[/del] a well-meaning patriot who has provided some support to the movement.

[John_Mace]

One thing the Tea Partiers have going for them is that the Public Trust in Government is the lowest in recent history-- at ony 20%. And guess when it was last about that low? Link.

Right around 1994. Ring a bell?

[erez]

@GIGObuster

I guess **Sam **deftly missed the link (Posted already by ElvisL1ves) showing how the Tea Partiers are more close to Glenn Beck and Fox News. Internet grassroots… my fanny.

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2010/04/tea-party-bears-becks-imprint.html

Are you seriously trying to cite this self-important partisan hack’s Nate Silver’s blog as some kind of an authority?