I believe that underneath many teabaggers and fundies feel anxiety.

[applegrove]

They can't quite identify why they feel anxiety but anyone who had ever had a psychopath mess with their lives would recognize it as the fear of all your fears (the fear of being small & being forced to grow down) that a psychopath will input into you before they make you do things by boxing you in with your anxieties so the only course of action is the one the psychopath wants (no taxes for rich people). And acting on this fear of being small makes them fall into the trap of supporting legislation for rich people (no government, no taxes, no empathy for others (anti gay marriage), etc. ). Because when you feel such anxiety you have to act. So they march for their false leaders the GOP and neocons. And they keep taking action because that is what anxiety requires of you. So they get smaller and smaller and the anxiety provoked in them is doubled up. And they lash out at the elites' enemies as they are directed to. And they hate. And they never get relief (why didn't the bush white house do anything about abortion when it had control of congress).And they loose their place in the world (US middle class is shrinking). And here they are. Marching for the rich elites who don't want to pay taxes. And the teabaggers and christian right are not fighting for the middle class....which is actually their base.

[scheming daemons]

1. They're feeling "anxiety" because a black man sits in the Oval Office

No need for more analysis than that.

[Greenpeach]

5. You're so right. That is it.

They don't need any rationale, it's all hogwash. Does anyone really think they care about government spending, or any of the trumped up reasons they spew? It's all about "getting America back" to the way they liked it...with Jim Crow and lynchings and sh..

[onehandle]

6. Yep. nt

[Mojorabbit]

8. My BIL really believes Obama is a socialist

and is convinced we are going to lose our Democracy.

[BR_Parkway]

9. Can he define socialist? Seems that way too many who toss the label

around have no clue what it actually means - it's just imprinted on their brain that the scary black man is going to take their stuff and give it to other (probably black) people

[old mark]

10. For a while I was half convinced we were going to lose our Democracy

under Bush II...I still think we came a lot closer than I am comfortable with.

The funny thing is that Obama is barely a liberal.

mark

[Arkana]

11. Pretty much.

Shatters that utopian world view where proper Baptist white men are in charge.

[Quantess]

2. Anxiety is extremely common, and it has little to do with political bent.

You are onto something when you say that teabaggers are tormented by anxiety, but so are the majority of Americans struggling to make ends meet, or for their lack of health coverage, or anxiety about their childrens' future, or for whatever reason.

The USA has diminished, mostly thanks to Bush, but do we ever hear teabaggers addressing any of the damage their boy Bush ever did?

Maybe a Black Man in the White House is enough to cause anxiety.

[applegrove]

3. You are right that the GOP policies on the 80s, 90s and 00 have caused anxiety in people.

Part of a strategy to make people afraid of being separated from the herd and being forced to live in a trailor park is the attack on the middle class.

[Quantess]

4. Look, anxiety is part of American life! Eat or be eaten, beat or be beaten.

But in the past decade or two, the anxiety among the working class and middle classes has manifested into something like a chained dog who chews sores onto his own leg, out of frustration.

And, absolutely, what is left of the middle class has terrible anxiety these days. There isn't much left of the "middle class". What used to be considered working class is now considered middle class.

[pampango]

7. those who have always been on the “power-wielding” side, now face the realization that their days of

dominance are numbered."

http://www.daytondailynews.com/opinion/columnists/leonard-pitts-jr-race-plays-a-role-in-tea-party-but-theres-more-to-it-570390.html

"One is reminded of the 2008 campaign in which many of Barack Obama’s opponents insisted people only “supported” him because he was black. It was an offensive claim, in that it assumed black was black was black and that people were so imbecilic that skin color — alone and of itself — was sufficient to win their votes. The truth, it always seemed to me, was more nuanced. People liked Obama’s policies, his eloquence, and his fierce intelligence and the fact that he was black, that his election would turn history on its ear, was a desirable bonus, but only that — icing on the cake, but not the cake itself.

I submit that a rough inverse of that dynamic now helps define the Tea Party movement. The Tea Party people distrust Obama’s policies, his eloquence, his fierce intelligence and the fact that he is black then becomes the final straw, the difference maker and deal breaker. To put that another way: I doubt most of the Tea Partiers hate Obama strictly because he is black, but it sure doesn’t help.

Yes, race is obviously a component, and a major component at that, of the reaction against the president. The recurring use of racist imagery and language, the attendance at Tea Party events of a racist group like the so-called Council of Conservative Citizens, settles that definitively.

But ultimately, people seem moved by something even bigger than race. This is race, religion, sexual orientation, gender, “culture,” and the fact that those who have always been on the right side, the “power-wielding” side, of one or more of those equations, now face the realization that their days of dominance are numbered. There is a poignancy to their responsive fury because one senses that the nether side of it is a choking fear. We are witness to the birth cries of a new America and for every one of us who embraces and celebrates that, who looks forward to the opportunity and inclusiveness it promises, there is another who grapples with a crippling sense of dislocation and loss, who wonders who and what she will be in the nation now being born." - It seems to me that older middle class whites may have thought the "power wielding" side was "their" side because they benefited from it. They are beginning to realize that the "power wielders" were never on their side and are lashing out because they "feel" that they are no longer on the "power wielding" side, when in fact, they never were. The irony is that rather than taking it out on the "power wielders" they are going after "big government socialists" which, of course, is what their recently estranged "power wielders" want them to do.