"Researchers Think They Know Why College-Educated People Support The Tea Party"

[applegrove]

Researchers Think They Know Why College-Educated People Support The Tea Party

by Rebecca Klein at the Huffington Post

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/22/tea-party-educational-segregation_n_5610965.html

"SNIP......................


College-educated supporters of the tea party might change their political tune if they mingled more with those less educated than themselves.

Researchers from the University of Notre Dame said college graduates are more likely to support tea party ideas if they live in counties characterized by high levels of residential segregation based on education level. The researchers found the correlation between tea party support and educational segregation to be uniquely strong compared to factors like racial segregation and class segregation.

Rory McVeigh, a University of Notre Dame political sociologist and author of the study, told The Huffington Post that he was interested in discovering what communities might be particularly hospitable to tea party principles and why. Prior to the study, he posited that the tea party ideology, which advocates for limited government and low government spending, might resonate more among people who don't interact much with low-income individuals who may benefit from government programs. As it turns out, McVeigh was on to something.

.....

A press release for the study notes that even though support for the tea party is not as strong as it once was -- especially since 2010, when grassroots support for tea party organizations was at a high -- Republican politicians still cater to tea party voters.



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[abelenkpe]

1. tea party has college educated supporters?

All the tea party supporters I know are high school dropouts and over age 60. (All my favorite relatives of course )

[Curmudgeoness]

4. I have had the same experience.

And by looking at their signs, I have to wonder about their education.

This college educated individual does not support one point that the teabaggers make!

[abelenkpe]

14. Me either

Makes me unpopular at family gatherings.

Once mentioned education might help remedy some of their misconceptions....big mistake

[freshwest]

2. Good analysis. They're not impoverished yahoos as portrayed. But they are clueless. And this is why.

[applegrove]

3. It is a coalition of emotionally or financially impoverished.

[Louisiana1976]

5. What did they study? And above all, how were their grades?

[HooptieWagon]

6. IOW, he's referring to suburbs and gated communities....

... that are wonder bread white. Mixed communities, like urban settings, tea party beliefs much rarer. That would be my own, albeit unscientic, observations.

[Rex]

7. Doesn't really matter, this is a generational event and not the tea party.

Many generations of families will never vote for any GOP candidate. The few that do are confused and usually embarrass themselves in public. Leave them alone and the tea party fights with the GOP!

Kinda like the drunk in a bar that is swinging at the poles. In charge of the country?

Not gonna happen.

I think the TP has bigger trolls in it by far.

They seem to kill themselves off if stuck in a room together.

[AlinPA]

8. None of the teabaggers I know or have encountered are college educated. Most of them

consider college a bad thing and really hate college educated people. Judging by their signs at the rallies, it looks like many never attended middle school.

[applegrove]

9. And they don't meet up with the educated teabaggers because the educated live

somewhere else. So they reinforce each others prejudices about each other. Unlike during WWII generation when people with money fought along side people who came from nothing and learned from each other. Here the educated and the uneducated could learn from each other's experiences but that doesn't occur so they end up both voting against government: the first because it helps the poor and they don't care for that, the second group because government is filled with pointy headed intellectuals telling them what to do. And all the rhetoric is vague enough about 'big gubment' that they both see what they want to in the tea party candidates. So because they don't meet up they don't realize they are actually voting on issues that are against each other.

[AlinPA]

10. That's clear, but I have trouble with believing that there are "college educated teabaggers"

anywhere.

[applegrove]

12. LOL!

[kiranon]

13. Agree. Haven't seen any either anywhere.

[Puzzledtraveller]

15. There are....

I know a few. My ex girlfriend was active in a tea party group in Lexington Ky and she has a masters degree psychology. One of my best friends from HS days is a OB/GYN and was active in a group in Ohio, he's a researcher in Columbus and one of my clients who recently graduated was wearing a Ron Paul shirt when I first met her. Not that it matters but she is also African American and she would not stop going on about how Ron and Rand are good, Obama is bad. Want to know something funny about that exchange? She was applying for food stamps. I'm a caseworker.

[AlinPA]

16. !!

[abelenkpe]

11. Difficult to empathize with people you never interact with. nt

[dembotoz]

17. live in the second richest county in wisconsin and it is tea bag heaven

pretty damn sad
selfish evil white folk