New study that will make Teaparty members even angrier than they are now

http://underthemountainbunker.com/2011/08/17/new-study-that-will-make-teaparty-members-even-angrier-then-they-are-now/

FIVE YEARS AGO, IN 2006, DAVID E. CAMPBELL AND ROBERT D. PUTNAM INTERVIEWED 3,000 AMERICANS and re-interviewed many of the same people again this summer. Their findings indicate what most of us already knew: that Teapartyers were far-right, social conservative Republicans (and still are). Or, as Jon Stewart said: “They’re just moral majorities in a tri-cornered hat.”

e can look at what people told us, long before there was a Tea Party, to predict who would become a Tea Party supporter five years later…

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.

says they are also blue-dog Democrats.

:sarcasm:

that's what makes them so looney toons - there is such a mix of nutballs---mostly people with one goal---get rid of Obama....

I tell everyone I can that these people aren't some sort of mythic independents with their own party. They're extremist Republicans who are VERY well funded.

They aren't new they aren't different, and they need to be dealt with as we did before- by exposing them and their "ideas."

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/17/opinion/crashing-the-tea-party.html?_r=2

Polls show that disapproval of the Tea Party is climbing. In April 2010, a New York Times/CBS News survey found that 18 percent of Americans had an unfavorable opinion of it, 21 percent had a favorable opinion and 46 percent had not heard enough. Now, 14 months later, Tea Party supporters have slipped to 20 percent, while their opponents have more than doubled, to 40 percent.

Of course, politicians of all stripes are not faring well among the public these days. But in data we have recently collected, the Tea Party ranks lower than any of the 23 other groups we asked about — lower than both Republicans and Democrats. It is even less popular than much maligned groups like “atheists” and “Muslims.” Interestingly, one group that approaches it in unpopularity is the Christian Right.

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.

They're all ReTHUGS!!

They will react the same way Bill O'Lielly does whenever there's a study he disagrees with: Repeat the main points in a sarcastic tone (which stupid people think is a rebuttal) and call the people conducting the study far-left extremists. If you want to picture the Teabaggers, picture Bill O'Lielly's manner coupled with Glenn Beck's obsessions. A delusional mixture of borderline-fascists, outright fascists, racists, anti-government kooks of the "fluoridation is a commie plot" variety, backyard anarchists/Libertarians and neo-Confederates, all mixed together and operating on a completely false reality manufactured for them by the right-wing and mainstream media. Facts are defined as what their friends believe, truth as how violently they believe it.

of them. There's a black guy in the Oval Office doing more than sweeping and dusting - and it's rubbing these folks world view in their faces about African Americans.

They were right wing wackos long before there was a tea party. Lifetime NRA memberships, that sort of thing.