Rebel flags at the White House - An (on edit) Sociologist weighs in

[Scuba]

Last edited Tue Oct 15, 2013, 06:44 PM - Edit history (1)

This is posted on facebook. I'm not a member, so cannot link to it. It was forwarded to me by my sister, a friend of the psychologist who wrote it. It sounds on the money to me.

When push comes to shove, this is metaphorically what the tea party is all about, based on statistical generalities of meta-research. It is the latest incarnation of far-right nativist social movements in the U.S. such as the Know-Nothings (1850's), the Ku Klux Klan (1920's), and the John Birch Society (1950's).

The father of David and Charles Koch, primary funders of the tea party, was one of the original Birchers. The primary correlate is anxiety about social change. All have been irrational, intolerant, ethnocentric and paranoid, believing THEIR America was being taken from THEM, the REAL Americans: white, middle-class, English-speaking, native-born, mostly male, middle-age and older, mostly Calvinist Christian. It is composed of reactionary rather than moderate (or evolutionary) conservatives.

Conservatives don't like change. Moderate conservatives realize they must adapt to change, but choose to do so in an incremental, evolutionary manner - in part, to stave off the revolutionary change that might otherwise occur. Reactionary conservatives act on behalf of relatively advantaged groups and want to reverse progress, to return to a period they perceived themselves as dominant and unchallenged. They perceive change as subversive and themselves as victims. Such reactionary groups emerge during periods of significant social change, when their sense of prestige, deference, and cultural superiority appear undermined and threatened.

Less than 30% of tea party rhetoric is "conservative" according to the primary tenets of post WWII conservatives. More than 70% is what social scientists often consider "pseudo-conservative," utilizing conservative rhetoric for non-conservative ends, to attack the enemy (Parker and Barreto, among others). Most tea partiers themselves are pseudo-conservatives.

The election of Barack Obama, the first black president, is too absurd to absorb for many tea partiers. It cannot possibly have happened legitimately. Therefore, he and his election must be delegitimized. This has occurred simultaneously with significant Hispanic immigration, the first Hispanic woman on the Supreme Court, the first female Speaker of the House, the legalization of gay marriage in +20% of our states, the passage of affordable health insurance, and the attempt to recover from a major economic recession. The very identity of tea partiers is threatened by such changes, most specifically by having a black man in the presidency, serving as the primary "face of America." It should not be surprising that the majority of tea partiers reside in our southern states.

On edit, the author is a sociologist, not a psychologist. My bad.

[NRaleighLiberal]

1. ....so they've devolved back to the Know Nothings (1850s)!

[Rebellious Republican]

18. Damn you and those gorgeous tomato's

I am so jealous, uuhhhmmm I want to eat your pictures.

[sibelian]

47. Those TOMATOES.

o_0
,

slurp

[RKP5637]

2. IMO with my background this is definitely right on the money. n/t

[Scuba]

4. Welcome to DU.

[mindwalker_i]

22. It feels to me like Obama being a Democrat is more of a problem for them

than Obama being black, although I could very well be wrong about that. But the Republicans made a choice some time ago to demonize their opponents, the Democrats. Because of that, they didn't have to make real arguments against Democratic ideas but instead dismissed Democratic ideas and ideals out of hand. With Obama being elected, it was just that much easier to fan the hatred against Democrats and dismiss Obama as illegitimate. Which they did.So not we have birthers, truthers, and other nitwits that fall under the tea party umbrella, and "tea party" itself has connotations of overthrowing an illegitimate government.

The end result is that Republicans, ruled by the tea party, can't even negotiate with Democrats, lest is seem like they are treating Dems as real people. I've heard a few stories about "cartoons" shown to troops going to Vietnam, and how the Vietnamese were turned into caracatures - non-real people - so it would be easier to kill them. The Republican party did that with Democrats (the Democrat party), for the same reason.

The results of that policy, which we see now, make perfect sense.

[yuiyoshida]

27. You can see that ON FOX NEWS every damn day...

Or hear it from Rush Limbaugh. We have seen enough videos, from the Terrorist Fist Jab to Limbaugh on the radio mocking the Chinese ambassador using his imitation of the Chinese language. "Ching chong ching chang chong ching chang!" and despite him losing advertisers manages to stay on the Air...

The Republican party is the party of Hatred. They may as well carry the Nazi or Confederate flag.. because if you ARE not with them you are against them, and need to be put into your place, or put down.

Ramped pure HATE.

[Enthusiast]

49. Plus One!

[Eddie Haskell]

77. Republican's in the House ... Locked and loaded

[MindMover]

29. Or well ....

Political language... is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. George Orwell.

[Cosmocat]

66. Spot on

I try to get this out, but people are in the moment.

If you lived through the 90s, you saw the VISCERAL hatred they had of Bill Clinton.

I was younger in my 20s and it kind of struck me as bizarre. I lived in a suburban/rural area and to me, Clinton seemed like someone those folks should like, an Arkansas guy, and they hated him like nothing I could imagine.

They SERIOUSLY accussed him of being a drug dealer and killer. Of all the things these jackasses have claimed about Barrack Obama, that isn't it to this point anyways. But, if they did, everyone would just off handidly say it was RACIST, even though they did that to Clinton.

They are who they are, as you noted, the demonize the liberal, THAT is the boogyman. And, they will throw the kitchen sink at it until something sticks. And, yes, race baiting is what they have thrown at Barrack Obama. But, it is more a tool of convenience than the root cause.

IF he were a republican, they would love him, like they did Pizza twit ...

[mindwalker_i]

71. "Pizza twit"

And while the Republicans were busy with their new strategy for winning, they stopped even trying to have a coherent policy that made any kind of sense. The focus became "good vs. bad" rather than "our ideas are better than yours." Now Republicans are at the point where they will throw anything at Democrats, even to the point of raising a Confederate flag (they've already called him Hitler).

The tea party is the natural end result. They run around shouting that Obama and Democrats are bad, as if that ends the argument. It's a lot easier to do, and a lot easier to follow, than formulating a decent argument.

[Cosmocat]

73. Yep

they have no consistency at all, and it has been a LONG time developing.

One of their biggest saw in the 90s.

STATES RIGHTS! Because there was a democratic president, of course, the founders HATED centralized government and wanted states rights to be supreme. Washington should NEVER interfere in what a state is doing.

Then ... Terri Shivo. What little Bush and that crew did, they call congress back to meddle into that mess. The most bizarre act of congress getting into a personal affair in our lives to overrule what Florida courts decided, and of course, being wrong when the poor lady was proven to be beyond any hope when she eventually passed.

In the 90s, the bashed Clinton for "nation building" then after 9-11 lied the country into Iraq to do just that, rather disastrously.

It is one contradiction after another, they just flounder from moment to moment screaming about whatever really bad idea comes to their heads at the time.

Tea Party, even the Paul Ryans and Rand Pauls and Sarah Palins are all the result of three decades now of them relentlessly spinning bullshit. There was a time when some of them had SOME grounding in reality, but these jackasses have grown up in the bubble and literally know only the twisted reality that exists in that bubble.

[tblue37]

79. I think they hated him mainly for being married to Hillary--

their nightmare because she is so strong, smart, and accomplished.

Secondarily, they had to shift their attacks to a personal hatred, because Clinton's Third Way approach coopted their main ideas that weren't so RW batsh** crazy that they wouldn't terrify all but their most radical base. They had nothing to oppose him over except their claim that he and his "feminazi" wife are sooooooo evil.

[gopiscrap]

32. Welcome to DU

[Uncle Joe]

5. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, Scuba.

[Thinkingabout]

6. Very definitely some of the old KKK thoughts with this bunch. There has to come a day when they

Get old and die out for I do not envision the ability for them to reassess their thinking and get over their hate. WWJD, not what this bunch is wanting to do, this is shameful.

[loudsue]

13. Sadly, there is a new crop of young southerners who think racism, ignorance and

pride in their guns is cool. Their parents raised them to take their places in the un-sheeted KKK.

[TimeToGo]

21. Well, true

But it isn't just the south. In the 1920s the Klan was way bigger in the north, the Midwest and the west than in the south.

[YoungDemCA]

31. And it was a respectable, middle-class organization, too...

Not quite the "backwards Southern hicks" stereotype that a lot of people have of it.

[mopinko]

46. all the know-nothings are dead. most of the old clan is dead.

this is a part of the human brain that cannot process change. it takes over defeated people. stunted people. we continue to make those at a faster rate every day.

[A HERETIC I AM]

7. Very well said. n/t

[grasswire]

8. I sure would like to visit this fellow's facebook page.

Maybe you could get in touch with him and ask his permission to post his user name here.

[HooptieWagon]

9. A very good analysis.

I am not a psychologist, but I have my own "down home" analysis.
Many decades ago, when I was in my late teens, I worked on my father's ranch, where he also had a feed store. Wasn't much of one, wasn't much of a ranch either, but I digress. Anyway, one of my jobs was to drive a large, old, truck up to Tampa once a month; load it with about 10 tons of assorted feed (mostly horse chow), and bring it back. Most of the feed was inventory for the feed store, but some we delivered to accounts. One of the accounts was a monkey farm. The storage room was at the very end of an aisle between the cages, and I had to tote about 30 sacks of feed back there by hand. Each time walking down that aisle, the monkeys would screech wildly, jump to the bottom of the cages, and pick up feces to fling at me. Def the most unpleasant stop. Whenever I read or hear of the teabaggers, I am reminded of those damn monkeys....screeching and flinging shit.

[loudsue]

15. Yep...I get the visual.

That's just how they are.

[woolldog]

34. I loved the way you told that story.

Are you are writer?

[HooptieWagon]

36. No, but thanks for the complement.

[woolldog]

39. you should give it a try

[HooptieWagon]

41. Hmmmm......

[Enthusiast]

50. Plus one................nt

[uponit7771]

63. +1

[Hekate]

10. This feels very accurate. Thanks for bringing it here...

... and tell your sister to tell her friend we appreciate his insight!

[BlueCaliDem]

11. Excellent find, and a very good analysis.

Thank you for sharing, Scuba.

[Snake Plissken]

12. Teabaggers are against abortion, contraception and anyone who is not White and male.

they couldn't care less about fiscal conservatism, unless that means keeping non-White people from getting any money.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

70. ye. They also tend to be hostile and arrogant.

and usually dumb, though some are...well, I don't know exactly what to call it. Their brains work, they can excel in some field or other, but they're functioning in a different, paranoid universe.

[IrishAyes]

14. What they said.

[zeemike]

16. Making the N word politically incorrect was probably a mistake.

Because when it was freely used it was easy to tell their motivations and true feelings.
But sense we did, they became silent racist, and hid behind the silence...as long as they did not use the N word no one could call them what they are, especially if they claim token black people as their own.

Racism did not die at all, and this is not post racial America, they just went underground.

[noiretextatique]

23. they never went anywhere

and they never stopped using racial slurs. and the great thing about the tea party is no one can deny their existence anymore. these people were and are against every movement of progress in this country, most especially the civil rights movement.

[xfundy]

28. The "n-word" wasn't made politically incorrect, it's just hate speech.

As are terms like "spic," "fop," "hebe," "chink," "coon," "jap," and many others.

The term "politically incorrect" was spawned by republicans in the first place, trying to keep their minions from embarrassing the party, then they turned it around and blamed us for it.

[Fantastic Anarchist]

52. What's a "fop?"

Never heard of that one.

[JackInGreen]

61. A dandy or overly fashion conciouss male, another term is 'Poppinjay'

I've been accused of being one in the current day and age (at work I have a tendancy towards 3 piece suits and aires, I'm a Doorman), but I never understood it as a slur against anyone but people that dote a bit too much perhaps on personal appearance.

[Fantastic Anarchist]

62. Oh, I always thought that was a "metro-sexual"

Hehe, I guess you live and learn.

[Sentath]

69. Well, sort of. But,

Metrosexual has connotations of personal grooming and cosmetic use that I don't get from fop or popinjay.

Someone has a lovely contemplation of the overlaps and the immiscibilities of these and a couple aligned words over at http://aesthetesandco.blogspot.com/2012/06/notes-on-hipster-popinjay-dandy-and.html

[HooptieWagon]

37. Actually, now instead of using the N-word, they say "welfare".

Its a dog-whistle.

[uponit7771]

64. +1

[DissidentVoice]

17. Well stated

The Tea Party was founded on bald, undisguised hatred, whether they want to admit it or not.

I don't think the Civil War ever truly ended, nor will it.

[backscatter712]

19. I know what I'd do if there was a Confederate flag in front of me...

It'd involve lighter fluid and a match.

[Fantastic Anarchist]

53. I just laugh and call them a loser ...

Who roots for a flag representing a confederation that lost a war.

And I have before in my teens and early twenties running with people whose primary purpose was getting drunk, fucking, and fighting Hammer and WAR boneheads. Many fisticuffs in those days. But your response is equally acceptable.

[Jackpine Radical]

60. If you did that, I'd have to try to extinguish it--

although my method of doing so would put me at risk of arrest for indecent exposure.

[davidpdx]

20. I tend to agree it's a combination of all three

The John Birch society is still pretty active and we know the KKK still rears its ugly head in certain places in the US. The return of the no-nothings is not much of a surprise given the teabaggers and Libertarians.

[starroute]

25. It could also be related to the breakdown of smalltown America

I read something years ago saying that fundamentalism was most strongly associated not with people living in tiny communities up in the hills but with those who had been forced out of their traditional societies to find employment in the big city.

And that's not just true of fundamentalist Protestantism in the US. When people's familiar world falls apart, their religion is the one thing then can take with them. When they are no longer living in communities where everybody is third cousins, joining megachurches is the one thing that gives them the same sense of relationship. And those who have stayed behind in the towns that are now ravaged by unemployment and meth find consolation in the same way.

That remark of Obama's about people who "cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them" wasn't a random smear. It was a sociological observation about the core Tea Party mentality. But what we should be focusing on now is not what they cling to -- which is the source of so many problems -- but on what they have lost and how to replace it.

[Uncle Joe]

26. I believe you have put a finger on it. n/t

[Turbineguy]

30. A new Great Depression

would be "change".

[merrily]

33. This psychologist is giving the Teabaggers way too much credit.

[HooptieWagon]

40. I think (s)he is pretty spot on.

Purely anecdotal, but in my family those of us who live in cities are very liberal...we are quite comfortable being amongst minorities, gays, immigrants, artists, homeless people, hippie freaks; etc. Family members living in small towns are very conservative, a few even somewhat religious. They are quite uncomfortable being around people not just like them. Not sure which is cause and which is effect, bit there it is.
Actually, a nephew (step-nephew really) who lives in a small town is very liberal, but he's a musician. I have to continually tell my sister he's fine, leave him alone.

[merrily]

42. ? Think you misunderstood my post.

I never said, nor would I ever say, that Teabaggers are not very conservative.

Of course, they are very conservative. (Duh?)

But I think that many of them are also more evil, more disingenuous and more cynical than this psychologist gives them "credit" for.

[HooptieWagon]

44. Teabagger leadership is certainly opportunistic.

And they are liars, cheats, and hypocrites. I guess that pretty much makes them evil.
However, I think the psychologist was addressing the rank and file. Individually, yes, some may be evil....however, as a whole I think the OP summed them up pretty well. Ignorant, frightened, gullible....clinging to religion as the one steady state in their lives. Not evil, just not equipped to cope with an evolving society. A similar example might be the Boston Bombers. They (dead brother anyway) just not able to adapt to a different culture.

[hue]

35. Teabaggers numbers are dwindling but some w/extreme paranoia of change always exist!

[Beartracks]

38. Wow, I wanted to read more. n/t

[nadinbrzezinski]

43. And...

Many of us have gotten this for a while. I like this approach though for some things though.

(cryptic on purpose)

[kydo]

48. That pretty much sums up the issue

[Fantastic Anarchist]

51. Yep! On the mark. nt

[Stinky The Clown]

54. "Calvinist Christian" <---a descriptor to watch with great suspicion.

That is not a religious matter, but a social one. Read up on what the term means.

[backscatter712]

55. John Calvin was a psycho.

One of his tenets that he held for his little cult was that he and his were the Elected - chosen by God before they were born to prosper and dominate and rule. Everyone else, no matter what they did, was destined for Hell, and God already had this programmed into them before they were born.

Oh, and Calvin's idea - you know when God likes you, and that you're part of the Elect? You're prosperous, making lots of money, getting in positions of authority. Which led to the materialism and Ayn-Randian-like scrambling that Calvinists do. It made them successful a lot of the time, because they strove like mad-men to be the wealthy and powerful, after all, you want God to like you, don't you?

They still believe that shit today, contradictions and all.

[Stinky The Clown]

56. Excellent synopsis. Thanks!

[backscatter712]

58. And this is what Dominionists really believe! n/t

[Sienna86]

57. Right on the money

There it is, put into words. Thanks.

[pitbullgirl1965]

59. John Birch Society has a booth every year at NYS farm show

Bear in mind the Empire Farm Days show is a Very Big Event in New York State.
http://www.empirefarmdays.com/data/EFDexhibits2013_.pdf
http://auburnpub.com/news/local/empire-farm-days-valuable-tool-for-farmers/article_9ef3eac6-c2f8-11e0-957b-001cc4c002e0.html
Scroll down to the last third. I worked at a booth there a couple of times, and decided to stroll down to gawk at them. I was chit chatting with a food bank worker and he couldn't believe they were there.

The man running the booth had what I call the Fundie Leer on his face. My very liberal manager couldn't believe they were there either. Thank dog we don't go there anymore.

[ehrnst]

65. Link here:

See reply from pickle48 :

http://theobamadiary.com/2013/10/14/the-need-for-obamacare/

[LiberalEsto]

67. In other words, they're scared sheetless.

[zappaman]

68. This stood out to me...

"The election of Barack Obama, the first black president, is too absurd to absorb for many tea partiers. It cannot possibly have happened legitimately. Therefore, he and his election must be delegitimized."

Perfectly said.

Someone let Rachel Maddow know please!

[elleng]

72. Thanks.

'the primary correlate is anxiety about social change.'

[sulphurdunn]

74. Millions of Americans

in the 1920s and 1930s were proud members of the KKK and various fascist, Nazi and Eugenics movements. WWII suppressed this type of anti-Americanism, but it revived after the war and has gone mainstream again. Totalitarianism has always been admired in America, particularly among the very wealthy and conservative cultural followers. You don't kill a snake by cutting off its tail. You just get bit.

[Scurrilous]

75. I need my eyes checked.

I read the subject line as a "Scientologist weighs in.."

[DirkGently]

76. Astute. The wild-eyed sneering hearkens back to

some of the ugliness surrounding segregation, at least. The gleefully dishonest tantrum throwing of a culture enraged at being dragged into civility a millimeter at a time. They will spit in the punch bowl, or as someone -- Maher? -- just said, kick the ball into the woods.

The real crime to them is being shown to not have the power they imagine they deserve.

We have to watch these guys closely as they go down on this one. This is when an angry toddler bites anything in reach.

[tclambert]

78. That's a lot of words to say Tea Partiers are racist idiots.