Analyzing the Tea Party

The New York Times recently released the results of their survey of 881 tea party members. The survey found that 89% of the members are white, 76% are over 45, 70% had some college, 66% usually vote Republican, 61 % are Protestant (the other 39% are probably Catholic or didn't understand the question), 61% attend church at least a few times a month, 59% are male, and 59% have incomes of more than $50,000 a year (probably only 5% have incomes over $55,000).

So tea party supporters earn more than the average American, are older, more religious, much more Republican, much more conservative and much more likely to be non-Hispanic and white. And they are more educated. It makes me wonder what colleges these people attended and whether the education they received was really worth much.

These are the same educated, well-paid people who believe that our President was not born in America, is not a Christian but really a secret Muslim, as well as a socialist, communist and/or Nazi fascist. They want the government out of their Medicare, a federal health insurance program and their Social Security, also a large federal program. They don’t want the Post Office to reduce deliveries to five days a week even though it too is a government program. Nor do they want NASA spending cut back not realizing, perhaps, its connection with the federal government or taxpayer money.

These allegedly more educated and better reimbursed Americans fear that our President is going to use taxes to redistribute the wealth without realizing that everything the government does it does by redistributing wealth. They believe that Reagan was their hero forgetting that he raised taxes five times after reducing them for the rich, and that he gave amnesty to illegal immigrants causing another 12-20 million to sneak into our land with the hope that they too will get amnesty for their illegal entry.

These same people blame our current President for the deficit caused in total by Republicans like Reagan and Bush. It was they who lowered taxes on the rich, reduced regulation of our banking sector, refused to fight oil companies that were stealing from the people, and got us into two unnecessary wars that are costing the taxpayer trillions of dollars.

These tea party supporters attend rallies to hear the likes of Sarah Palin to inspire them. She who wants less government accepted federal government money to build a bridge to nowhere, charged her own state rent for her time spent at her own home, spent more than $150,000 on clothing for her failed campaign and currently asks for as much as she can get from institutions willing to listen to her speak.

These loyalists who make up a small percentage of our total adult population while considering themselves to be proud Americans are actually people about whom most Americans cannot be proud.

If these people are better educated, they are surely not as intelligent as the average American. If they are wealthier, it is not a wealth that make people’s lives better. It is more like greed than wealth.

These same people want the government to stop interfering with their personal relationship with their medical insurance plans. They do not mind having these friendly companies raise their rates periodically by as much as 40%, deny coverage for drugs they do not recognize or procedures that they feel are unnecessary. They want government to stop protecting them from banks and other financial institutions that give their preferred customers the inside sure bets while giving these people, these intelligent, well-off tea party members, the stocks and securities that their insiders are trying to get rid of.

These same “good” people are mad because the current administration bailed out the big banks and two of the country’s largest car companies. They say that this President wants to take over the banks, car companies, and mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. What they are not intelligent enough to grasp is that the bank bailouts were initiated by the former President, a Republican, after the Republican policies relaxed supervision over these large financial corporations. Had the banks not been helped by the government, there would have been a financial meltdown that would have negatively affected the whole world. If the car companies had not been bailed out, hundreds of thousands more jobs would have been lost. This President has no intention of running either the banking or the auto business.

The tea party people should note that most of the banks have repaid their bailouts paying an additional 12% in interest. General Motors, a car company that was almost run into the ground by the poor management of a free enterprise corporation, has paid back it’s loan and is now producing family cars that Americans actually want to buy.

But most ironic is the stated goal of one of this strange movement’s leaders, Rush Limbaugh.

He has said what all of them want to. This patriotic American who proclaims his undying love for America and its people, has admitted that he would rather have all of President Obama’s efforts to help the country fail, causing the country and its citizens tremendous suffering, than have him succeed and save our country. In other words with all his patriotism, he loves his wretched minority party more than he does his country.

This creature, who also promised to move to Costa Rica if the healthcare legislation became law, is still here. If he moves there, he can use their universal healthcare coverage until 2014 when it kicks in here.