Tea Party Poll Results: They're Not Racist
They just think we devote too much time to "the problems of black people".
From Amy Shales:
The New York Times, in an unusual show of intelligence, printed a group of competeing opinions on a comparison poll of Tea Party backers vs others
Amy Shlaes says:
In question No. 2, both Tea Party supporters and subjects from the general public are asked what they like best about President Obama. The same share amount - 1 percent - say the thing they liked best was that he was black.
She then goes on to make a case for how this proves the Tea Partiers aren't racist, also citing:
Yet 11 percent of Tea Party supporters said that what they liked best about the president was that he was intelligent, while only 6 percent of the general population said that intelligence was their favorite attribute of Mr. Obama.
Ummmm...What were the other choices? That he's well-spoken? That he seems fair-minded? That he's willing to compromise in order to get things done? If 11 percent of Tea-Partiers had responded with "He's articulate." compared to 6 percent of the general population, what would that say?
Alan Wolfe reasonably points out that:
It is notoriously difficult for surveys to capture racist attitudes because people who respond to them have learned to hide their true feelings.
He goes on to quote studies on the attitudes of McCarthy supporters:
These people, they argued, were moved by their fears of the more cosmopolitan society being built around them. Because their views “tend to be more than ordinarily incoherent about politics.” Hofstadter called their movement a “pseudo-conservative revolt.” Relying on ideas borrowed from psychology, these writers argued that those right-wingers displaced their personal anger into politics. “Their political reactions,” Hofstadter concluded, “express … a profound if largely unconscious hatred of our society and its ways.”
He then quotes a telling statistic that Shales ignores:
Ninety-two percent of them think the U. S. is on the wrong track. Over half of them (53 percent ) are angry, but there is no agreement about them about what they are angry about.
...a majority of Tea Party supporters (52 percent) think we pay too much attention to the problems of black people.
Yes, it's obvious that I have a favorite in this contest, but--Seriously? "They're not racist. I can tell because they recognized that filling in 'He's black' as a reason to dislike someone would make them look like nuts."
I guess even that is progress of a sort.
From Amy Shales:
The New York Times, in an unusual show of intelligence, printed a group of competeing opinions on a comparison poll of Tea Party backers vs others
Amy Shlaes says:
In question No. 2, both Tea Party supporters and subjects from the general public are asked what they like best about President Obama. The same share amount - 1 percent - say the thing they liked best was that he was black.
She then goes on to make a case for how this proves the Tea Partiers aren't racist, also citing:
Yet 11 percent of Tea Party supporters said that what they liked best about the president was that he was intelligent, while only 6 percent of the general population said that intelligence was their favorite attribute of Mr. Obama.
Ummmm...What were the other choices? That he's well-spoken? That he seems fair-minded? That he's willing to compromise in order to get things done? If 11 percent of Tea-Partiers had responded with "He's articulate." compared to 6 percent of the general population, what would that say?
Alan Wolfe reasonably points out that:
It is notoriously difficult for surveys to capture racist attitudes because people who respond to them have learned to hide their true feelings.
He goes on to quote studies on the attitudes of McCarthy supporters:
These people, they argued, were moved by their fears of the more cosmopolitan society being built around them. Because their views “tend to be more than ordinarily incoherent about politics.” Hofstadter called their movement a “pseudo-conservative revolt.” Relying on ideas borrowed from psychology, these writers argued that those right-wingers displaced their personal anger into politics. “Their political reactions,” Hofstadter concluded, “express … a profound if largely unconscious hatred of our society and its ways.”
He then quotes a telling statistic that Shales ignores:
Ninety-two percent of them think the U. S. is on the wrong track. Over half of them (53 percent ) are angry, but there is no agreement about them about what they are angry about.
...a majority of Tea Party supporters (52 percent) think we pay too much attention to the problems of black people.
Yes, it's obvious that I have a favorite in this contest, but--Seriously? "They're not racist. I can tell because they recognized that filling in 'He's black' as a reason to dislike someone would make them look like nuts."
I guess even that is progress of a sort.