Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Ignorance On Full Display at 9/12 Protest

Scary to know that this is the new base of the GOP
Posted by Brian at 9:33 AM  
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5 comments:

Andre said...

Egh.

I'm sorry. Should I have said anything else with more substance? Because all I could come up with was "Egh."

3:58 PM
redante said...

I had an interesting comment exchange over at another blog where we discussed the Tea party movement's relationship with the Republican Party. For what it is worth, it was observed that many Tea Party folks are suspicious of BOTH Republicans and Democrats and are leery of any attempts by Republicans to hijack their movement for its own purposes.

My own perspective on this -- the Tea Party phenomenon is tapping into a very real anti-Establishment anger in the general populace about the state of the economy, society in general and the distance of the perspectives between regular people and the Washington DC establishment about the problems regular people face.

The Left has failed to harness this populist anger effectively and the Right -- including the xenophobes, racists, and hateful jerks like Limbaugh and Glenn Beck are filling this vacuum quickly.

7:42 PM
Brian said...

I hear you LAD...

But the vast majority of these folks are aligned with the GOP... that's no coincidence. The GOP knows it...which is why they are pandering to them...and bringing them into the fold as part of the new base (at least temporarily for political gain).

Boss Limbaugh, Glenn Beck & Co., know exactly what they are doing when they use fear and propaganda to manipulate these people.

But they have flirted with this more fringe element for a long time. These folks are easy targets for the GOP and the Republican spokespeople on radio and TV....because they don't need much convincing to bring them into the fold and to get them to vote for the GOP and spread propaganda on the Party's behalf.
The GOP knows that it can influence these folks by playing to their base fears-- race, racism, xenophobia, taking advantage of their ignorance and playing them to get them to do just about anything (which is scary), using religion, using class as wedge issues, and taking advantage of their geo-political isolation (those folks in the South for example...who only know Republican politicians, and who only see the Country from the Southern White perspective...many haven't had exposure to other ideas or ideals for that matter... and aren't as open to the possibility that there may be a better way to do something). It's like being in a bubble. I guess the same could be said for much of rural America overall....because I recall the craziness in Pennsylvania and Ohio during the campaign.

But i do get your point. Although I do think Dems tapped into the anger of those from that group who were open to change and switch sides. Obama had the "Rednecks for Obama".

I just think that many of those folks were never going to support the Dems and were especially never going to support a minority no matter what.

1:32 AM
redante said...

Hi AI

I am taking a big risk in comparing my own populism as a Progressive as being driven by similar motivations as the Populism being displayed by right-wing Tea Party folks. Check out my latest post.

I do agree with you that a segment of the Tea Party people are motivated by hate, racism, ignorance. and a blind allegiance to the Glenn Becks and Rush Limbaughs of the world and are easy fodder for becoming the shock troops to be exploited by the Republican party for their own political gain.

What I am betting -- more a leap of faith than anything -- is that there are enough true anti-Establishment people in the Tea Party movement that will break from the hate, racism, and Republicans to actually seek an alternative political voice from the two major parties. And I am hoping that these people will find a home in the third party and independent movement. And perhaps breathe new life and momentum to efforts against the two-party duopoly.

8:54 PM
d.eris said...

Angry Indy writes: "the vast majority of these folks are aligned with the GOP... that's no coincidence. The GOP knows it...which is why they are pandering to them."

I would disagree, somewhat. Many of them definitely have been aligned with the GOP and others undoubtedly still are, but I would agree with LAD that there is a lot of discontent with the two-party system motivating the movement, just as with the anti-war movement. I think GOP shills are the ones who are afraid, the extremism of their rhetoric, the pandering, demonstrates that this movement is outside of their control, which is why they are going to such great lengths to bring the tea party folks on board with the Republican Party, to control them for their own electoral advantage. If the tea party folks were already aligned with the GOP this would be unnecessary.

11:04 AM

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