Tea Party movement based in anti-minority attitudes

[merithyn]

According to a new study, the Tea Party is based in anti-minority attitudes. Say it ain't so! 

LINK

Highlights of the study include:

• Racial resentment and political conservatism are both key predictors of Tea Party Movement (TPM) membership.
• TPM members have even higher levels of racial resentment than very conservative non-TPM members.
• Conservatives who evinced greater levels of racial resentment were substantially more likely to claim TPM membership than were other conservatives.
• Tea Party; Racial Resentment; Social Movements; Right-Wing.

What kind of amazes me is that the Tea Party still has any legs to stand on. According to InfoPlease, the TPM started out as a revolt against Obama's plan for keeping the economy going despite the recession that was already in full swing.

New Political Movement Quickly Finds Loyal Following
by Beth Rowen

Tea Party Protest
One of several Tea Party protests

Since its inception in February 2009, the Tea Party movement—with the help of viral videos and social networking sites, such as Facebook and Twitter—found a large and loyal following that quickly gained traction and supporters. However, the movement's electoral success in 2010 did not carry over to the 2012 midterm elections. Nevertheless, the Tea Party remained an influential force within the Republican Party, evidenced by its sway over House Republicans during the budget showdown in 2013 that resulted in a partial government shutdown on Oct. 1, 2013.

A Televised Birth of a Movement
CNBC's Rick Santelli is widely credited with launching the grassroots movement. While standing on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange on February 19, 2009, he unleashed what can only be called a rant against the Obama Administration's proposal to help homeowners facing foreclosure refinance their mortgages.

"Do we really want to subsidize the losers' mortgages?" he asked. "This is America! How many of you people want to pay for your neighbor's mortgage that has an extra bathroom and can't pay their bills?" He went on to suggest that he would organize a Chicago Tea Party in July, where capitalists would dump "some derivative securities into Lake Michigan." The video of his tirade became a YouTube hit, and thus the movement was born. Within weeks, Tea Party protests were sprouting up all over the country. The Tea Party name, a clear reference to the American colonists' dumping of tea into Boston Harbor to protest taxes imposed by King George, stands as an acronym as well: Taxed Enough Already.

Santelli, however, can't claim credit as the sole mastermind of the movement. Prior to his appearance in Chicago, Keli Carender, a Seattle at-home mother also known as Liberty Belle, had been using her blog to get the word out about the populist "Porkulus Protest" she was organizing against President Barack Obama's proposed $750 billion stimulus package. About 100 people showed up for her event in mid-February. Similar events inspired by both Santelli and Carender, followed in quick succession in Denver; Mesa, Ariz.; Tampa, Fla.; and other cities. Tea Party organizers claim that the first nationwide Tea Party protest took place on February 27, 2009, with coordinated events occurring in more than 40 cities.

Read more: History of the Tea Party Movement | Infoplease.com http://www.infoplease.com/us/government/tea-party-history.html#ixzz3HpuwH8Qz

And yet, under those two policies, and many others that Obama managed to squeak by the House, we're doing better than any other nation other than Germany.

"The U.S. economy is regaining traction as the year winds down, boosted by an accelerating business sector and a modest pickup among consumers.

Growth appears poised to post a healthy performance of more than 3% in the current quarter, according to several major forecasters, following a choppy first half of the year.

Gross domestic product, the broadest measure of goods and services produced in the U.S., grew at an annual rate of 4.6% in the second quarter, the Commerce Department said Friday in its third estimate of the gauge. That replaced the agency's previous 4.2% reading and equaled the strongest quarter of the five-year-old recovery, matching the final three months of 2011.

The latest reading, along with other recent economic reports, make the first quarter's 2.1% contraction look increasingly like a weather-driven anomaly. Growth has exceeded 3.5% for three of the past four quarters. If expansion greater than 3% materializes for the third quarter, that would mark the strongest stretch of economic growth since 2004 to 2005, the height of the last decade's expansion.

http://online.wsj.com/articles/u-s-economy-grew-at-4-6-rate-in-second-quarter-1411734858"

The issue now appears to be one of slower global growth and no increase in pay for the average worker. The first, we have minimal control over, and the second is being held up by the GOP's stance on the minimum wage and their ever-beloved "Trickle Down Economics".

Still 25% of GOPers consider themselves Tea Partiers, and proudly so. I don't understand how or why, other than the aforementioned racial resentment. And the question is, will that change once Obama is out of the White House? Or will it simply shift to being female resentment if Hillary wins?

[Admiral Yi]

Murdoch seems to be taking the WSJ leftward.

Not sure I see the connection between mortgage relief and macro growth Meri.

Also not sure how you can attribute sustained economic growth 6 years (?) after the fact to Obamastimulus.

And on the flip side you have to factor in a doubling of nominal debt.  Stimulus is not free.

[Valmy]

Also not sure how you can attribute sustained economic growth 6 years (?) after the fact to Obamastimulus.

Really?  You are not sure how you can attribute government stimulus to economic growth when people have been doing that very thing for almost 100 years?

Now whether that is accurate or not is something else.  But this is not some radical new idea.

[Admiral Yi]

Did you read my post that you quoted?

[CountDeMoney]

Tea Party is just the Klan in street clothes.  Been telling you people that for years.

[11B4V]

Tea Party is just the Klan in street clothes.  Been telling you people that for years.

Horse......shit

[mongers]

Tea Party is just the Klan in street clothes.  Been telling you people that for years.

Horse......shit

Indeed one of their primary functions.

[dps]

According to InfoPlease, the TPM started out as a revolt against Obama's plan for keeping the economy going despite the recession that was already in full swing.

That's clearly not accurate, as the movement started during the late stages of the Bush administration as a protest against the government bailing out some of the big banks.

[Razgovory]

Tea Party is just the Klan in street clothes.  Been telling you people that for years.

Horse......shit

Care to tell us why?  The Tea Party seem to me to be the latest incarnation of right wing populist and nativist groups.  The Klan of the 1920's is another form.  The Klan of the 1860's and '70's is different in that it was essentially an insurgent movement against the United States.

[Razgovory]

According to InfoPlease, the TPM started out as a revolt against Obama's plan for keeping the economy going despite the recession that was already in full swing.

That's clearly not accurate, as the movement started during the late stages of the Bush administration as a protest against the government bailing out some of the big banks.

Except it didn't.  First Tea Party protest was after Obama was President.

[Admiral Yi]

Care to tell us why?  The Tea Party seem to me to be the latest incarnation of right wing populist and nativist groups.  The Klan of the 1920's is another form.  The Klan of the 1860's and '70's is different in that it was essentially an insurgent movement against the United States.

I don't think the Tea Party has quite matched the Klan in terms of lynchings yet.

[Razgovory]

Care to tell us why?  The Tea Party seem to me to be the latest incarnation of right wing populist and nativist groups.  The Klan of the 1920's is another form.  The Klan of the 1860's and '70's is different in that it was essentially an insurgent movement against the United States.

I don't think the Tea Party has quite matched the Klan in terms of lynchings yet.

True, but this is more because lynching has fallen out of favor and is punished rather then a change in impulse.  The Klan and the older Know Nothings, and the newer Militia movement reflect a reoccurring tendency in Right wing populism.  Today people go on about Muslims and how they their religion is incompatible with Democracy and that there is something fundamentally wrong with their religion that makes them a threat.  Their grandfathers said the same thing about Jews and Catholics.

[Admiral Yi]

I could as easily say that social democrats and progressive Democrats would be stringing up kulaks except for the fear of punishment.  It helps to have some proof to support a claim that two groups are identical.

[Zoupa]

The proof is in the study. The one quoted in the first post of this thread.

[Admiral Yi]

The proof is in the study. The one quoted in the first post of this thread.

The study, which is unavailable except for a fee, purports to demonstrate a different thesis than the one argued by Raz.