Hate for the Tea Party

[tahnan]

Keith Olbermann, in his Twitter account, pointed to a Washington Post online discussion with Judson Phillips, the founder of Tea Party Nation. And man, does that guy just plain piss me off. Asked to state that Obama is clearly not a socialist, he responds by saying "He clearly is". He gets his facts wrong on the Arizona anti-immigrant law, he dodges questions repeatedly. He suggests eliminating social security disability because it's "rife with fraud", though I'd like to see him say that to the face of my friend who survives because of it. [Technical note: No, I wouldn't. Because he'd say that gladly, hurtful and mean though it is.] When a questioner claims that the GDP grew less under Reagan than under Johnson, Kennedy, or Clinton, and backs it up with a link to a Forbes article (you know, Forbes, that bastion of liberalism), Phillips responds by saying "wrong" and giving an unsourced statistic.

But saying: "And you folks on the left, as a general rule are not patriotic. You do not love this country. You are embarrassed by us. I hate to tell you this, but those of us in fly over country are the real americans"? In the immortal words of Jon Stewart: Go fuck yourself.

Comments

[qaqaq.livejournal.com]

Seriously. Some people think we should listen to the Tea Partiers, have an honest debate with them, consider their ideas, and so on. Um... what?

Let them disavow the people who call Obama a terrorist. Let them disavow the obvious racists in their midst, the ones who want to "take back the country" for "real Americans". Let them renounce the birthers. Once they make the slightest effort to cast off the wingnuts, I'll be happy to talk with whoever might be left. But not until then.

[luckylefty.livejournal.com]

The wingnuts aren't a fringe of the Tea Partiers. They are the central core of the Tea Partiers. How can 'the ones who want to "take back the country" for "real Americans"' be a fringe of the group, when their founder says "And you folks on the left, as a general rule are not patriotic. You do not love this country. You are embarrassed by us. I hate to tell you this, but those of us in fly over country are the real americans"?

[foldedfish.livejournal.com]

He's wrong about those of us on the left not loving this country, but he's right that we are embarrassed by the Tea Party.

[sylvanstargazer.livejournal.com]

Anyone who thinks government assistance programs are "rife with fraud" have clearly never tried applying for them, much less living on the money it provides. I believe we should require all politicians to live on the lowest possible level of government programs: "as the least of my children" and all that.

The Tea Party loves middle class, educated, white, straight, cis, men-and-wives like themselves, and no one else (citation: http://www.salon.com/news/tea_parties/index.html?story=/news/the_numerologist/2010/04/15/who_are_the_tea_partiers). They just happen to believe that those people are "the country", since clearly no one else counts. Many of them receive direct government support, but feel entitled to it unlike all the "other" people who get it, because they are hypocritical racists. I don't know why we have to pretend that they are an acceptable part of the national discourse, even if they do make up 30% of the country. I wish the news media would stop letting them near the microphone.

Yeah, I might be a little bitter; why do you ask? ;-)

[kirbyk.livejournal.com]

My biggest concern is that a lot of people in the movement - not this guy, but the more typical members - just aren't operating under the same set of facts as the rest of us. They watch Fox News exclusively, which tells them that 85% of Americans oppose the Health Care Bill, and Obama is a tyrant for pushing it through despite it being deeply unpopular. And on a surface level, the argument holds together - until you actually read a different article about that specific poll and realize that it's true, but a third of the opposition is from _liberals_ who want a much _stronger_ bill.

They're being mislead by Fox News, in a way the liberal media just isn't misleading the left, and have no idea. In fact, Fox News tells them so often that everyone else is a liar, that they think it's the other way around, or at best that all news organizations do this. But they don't. They're being manipulated and sold out and made to look like fools for someone else's agenda, and are happy to go along with it. And I really pity them.

Having had my parents in town this week, who are loyal Palinites and watch Glenn Beck, it's increasingly clear that it's not ideology nearly as much as basic facts that are different. If you must argue with a Fox-watching conservative, and I don't recommend it, you really have to get down several levels to find out where the disagreement is. Fox's Obama _is_ a socialist, he really is.

I hope that, like a lot of other movements not fundamentally based on facts, this collapses and the perpetrators are reviled by history. Like Joe McCarthy and the Birch Society, or Hitler and his anti-Semetic rhetoric. The Big Lie, making a scapegoat that it would be convenient to believe, is a short-term tactic. And I really think Fox News is on the level of McCarthyism or Naziism, in terms of propaganda, and I do not say that in the least bit lightly.

[tahnan.livejournal.com]

...except that, of course, to misquote Elton John by a letter, The Birch is Back (http://www.jbs.org/press-room/5768-the-john-birch-society-announces-cpac-2010-cosponsorship).

[cazique.livejournal.com]

I dislike the tea-partiers (or at least this tranche of them) as much as the next guy, but - and this may be an unpopular stance, but I'm comfortable with where I stand with anyone I know who's reading this - honestly, talking about how wrong they are and how we're not going to have an honest debate with them until they figure this out and such, is not going to make them go away, it's going to enable them more. I don't like it, and they freak the hell out of them, but the "go fuck yourself" attitude isn't going to help. They're here and a part of the political landscape, and with 6 months to election day we on the left need to be active in making sure they don't turn any sort of electoral tide, not wringing our hands about how they misuse statistics and tell their followers to "lock and load," as nauseating as it is. Just saying.

[(Anonymous)]

And yet, how do you do anything but wring your hands? I don't think (but I am not 100% sure) Tahnan is suggesting we sit on our hands and let them take over the country, but I think he is suggesting that dialog with them is impossible. So what can you do but tell them to got to hell and them spend your time focusing on getting your base out for the next election?

[cazique.livejournal.com]

Well, that's a good question. Spend time and resources trying to convince the people who need convincing and who can be convinced, I think.

[sylvanstargazer.livejournal.com]

The problem is, I don't think we can win the argument even if we were to argue with them about facts.

Fundamentally, my understanding is that the position is motivated by extreme anxiety about the loss of privilege. It is a backlash to feminism, freedom from religious coercion, anti-racism and continued globalization. It has manifested in a lot of different ways, including distorted facts and Fox News lying and being believed, but fundamentally they are right: their way of life is under attack. Of course, I think this is a good thing. Their way of life was great for them and bad for other people. But we aren't going to convince them that it's okay that their way of life is under attack by talking to them. As long as they controlled the federal government, they could reassure themselves that the grassroots movements by the rest of the country weren't going to get anywhere, but as soon as that changed?

In broad strokes, liberals are trying to convince conservatives that we won't do to them what they did to us, and they won't believe it because they assume everyone is like them. My only hope at this point is future generations. After all, in order for a backlash of this magnitude to manifest, some progress must have been made.

[srl.livejournal.com]

I've got a book recommendation for you: Suburban Warriors: The Origins of the New American Right. It's about the Orange County (CA) white suburban mothers of the 1950s and 1960s who eventually elected Ronald Reagan to the California governor's office. The book ends with that event; the beginning of the book is all about how grassroots networks of women built (what eventually became) the New Right. If you want to think about what playing politics for the long run looks like, that's a good place to start. (And after that, read To Serve God and Wal-Mart by Bethany Moreton, or at least the first few chapters of it, if you want to think about the labor/economics side of the Tea Party crowd.)

Aside to tahnan: McGirr's book mentions Cobb County, GA as a place with almost precisely the same economics, industry, and demographics as Orange County--- and the same politics, too. That might add a special bit of, um, interest for you.

[tahnan.livejournal.com]

I'm happy to debate the issues with anyone who wants to debate the issues. But I also think that, with some people, trying to engage them in debate is legitimizing them and that they shouldn't be legitimized. After all, note that Judson Phillips wasn't just saying these things at a tea party rally or on his website; he was saying these things in a question-and-answer context. And by the time someone is saying that I don't love my country, he's made it clear that we're just not going to find any common ground for discussion, and there's nothing left to do with him than tell him to fuck off.

As you say below, we can spend time and resources trying to convince people who can be convinced; but people like Phillips who have their heads so far up their asses that they can't be reasoned with, and who would rather insult liberals than engage in a discussion with them in a discussion forum—people like that are people that I'm happy to dismiss with obscenities.

[justsomesleddog.livejournal.com]

Just for the record, there are plenty of people in "flyover country" who are embarrassed by the tea partiers too.

That being said, I'm kind of with cazique in that I think telling Phillips to fuck off is exactly what he wants. Now he can go back to "his people" and say, "Look, those damn East Coast liberals do hate us real Americans." I think the answer is to give Phillips a very reasoned point by point refutation repeatedly and firmly until he just looks like an unhinged blowhard.

(Some one did this with Bill O'Reilly and I wish I could remember who... but it was someone small, mousy, and female. O'Reilly kept trying to push her buttons and she refused to take the bait, making him look like a bully. The response was actually negative enough that he apologized on air the next day.)