April 14, 2010

Tea Party Demographics

The New York Times gives its biggest headline to the astonishing news that:

Tea Party supporters are wealthier and more well-educated than the general public, and are no more or less afraid of falling into a lower socioeconomic class, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll. 

The 18 percent of Americans who identify themselves as Tea Party supporters tend to be Republican, white, male, married and older than 45. 

And I bet, on average, they are, relative to the general public, more into golf than professional wrestling.

18 comments:

DCThrowback said...

More empirical data to support yesterday's observations: I'd go to the Tax day march tomorrow in DC except I have to work and watch hockey - both which should be Tea Party approved activities.

Stuff Black People Don't Like said...

Steve,

I am a big fan pro wrestling fan (love the story lines) and work in DC for a major conservative organization.

I know John Bradshaw Layfield, a former pro wrestler who speaks on the Fox News Channel. He is highly articulate, incredibly wealthy and erudite.

Like any event, plenty of rubes follow the WWE, but a surprising number of intelligent people work in the industry.

Hell, Vince McMahon is (IMO)one of the smartest business men of our time. He has a publicly traded company built on FAKE wrestling to his credit.

Not defending pro wrestling fans, just saying that if push came to shove I'd rather have pro wrestling fans watching my back in a fight.

I'll be going to the big Tea Party rally in DC tomorrow.

When you make fun of Pro Wrestling fans I'm reminded of the great scene from "Falling Down" where the Michael Douglas character goes crazy on the golfers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuT12_bPla8

Interesting that the TV studies you utilized didn't include UFC/MMA statistics.

rob said...

This is surprising news for anyone who believes the self-serving false stereotypes that the left has saturated us with. I'm a bit surprised that the NYT would shout news that contradicted their beliefs.

All the truth will do, if it sinks in at all, is change their attack plan from "Teabaggers[sic] are toothless ign'ant racists" to "Teabaggers are rich, privileged exploiters, terrified that they won't be able to oppress blacks and hispancs in the new minority majority America."

Figuring out that tea partiers are smarter and higher income than average should have been easy. To a good approximation, only people who pay federal income tax care about federal income taxes. Only people with decent health insurance are afraid of politicians breaking it. Those criteria alone exclude about the bottom 50% of Americans. Combining that with the fact that politically active people tend to be smarter and higher income than the apathetic, and the news should be obvious. Hell, the near total absence of blacks is pretty solid evidence of the demographics.

dfafasfsfsda said...

"And I bet, on average, they are, relative to the general public, more into golf than professional wrestling."

I'll bet they're more into beer than tea.

Anonymous said...

"Tea Party supporters tend to be Republican, white, male, married and older than 45."

In other words, the adult part of country. The population that pays taxes, votes, and keeps the country safe.

Of course we're accused of racism: the Left wants to either important illegals to take our jobs or they want quotas to displace us. If that's not enough, they'll tax us to death.

There once was a consensus that personally conservative white men -- from Eisenhower to the young Robert Kennedy -- were the core of the country and that the country needed them to lead in battle, whether serving as a general or a lowly NCO; and the country -- from women to blacks -- needed these men to lead major corporations, law firms, and in the halls of government.

The Left declared war on this core demographic of our country and the Tea Party folks know it and are protesting it. It's not that the Tea Party folks are racist but they're revolting at the Left's war against them. Hence, the necessity of the Left to smear them as racists.

Whiskey said...

Your average Tea Party person is a woman, 55 or older, White, who owns her own business or is a professional such as a real estate broker, or accountant, or lawyer, or so on.

The middling professionals and small business people, who are screwed when the hammer comes down. They lack connections and pull to make it hit someone else.

Anonymous said...

A less flattering analysis of Tea Party demographics:
http://cluborlov.blogspot.com/2009/09/caution-white-people.html

Mark Potok, SPLC said...

Listen to SPLC's Mark Potok Discuss Rise in Extremism on NPR's Fresh Air
Southern Poverty Law Center - 26th Mar 2010


"Mark Potok discusses the recent explosion of right-wing Extremism in an interview with Terry Gross on NPR's Fresh Air this week. The interview came amid a wave of Vandalism and threats of violence aimed at members of Congress who voted for Health Care reform legislation. The SPLC recently released "Rage on the Right," its annual count of active hate and extremist groups in the U.S. The report documented a surge in Extremism as militias and other groups steeped in wild,..."

Throughout the interview, Gross and Potok repeatedly mention the "Tea Party" within the context of anti-semitism, white racism and right-wing extremism without any particular connection. At times, Potok actually denies any specific connection with the Tea Party but continues to raise it's name alongside child molesters and wife beaters.

It's curious how frequenly they use this tactic to smear the Tea Party without any actual damming facts. Potok is just chasing dollars, but leftwingers like Gross are clearly hypnotized and paranoid by a deep seated and irrational fear "the other".

Is racism or other -isms of the left the only significantly hateful -ism permitted today?

Paul Mendez said...

All the truth will do, if it sinks in at all, is change their attack plan from "Teabaggers[sic] are toothless ign'ant racists" to "Teabaggers are rich, privileged exploiters, terrified that they won't be able to oppress blacks and hispancs in the new minority majority America."

It has already happened!

If you read the posts on major newspaper websites, like Washington Post, you can see the "message of the day" being circulated by shills from both sides almost in real time. Today, I noticed the overnight shift from the meme "Tea Party = racists" to "Tea Party = tool of David Koch & Dick Army"

Peter A said...

The 18 percent of Americans who identify themselves as Tea Party supporters tend to be Republican, white, male, married and older than 45.

Exactly. They're basically just ordinary Republicans masquerading as a new political movement. That's why the "Tea Party" movement is such a farce. These are the same people who supported Bush, now running around screaming about government spending and increased government interference in daily life - the same things they voted for in 2004.

Chief Seattle said...

The NYTimes comments on the article were vivid examples of North East elitism. Most repeated the charge that Tea Party members were racist - of course without any evidence from the poll other than that most tea partyers were white.

I say go to town. If all white people have the term racist thrust upon them no matter what their behavior, then the word will have no more punch than a drudge report reader sputtering "Liberal".

Anonymous said...

>are no more or less afraid of falling into a lower socioeconomic class<

What a relief! At least on one index they aren't Nazis. They can be infiltrated.

jody said...

i suspect many liberal activists are positively obsessed with painting the modern tea party participants as racists. this is their main weapon against conservatives and they want to use their best weapon as early and as effectively as possible.

here is foxnews and their article on jewish agitator jason levin, an oregon teacher, who is naturally, like a large segment of the jewish population, absolutely driven to damage and destroy things like the modern tea party movement:

http://tinyurl.com/y547yef

his tactic of course is to have people pose as tea party members, and then act like racist imbeciles in view of the media.

it's kind of funny to see just how predictible the jewish angle is on this kind of thing, when you know to look for it. 50% of these people are jewish, in a nation that is today, probably below even the old 2% jewish figure which has been used for decades.

Brent Lane said...

Unfortunately, despite my agreement with the overwhelming majority of their consensus beliefs, I find myself highly distrustful of the Tea Party movement.

Any group that will countenance the likes of Dick Armey, Grover Norquist, Newt Gingrich, and of course Our Lady of Wasilla will not garner my support, no matter how noble the aims of many of its founders.

And besides, the most damning criticism of the Tea Party is that they weren't in the streets 5 years ago, when there was still a chance that they could have made a difference. Now its just too damn late.

Mr. Anon said...

From the story on the would-be tea-party crashers:

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/04/15/oregon-probes-teacher-determined-demolish-tea-party/

"He has said he would seek to embarrass Tea Partiers by attending their rallies dressed as Adolf Hitler, carrying signs bearing racist, sexist and anti-gay epithets, and acting as offensively as possible — anything short of throwing punches."

I wonder to what degree Levin and his followers (if indeed, he has any) are interested in this project just so that they can say racist, sexist, and anti-gay things in public.

Anonymous said...

So What? What's wrong with being wealthy and well-educated.

l said...

SPLC recently released "Rage on the Right," ...

Watch for the Dems to introduce a 'Rage Crime' bill next. I wonder if there are multiple 'Mark Potoks'. He seems to be everywhere lately.

Anonymous said...

his tactic of course is to have people pose as tea party members, and then act like racist imbeciles in view of the media.

This type activity is noticible on Face Book.

There many British pro and anti-BNP groups/pages there. Some of the groups themselves are false flag operations designed to show the BNP in a bad light and entice in pro-BNP commenters to identify them.

While in other, apparently genuine, groups people voice all sorts of badly written abusive racist, non-PC language about vibrant minorities. I strongly suspect some of these are also false flag types trying to tarnish the BNP.

Im sure the reverse happens too but its hardly front page news to hear SWPL type tolerant liberals demanding a political party be banned and its memebers beaten up and killed.