Tea Party Anger Reflects Mainstream Concerns.

[elleng]

Important points made here. Saw him Washington Journal yesterday.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052702304252704575155942054483252.html

[mrcheerful]

1. I call BS if they had reflected mainstream concerns * would have been a one term

president. Funny how 8 years of * screw ups for Bin forgotten to New Orleans to all the illegal activities these people only said something after * was out of office. Screw the sugar coating the Tea Baggers said nothing until Jan. 20th, 2009, they had their chance and all they did was cheer lead the lier in thief as he destroyed everything he touched.

[Vexatious Ape]

2. I'm with you on that

They weren't concerned at all when * more then doubled Federal spending. Or his unfunded wars. We never heard a peep from them when * started his "socialist" prescription drug program.

[lame54]

27. they're a little late to the party

[StopTheNeoCons]

35. WHY DOES this thread stay on the DU front page with ZERO recs

The title of the OP thread sucks

[StopTheNeoCons]

36. The title of the OP thread sucks

[Doctor_J]

3. Typiccal right wing bullshit from Murdoch

I can't believe anyone at Democratic Underground falls for this shit. Which side are you going to be on when it comes time to fight these morons?

[elleng]

4. What do you mean?

[Doctor_J]

5. There is nothing mainstream about the teabaggers

they are ill-informed, racist morons, financed and incited by rich Repukes. As the other replies have noted, these people are hyper-partisan patsies who didn't make a peep while Smirk was wiping his wrinkled ass with the constitution. Do you really think a Medicare & Social Security recipient who rails about government handouts is mainstream??

As for the second part, my point about self-indentified "Dems" who believe shit from WSJ, Fox "News", hate radio, etc. is self-explanatory.

[elleng]

6. I saw Juan Williams on Washington Journal yesterday, and

he made a lot of sense to me. Among other things, he's observed and met teabaggers in many places. I think we and the country will be ill served if we do no more than call them names, mis-identify them, and merely rely on media for our approach to this 'phenomenon.'

FYI, WSJ is a very good source for news and analysis; its editorials are to be avoided, imo. (I don't watch fox, and don't listen to 'hate' radio, fyi.)

About Juan Williams, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Williams

[Enthusiast]

10. Juan Williams is a "token"

liberal on NPR and Fox News. With most of us on the DU he has zero credibility. In other words, he only plays a liberal on TV and radio, but not too liberal and not too convincing.

Juan Williams isn't even close to what we call liberal. He is an establishment corporatist all the way.

[elleng]

12. Who speaks for 'most of us on DU?'

What is it that 'we' call 'liberal?' Seems to me that 'we' should get 'our' act together, open our eyes and ears, read about Juan Williams, and learn a thing or two about 'convincing.'

[Enthusiast]

15. Who speaks for 'most of us on DU?'

Me. I do. Juan Williams has no credibility in liberal circles. Do a poll. Go on, do one.

[elleng]

18. You DO?

I don't care about polling. I listen, read and watch, and know it when I see it.

If you'd read the article, you'd note that he's making suggestions to help Dems maintain and succeed. If we ignore such, well, here comes romney+, I guess.

[Enthusiast]

24. Then I suggest you

Stop reading and listening to stealth Republicans like Juan Williams.

Few DUers would consider Juan Williams a source of credible information. Don't believe me, just do a poll like I said.

Most of us on DU don't consider Faux News a source of credible information.

[elleng]

25. Fox is not credible, and I never watch or listen to them.

I'm not interested in what others consider credible, I use my own judgment.

[Alcibiades]

31. I've been reading Juan Williams

watching him on TV, and listening to him on NPR for years. He may have done some good journalism in his early years, but today he's just another bloviator, someone who, like Lanny Davis, they can trot out and say "see, the opposition to the Democrats is bipartisan! Even liberals hate Obama!"

He's absolutely wrong about the teabaggers. Here is a picture of the Teabaggers of fifty years ago:



Teabaggers today:



Same people. Their kids and grandkids, maybe, but these are the same people who thought Lester Maddox was cool, who voted for Strom Thurmond, George Wallace and Jesse Helms. If Mr. Williams does not recognize them, it's only because all the money he gets from Fox and the WSJ has made him forget that he wouldn't be where he is today if these folks had their way.

[Doctor_J]

16. Juan Williams works for Fox "News", for chrissakes

I weep at how complete the brainwashing is in this country. If Williams makes a lot of sense to you, you are a victim. He is a right-wing whore who would be sweeping floors or living in a cardboard box if he didn't lick the shoes of Murdoch, Ailes, and any other right winger who waves a paycheck in his face. The fact that he is a guest on WJ's Fascist Friday says it all. As for a Wiki bio, Juan could have written that himself. Apparently Andy Coulter is listed on there as a "Civil Rights Attorney". At my university we teach our Freshmen that Wiki is as reliable as what they read on the bathroom walls.

The only way we are ill served is to believe that the teabaggers have the good of the US in mind. They are, to a person, ignorant lackeys of Dick Armey and Big Media. Less than 1/5 of them identify themselves as Dems, and an overwhelming majority believe that Saddam was behind 9/11, that Obama is a socialist who was born in Kenya, and that health "insurance" companies will save the country.

WSJ is Fox News in print. So if you think that it is a very good source of news, you believe the same thing about Fox.

[elleng]

20. You seem to be paying NO attention to what I'm saying,

and to what Juan Williams has said as, posted.

If we here don't pay attention, we'll sound and behave as knee-jerk as 'they' do. THAT scares the hell out of me.

I've been around long enough to have seen and listened to Williams for quite a while, and as you and your university may know, facts are facts.

[Doctor_J]

21. What do facts have to do with Juan Williams and Fox "News"?

I am paying careful attention to what you are saying. You have bought into the lies of Fox "News".

Fact: Juan Williams gets paid huge money to speak right-wing propaganda, by one of America's most treacherous enemies, Rupert Murdoch
Fact: Teabaggers are not mainstream
Fact: Wikipedia is less reliable than a restroom wall for biographical information
Fact: Washington Journal skews heavily toward repukes

It is my opinion that you are brainwashed by Big Media. It is a fact that you would be helped by ignoring liars like Juan Williams and instead reading/listening to Hartmann, Malloy, Rich, truthout, mediamatters, and alternet.

[elleng]

26. As I've said, I NEVER listen to fox.

In MY opinion, YOU pay too much attention to what others think you should think. Use your OWN judgment.

[BlueMTexpat]

7. +1000! nt

[onlyadream]

22. I agree

even my very republican relatives think the teabaggers are the KKK. :)
I was so surprised and very happy about that!

[Enthusiast]

9. The Tea Party is a

creation of Dick Armey-a lobbyist of the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries.

It is a false grass roots organization created to attack and disrupt efforts to reform health care.

The Wall Street Journal is not a trusted source of information as they always side with corporate interests against the good of middle class Americans.

[elleng]

13. I suspect that armey jumped onto the tea bandwagon

after someones had already done some work, and he and other con/rethugs are now using them to promote their old crap. They're very successful at doing such, and at promoting themselves, hence the movement grows.

WSJ in fact provides good news coverage and analysis, and its a mistake to not recognize this. As to their advocacy, THAT is the old rethug crap. Its important to recognize the difference.

[Doctor_J]

34. Yes, the bandwagon started bu CNBC, a different right-wing organ

WSJ provides the most biased of all "news coverage and analysis", just like the rest of Rupert's rags. I amd sad that someone who posts on DU believes the shit that they spew. You need a deprogramming.

[wisteria]

8. The Tea Party should be angry about 29 miners who lost their lives

because the company they worked for cared more about profit then the safety of those they employed.

[Enthusiast]

11. Their anger is misplaced

in nearly every instance.

Their main focus appears to be anger over Obama's supposed socialist agenda. We know this to be absurd as Obama has no socialist agenda. Every Obama policy has been mainstream, it is only characterized as wildly liberal or socialist to fuel anger and discontent.

[elleng]

14. Correct that their anger is misplaced,

but they'll not recognize they're being used as tools. Cons/rethugs are playing them, and doing it well as usual.

[mrcheerful]

17. Thats because tea baggers believe we are a christian nation, that being white makes them

superior to every other race so therefore are entitled to more rights as well as services government supplies and they hate the ideal of a brown president who doesn't share their narrow minded views on what the law of the land grant all citizens regardless of race, religion or sex. If these tea baggers had their way the only people who could vote or run for office would be white christian males and the only ones who would receive government handouts would be the same.

[bulloney]

30. If teabaggers' anger and concerns are legit,

they'd be holding at least some of their rallies in front of the SCOTUS, Wall Street, and other places where corporate greed has been promoted and practiced. But, how many times have these places been the site of such rallies? ZERO!

Many of these teabagger rallies have been little more than glorified KKK meetings, minus the hoods, sheets, and burning crosses. The placards they parade around show how stupid and ignorant many of these people are. Do the MSM ever scrutinize them? Hell no! In fact, they've been giving them undeserved life by playing their charade by 'reporting' that attendance at their events is comparable to historic civil rights rallies of 40 years ago, when in fact, they only draw a fraction of that number. The MSM never point out the role that the Dick Armeys, Richard Kochs and others have played in financing this astroturf movement.

[Enthusiast]

33. You are so right.

The media is pretending the Tea Party is authentic when nothing could be further from the truth. And as you say, this assertion is never challenged.

When a Tea Party protest has numbers in the hundreds TV cameras pan in to exaggerate the crowd size. This is the same media that COMPLETELY ignored the anti-Iraq War protests with huge numbers of participants.

Our media is so entirely biased that any fair minded citizen should be screaming at the top of their lungs.

[Joanne98]

19. If it's true it just proves how stupid the American people are.

Let's hope it's just generational.

[underpants]

23. The newest Tea Party BS is that they ARE the majority and DO include Dems

CNN carries the waterDisgruntled Democrats join the Tea Party
http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/04/02/democrats.tea.party/index.html
To be sure, the number of Democrats in the Tea Party movement is small. A recent CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll shows that while 96 percent of Tea Party activists identify themselves as either Republican or Independent, only 4 percent say they are Democrats

http://www.bnd.com/2010/04/11/1211083/tea-party-in-collinsville-draws.html
Organizers estimated about 500 gathered at Woodland Park to unite and protest "socialist" activities and demand change. A number of speakers addressed the crowd, many of whom were carrying American flags, wearing T-shirts and caps with American flags embossed on them or toting signs protesting higher taxes and even some calling to impeach the president.

Both said they are former Democrats who have attended other Tea Party events since one of the first was held on the Arch grounds in St. Louis in February 2009.


Tea Party Movement Growing: Now Consists Of 51% Non-Republicans
http://www.americasnewsonline.com/tea-party-movement-growing-now-consists-of-51-non-republicans-904/

The March 28th USA Today/Gallup poll shows that the majority of those who support the Tea Party movement consider themselves to be either Independents or Democrats. The results of the poll showed that 49% of the supporters considered themselves to be Republican while 8% called themselves Democrats. The remaining 43% are the Independents. This is the number that is growing and changing the makeup of the Tea Party. Mainstream media has tried to convince us that the Tea Party is an extension of the Republican Party, but the numbers are starting to tell another story.


Myth-busting polls: Tea Party members are average Americans, 41% are Democrats, independents
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2010/04/tea-party-obama.html

Now, comes a pair of polls, including Gallup, that paint a revealing detailed portrait of Tea Party supporters in most ways as pretty average Americans. A Sunday poll -- actually three national phone surveys of 1,000 registered voters -- found that 17% of all polled, or more than 500, called themselves "part of the Tea Party movement."

The Tea Party adherents broke down 28% independent, 17% Democrat and only 57% Republican. Not coincidentally, this bipartisan breakdown has been the way that Tea Party favorite Sarah Palin has often described movement members as "commonsense Americans" worried and....

A new Gallup Poll out this morning of 1,033 finds nothing fringe about self-proclaimed Tea Party adherents; they are slightly more likely to be employed, male and definitely more conservative. But otherwise Gallup's Lydia Saad writes, "their age, educational background, employment status, and race -- Tea Partiers are quite representative of the public at large."

Tea Partiers Are Fairly Mainstream in Their DemographicsSkew right politically, but have typical profile by age, education, and employment
http://www.gallup.com/poll/127181/Tea-Partiers-Fairly-Mainstream-Demographics.aspx?utm_source=alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=syndication&utm_content=morelink&utm_term=Politics

PRINCETON, NJ -- Tea Party supporters skew right politically; but demographically, they are generally representative of the public at large. That's the finding of a USA Today/Gallup poll conducted March 26-28, in which 28% of U.S. adults call themselves supporters of the Tea Party movement.







Survey Methods

Results are based on telephone interviews with 1,033 national adults, aged 18 and older, conducted March 26-28, 2010. For results based on the total sample of national adults, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is ±4 percentage points.

Interviews are conducted with respondents on land-line telephones (for respondents with a land-line telephone) and cellular phones (for respondents who are cell-phone only).

In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.

[Jade Fox]

28. 90% of Tea Party anger is trumped up by Limbaugh/Fox/Beck

Are we really supposed to believe these barely literate folks repeating verbatim talking points they obtained from the Right Wing Noise Machine reflect "mainstream concerns?" Poppycock.

[n.michigan]

29. Travers City MI had 1,500 Tea Baggers at their event on Sat. -Dem leaders throw it to Republicans!

Obama could have used the righteous majority rage against the injustices and corruption of the Bush administration. Real justice went a' begging and so many of all parties had hopes for a better life literally ignored by Obama- the real anger was perverted with no action for the people- designed to dispirit, depress the peoples populist rage. Then that former big mouth Texas congressperson who now does pr- started to fund these faux events and the Tea party was hyped.

Make no mistake- we saw it here in Michigan and its lively. It is real and they are not left for the most part- but right.
Shame on Obama, his chief Emmanuel- all the people representing our faux Dem presidency. What a disgrace for our people. Just sell outs to corporations. Throwing the party back to the reds.

Elsewhere-you've a bunch of left progressives who are looking for a new party because they were sold out by the traitors in the party. And they are very angry at all the lies of the administration.

[Blue_Tires]

32. I don't have a subsciption, so i only read the opening...

But if Williams is seriously propping up the long-dead "The TP nutbars have legit, non-racist concerns and real solutions for the nation" -meme, then god help him...

[Blue_Tires]

37. Could you please post what you believe are Juan's "important points?"