Know the enemy – Part 3

Apparently the question is not ‘is there racism in the Tea Party?’ but rather ‘just how racist is the group?’ Lee Fang on Alternet.org says there is “definitive proof” there is, and provides some examples you can see here. Maybe the TPs put that behind them, but there is more confirmation in a CBS News/New York Times study done in April of 2010. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it probably is a duck.

88 percent of Tea Partiers disapprove of President Obama’s performance, compared to 40 percent of Americans overall. 50 percent of all Americans approve of Obama’s job performance, while only 7 percent of the TPs think he is doing a good job. The latter were pinned down to why and of their own volition they actually made the following statement about why they held these views.

First and foremost, “they just don’t like him,” numbering 19 percent of the organization’s supporters. This is no edict on a person’s beliefs, but when you combine that with past racial epithets, a new question arises of ‘why almost a fifth of the Tea Party just doesn’t like Obama?’ Racism does still exist whether we like it or not, as evidenced by one Tea Party activist who said: “I’m a proud racist, I’m white.” 36 percent of the TPs come from the South.

Fortunately, we are saved by an American public that doesn’t agree with the TPs. 84 percent of the group’s supporters claim the views of the Tea Party are shared by most Americans. When asked only 25 percent of the latter agree…not necessarily what most would consider sincere support for this aggregation of reactionaries.

If it is a racist disapproval that moves Tea Party supporters, and only they really know that, it is time for progressives to stand up and be known that they are still fighting for the rights of all Americans.

Read more here and here.

Read earlier posts on the Tea Party here.

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