And With That

A "movement" was born...

From the NYT:

Crashing the Tea Party
By DAVID E. CAMPBELL and ROBERT D. PUTNAM

...
Our analysis casts doubt on the Tea Party’s “origin story.” Early on, Tea Partiers were often described as nonpartisan political neophytes. Actually, the Tea Party’s supporters today were highly partisan Republicans long before the Tea Party was born, and were more likely than others to have contacted government officials. In fact, past Republican affiliation is the single strongest predictor of Tea Party support today.

What’s more, contrary to some accounts, the Tea Party is not a creature of the Great Recession. Many Americans have suffered in the last four years, but they are no more likely than anyone else to support the Tea Party. And while the public image of the Tea Party focuses on a desire to shrink government, concern over big government is hardly the only or even the most important predictor of Tea Party support among voters.

So what do Tea Partiers have in common? They are overwhelmingly white, but even compared to other white Republicans, they had a low regard for immigrants and blacks long before Barack Obama was president, and they still do.

More important, they were disproportionately social conservatives in 2006 — opposing abortion, for example — and still are today. Next to being a Republican, the strongest predictor of being a Tea Party supporter today was a desire, back in 2006, to see religion play a prominent role in politics.
...

And once again, the only people stupid, corrupt, oblivious or just plain damnfool enough to buy yet another transparently obvious Republican Big Lie were the people who rule our elite Imperial not.




UPDATE: Nothing better crystallized the Serious-Person-Fart-Rebreathing-Bell-Jar mentality than this exchange between Devid Gergen (adviser to Presidents "On Both Sides" and former occupant of the Reasonable Republican Chair on "The News Hour" [currently being warmed by the Godawful David Fucking Brooks]) and Matt Taibbi (scruffy, Unserious Outsider who says "fuck sometimes", names names, and does the kind of actual, Honest-to-Royko reporting that David Gergen cannot even comprehend) from 2010:

Gergen: If it were not for the extra boost of enthusiasm the Tea Party provided, I imagine the Republicans would have won only 40 to 50 seats, instead of the 60-plus they gained. But the Tea Party also makes it harder in the future for Republicans to maintain a coherent party. Matt is right that they will have a large voice in the nomination process in 2012. But one cannot discount that someone could arise, as Reagan did in the past, who can bridge the differences within the party and keep people united.

Taibbi: To me, the main thing about the Tea Party is that they're just crazy. If somebody is able to bridge the gap with those voters, it seems to me they will have to be a little bit crazy too. That's part of the Tea Party's litmus test: "How far will you go?"

Gergen: I flatly reject the idea that Tea Partiers are crazy. They had some eccentric candidates, there's no question about that. But I think they represent a broad swath of the American electorate that elites dismiss to their peril.

Hart: I agree with David. When two out of five people who voted last night say they consider themselves supporters of the Tea Party, we make a huge mistake to suggest that they are some sort of small fringe group and do not represent anybody else.

Taibbi: I'm not saying that they're small or a fringe group.

Gergen: You just think they're all crazy.

Taibbi: I do.

Gergen: So you're arguing, Matt, that 40 percent of those who voted last night are crazy?

Taibbi: I interview these people. They're not basing their positions on the facts — they're completely uninterested in the facts. They're voting completely on what they see and hear on Fox News and afternoon talk radio, and that's enough for them.

Gergen: The great unwashed are uneducated, so therefore their views are really beneath serious conversation?

Taibbi: I'm not saying they're beneath serious conversation. I'm saying that these people vote without acting on the evidence.

Gergen: I find it stunning that the conversation has taken this turn. I disagree with the Tea Party on a number of issues, but it misreads who they are to dismiss them as some kind of uneducated know-nothings who have somehow seized power in the American electorate. It is elitist to its core. We would all be better off if we spent more time listening to each other rather than simply writing them off.

Two years later, Taibbi and the Dirty Fucking Hippies are once again proven right and the Very Serious Gergenites are once again proven to be dead wrong.

Any bets that Gergen will get his Sage Insider ticket lifted over this?

Over anything?

Ever?

Of course not.

Because long ago at the heart of the American Empire, "properly vetted and researched" stopped meaning much beyond that which has been passed to you under the Men's Room stall partition at Bistor Bis on "Matt Drudge" letterhead.

At the heart of our falling Empire, if you side with the Villagers, any amount of incompetence, contempt for the facts and just jaw-dropping fuckuppery will be instantly forgiven and forgotten: side against them, and unless you are very lucky and very good, the tiniest slip -- even no slip at all -- means your career will killed as as dead as Dillinger.