• Menu
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Before Header

  • About Us
  • Lexicon
  • Contact Us
  • Our Store
  • ↑
  • ↓
  • ←
  • →

Balloon Juice

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

How does anyone do Gilligan’s Island as trump world and not cast Jared as Gilligan?

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

The revolution will be supervised.

The house always wins.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn – Nancy Pelosi

It’s the corruption, stupid.

There will be lawyers.

False Scribes! False Scribes!

Just a few bad apples.

Deploy the moving finger of emphasisity!

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

‘Forty-two’ said Deep Thought, with infinite majesty and calm.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

The math demands it!

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if I ever tried to have some of you killed.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

This is all too absurd to be reality, right?

Mobile Menu

  • Look Forward & Back
  • Balloon Juice 2021 Pet Calendar
  • Site Feedback
  • All 2020 Fundraising
  • I Voted!
  • Take Action: Things We Can Do
  • Team Claire, and Family
  • Submit Photos to On the Road
  • BJ PayPal Donations
  • Politics
  • On The Road
  • Open Threads
  • Topics
  • Nature & Respite
  • Information As Power
  • COVID-19 Coronavirus
  • Authors
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Lexicon
  • Our Store
  • Politics
  • Open Threads
  • On The Road
  • Garden Chats
  • Nature & Respite
  • Look Forward & Back
You are here: Home / Open Threads / Excellent Links / Ending One Myth

Ending One Myth

by John Cole|  April 15, 20107:35 am| 38 Comments

This post is in: Excellent Links, Teabagger Stupidity

Facebook0Tweet0Email0

Great catch by Digby in the Tea Partier poll I talked about last night:

Here’s an interesting factoid that tracks with my intuition about these people: they blame George W. Bush and Wall Street far less for the economic situation than the rest of the country does. They hold Obama and congress mostly responsible. But then, if you listen to wingnut gasbags and FOX news crazies all day, that’s what you would think.

Any illusions that these people are angry at Wall Street or big business needs to be dispensed with ASAP. They don’t blame the money people at all.

88% of them think the government’s stimulus program has either had no impact on the economy or made it worse.

Of course they don’t. This is just a Republican operation, plain and simple, and you’ll watch the tea partiers go to bat for their Republican and Wall Street masters the next couple of months as we try to pass Financial reform.

For chrissakes- the tea party idea came from Rick Santelli- a broker. Anyone who thought these guys were mad at Wall Street was engaging in magical firebagger thinking, and some of us told you that from the get-go.

Facebook0Tweet0Email0
Previous Post: « Confederate History Month: Stolen Labor
Next Post: Constitutional Fetishism »

Reader Interactions

38Comments

  1. 1.

    cleek

    April 15, 2010 at 7:41 am

    GOP says “Hate!” tea partiers ask “Yes sir! Hate whom, sir?”

  2. 2.

    MattF

    April 15, 2010 at 7:45 am

    It would be interesting to poll the details of t-party economic beliefs– I’d bet there’s a strong tendency toward, um, heterodox economics out there; as in goldbuggery, supply-side, Ron Paul idiocy. I just tune out when they start talking about this stuff, but it really and truly is just nutso, and it’s important to bear that in mind.

  3. 3.

    birthmarker

    April 15, 2010 at 7:56 am

    I was derided at Kos (I think) for daring to suggest that Santelli was anything except a totally spontaneous outburst.

    Here is a paragraph from an email I was sent on March 23, 2009, suggesting that we all send tea bags to Washington.

    O.K. folks, here it is. You may think you are just one voice and what you think won’t make a difference. Well, yes it will and YES, WE CAN!! If you are disgusted and angry with the way Washington is handling our taxes. If you are fearful of the fallout from the wreckless spending of BILLIONS to bailout and “stimulate” without accountability and responsibility then we need to become ONE, LOUD VOICE THAT CAN BE HEARD FROM EVERY CITY, TOWN, SUBURB AND HOME IN AMERICA. There is a growing protest to demand that Congress, the President and his cabinet LISTEN to us, the American Citizens. What is being done in Washington is NOT the way to handle the economic free fall.

    Obama had been President what, two months? And was tasked with cleaning up Bush’s mess? And the whole country is suddenly mad at him and Congress? Yeah, right.

  4. 4.

    El Cid

    April 15, 2010 at 7:56 am

    Red state suckers (PDF):

    Alabama’s tax system is currently among the most unfair in the nation. A November 2009 ITEP analysis showed that the poorest families pay an average of 10.2 percent of their income in Alabama state and local taxes, more than twice as high as the 4.0 percent of income that the very best-off 1 percent of Alabamians must pay. This upside-down pattern, in which effective tax rates decline as income increases, is known as a regressive tax system. ITEP’s 2009 analysis ranked Alabama as the tenth most regressive tax system in the nation. The analysis identified two principal reasons for this: the state relies more heavily on regressive sales taxes than do most other states, and its state income tax is among the least progressive in the nation… [T]he impact of the Alabama tax system is to actually reduce low-income families’ share of statewide income…

    What else is new, etc., etc., etc.

  5. 5.

    Michael

    April 15, 2010 at 7:56 am

    As opposed to our sucktastic “liberal” media, BBC this morning zeroed in like a laser beam on Sal Russo and his luxury RV. As opposed to broadcasting gamed polls, BBC reported in real life and discussed the vague non-goals of the movement.

    I’m taking the Tea Party as what it actually is – a bunch of fascists. Their polling responses are bullshit – yes, some organizers are wealthier and better educated, but a large number consist of manipulate Scots-Irish trailer trash, rooted in loyalty to clan and creed, and are willing to lie about their education and earnings.

    It makes me want to light a Confederate flag on fire and to dare them to piss on it to put it out.

  6. 6.

    Michael

    April 15, 2010 at 7:58 am

    I was derided at Kos (I think) for daring to suggest that Santelli was anything except a totally spontaneous outburst.

    Santelli needs to be waterboarded so that we can determine the genesis of his remarks.

  7. 7.

    beltane

    April 15, 2010 at 8:00 am

    The tea party is just another name for the asshole 27%ers who remained loyal to Bush until the end. What the rich and poor teabaggers all have in common is endless hate and endless greed. All the money in the world cannot make these people happy. As long as they know that, somewhere in the world, a poor child is getting enough to eat, they are sad.

  8. 8.

    brantl

    April 15, 2010 at 8:03 am

    The “magical firebagger thinking” shit? Why not start an extra argument, where one currently doesn’t exist, right? You’re better than this, JC.

  9. 9.

    Napoleon

    April 15, 2010 at 8:04 am

    Yesterday I was behind someone at a light that had a bumper sticker that read “W” and then under it it said “Thank You”. It takes a special form of stupid to think that, but not only do some think it they actually advertise it.

  10. 10.

    jurassicpork

    April 15, 2010 at 8:05 am

    One of our own, Alicia Morgan of Hooterville, is getting evicted from her home in less than 12 days along with her husband and 3 kids. Here’s the kicker: IndyMac, her lender, is doing this with the aid of the FDIC and they never even missed a mortgage payment. We’ve got to get word of this out to as many people as possible.

    Of course, the Tea Baggers would say that Alicia’s at fault for getting foreclosed on, survival of the fittest, etc. but it’s not that simple.

  11. 11.

    Alex S.

    April 15, 2010 at 8:15 am

    I still read the WSJ (printed version!) somewhat regularly and stumbled over really optimistic economic news today. I wonder what’s going to happen to the Tea Party in a few months, because I am confident that the 2010 election season will be accompanied by steadily improving economic news. I hope that this development is going to wash all the schizophrenia of this movement to the surface (unrealistic, I know). To have Wall-Street guys complain about the Obama administration, to have willfully ignorant, egoistic people engaging in this kind of hateful behavior – it makes me sick. With the ecomony improving, the purely social origins of the Tea Party movement will become obvious. It is not about big government, it is about big government helping “those people”. It’s about lazy, scared and/or indoctrinated people who reject today’s world with their misguided instincts.

  12. 12.

    Kirk Spencer

    April 15, 2010 at 8:19 am

    Yes, they’re deep Republicans. But there’s something else to remember.

    They’re patriots.

    Every single group listed by the SPLC as a “patriot” group (extremists who see the US government as the enemy) is involved in the tea party. The involvement ranges from shared members to shared leaders at the local level.

    Not all Tea Partiers are (yet) “patriots”, but pretty much all “patriots” are Tea Partiers. That said, the first half of that statement is likely to change given the constant rhetoric we hear.

  13. 13.

    Zach

    April 15, 2010 at 8:20 am

    Practically every conservative I know (most of whom would shudder to be associated with the Tea Party crew) is convinced that Fanny and Freddie are the primary cause of the global credit crisis. Pointing out that someone, you know, bought their mortgages doesn’t seem to have much effect.

    On the plus side, the relatively sane people go one step up the ladder to blaming the GSEs instead of blaming the black folks who largely trusted bankers and realtors who told them they could buy $X of house.

    Why hasn’t any Democrat in Congress introduced a bill to return the profit from selling Citi shares as a tax dividend? It’d be nearly $100 if distributed evenly. It’d remind people that the bailout was an uncomfortable but necessary/good thing. It’d increase trust in current attempts at financial regulation reform. It’d be difficult to paint as election-year bribery…

  14. 14.

    beltane

    April 15, 2010 at 8:32 am

    @Napoleon: A couple fo years ago, our county Republican party (and their children) marched in the Memorial Day parade carrying cardboard cutout figures of Bush with the title “The Great Liberator”. First thinking it was a joke, everyone cheered. Then, when the crowd realized the marchers were serious, you could hear a very loud mixture of boos and laughter.

    The town no longer allows parade marchers to have a political theme.

  15. 15.

    dmsilev

    April 15, 2010 at 8:34 am

    Speaking of insane right-wingers, Media Matters found a good one yesterday. Remember the hissy fit that the press threw when Obama went to his daughter’s soccer game without them? Well, apparently some of the luminaries in the right-wing shriek-o-sphere are claiming that *there never was a soccer game* and that Obama sneaked out to do Something Nefarious.

    Soon, we’ll learn that *Obama doesn’t actually have a daughter*!

    dms

  16. 16.

    mai naem

    April 15, 2010 at 8:35 am

    They can do all the sociological studies and extrapolate all kinds of conclusions from teabagger polls – nobody’s going to be convince me that the root belief of most teabaggers cannot handle the fact that a black man is POTUS. It all goes back to race.

  17. 17.

    El Cid

    April 15, 2010 at 8:39 am

    @mai naem: I think it involves race and racism, but that’s certainly not the only thing these cranky righties hate and fear.

  18. 18.

    John Cole

    April 15, 2010 at 8:40 am

    The “magical firebagger thinking” shit? Why not start an extra argument, where one currently doesn’t exist, right? You’re better than this, JC.

    I’m not making anything up or starting an argument, I’m making the bullshit artists who peddled this nonsense own it. You want the links to the firebagger posts claiming the tea party movement had the same goals as the rest of us? And this is why we needed to team with Grover.

    Own your shit or become a Republican.

  19. 19.

    MattF

    April 15, 2010 at 8:41 am

    @dmsilev

    Presumably the unspoken dog-whistle accusation that Limbaugh is making here is that Obama snuck off to a high-crime area for a crack cocaine deal. Disgusting.

    And, um, by the way, that area is right behind a Whole Foods supermarket. The prices there are criminal, but not in the colored-people-smoking-crack sense.

  20. 20.

    kay

    April 15, 2010 at 8:43 am

    It depresses me that anyone fell for this. It depresses me that anyone on the Left envies or wants to mimic this tactic.
    They get a lot of press, that’s true. But it’s just a fake third Party stand-in for the GOP, in an anti-incumbent atmosphere. The Republican brand was in deep trouble, so they resurrected as “the Tea party”. This way they can run establishment Republicans as “moderates” in swing districts and run lunatics in conservative districts.
    The whole thing is a fraud. Why would we want to co-opt or copy that tactic? It’s based on a lie. Will they make short term gains? I don’t know. Is it going to end well? I’m almost certain it won’t. Because there’s not a dime’s worth of difference on economic policy between these people and establishment Republicans. This policy and dogma leads to the same goddamn place. Always.

  21. 21.

    dmsilev

    April 15, 2010 at 8:47 am

    @MattF: Limbaugh also called it “Clintonesque”, so maybe he was trying to suggest a tryst.

    Hard to say. Delving into the mind of Limbaugh is a job for trained professionals equipped with the proper safety gear. I’m not going there.

    dms

  22. 22.

    SGEW

    April 15, 2010 at 8:48 am

    @John Cole:

    This is just a Republican operation, plain and simple . . .

    I wonder. I suspect that the “tea party movement” is a much more . . . complicated phenomenon than any of us are articulating. There’s a lot going on: astroturfing, militias, neo-Confederate sympathy, new media and culture impact[1], wealth divisions, globalization, immigration, straight-up racism, “post 9/11 social trauma,” the psychology of sprawl, raw unemployment numbers, you name it.

    There are too many influences, there hasn’t been enough data, and not enough time has passed for anything to crystalize into a proper analysis, methinks. More importantly, I don’t think that enough self-identified “tea party” sympathizers have a clear idea (at all!) of what their “movement” stands for[2]; it is still in a very formative stage. However:

    . . . and you’ll watch the tea partiers go to bat for their Republican and Wall Street masters the next couple of months as we try to pass Financial reform.

    This will be an important tell.

    [1] Let’s call this “mediated epistemic surturing future shock,” just to be twee.
    [2] I elide the anecdotal subject of B.O.B., our very own “tea partier,” as he has no “clear ideas” about anything, ever; I consider him to be a data glitch.

  23. 23.

    kay

    April 15, 2010 at 8:55 am

    It has to end the same way. They want deregulation and an end to big government. We just finished finding out what fills the hole left by big government, and fills it fast. Big business. Always.
    This story has the same ending as the last one. What do Republicans care how they get there?

  24. 24.

    SpotWeld

    April 15, 2010 at 8:58 am

    To me, the scariest part of that blog post

    53% believe that Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity are news shows.

    **shudder**

  25. 25.

    Sanka

    April 15, 2010 at 9:18 am

    Yes, the stimulus worked. Because going from 7% unemployment to 10% unemployment must be really great for…..DEMOCRATS!

    Wow. And the mainstream media bitched about George Bush’s economic “doldrums” at 6% unemployment.

    I guess the problem isn’t that every Obama voter didn’t get their unicorn yet, but rather they haven’t yet received the feed bag that turns its shite into gold pellets.

  26. 26.

    Fergus Wooster

    April 15, 2010 at 9:27 am

    From a teabagger commenter on Yahoo News:

    What other movement has a group on the internet specifically set-up to smear them by having people infiltrate rallies with radical signs purposely misspelled? None that I can think of. So, think what you like, and say what you like about the movement. We shall see what happens in November.

    LMAO.

  27. 27.

    BenA

    April 15, 2010 at 9:29 am

    @Sanka: You aren’t really coffee and you taste like shit. Your economic analysis is just as bad.

  28. 28.

    South of I-10

    April 15, 2010 at 9:32 am

    @Kirk Spencer: I just read this steaming pile of crap in my local paper. I can’t believe I wasted a second of my life reading this. It is going to be a fun day, huh?

  29. 29.

    feebog

    April 15, 2010 at 9:51 am

    @Sanka:

    Be a good little troll and crawl back under your bridge.

  30. 30.

    PanAmerican

    April 15, 2010 at 10:07 am

    Rat Fucking from the party of Donald Segretti, Roger Stone and James O’Keefe?

    NO WAY!

    The next thing you’ll suggest COLE is that the M4rxist-Purists on lefty blogs are just right wing shit stirrers. They’re true concerned Democrat Americans and you’re better than this COLE.

  31. 31.

    valdivia

    April 15, 2010 at 10:10 am

    @BenA:
    FTFW.

  32. 32.

    kay

    April 15, 2010 at 10:25 am

    What a joke. Nine states. Today.

    “Another of Koch’s beneficiaries is Americans for Prosperity, which was founded by the company’s Executive Vice President, David Koch. AFP, based in Washington, has been a key organizer of many tea party events, including Tax Day Tea Party rallies in at least nine states today.

    In an interview this morning, Cohlmia confirmed Koch’s role backing AFP. Asking how that squares with the statement that Koch not provide funding “specifically to support the tea parties,” Cohlmia said “the statement stands.”

    She said the unsolicited statement was prompted because, “we’ve had a number of people who have indicated Koch is funding and orchestrating tea parties.”

  33. 33.

    scav

    April 15, 2010 at 10:26 am

    @SGEW: I’ve been hovering on the same observation myself. It’s early, its inchoate and doesn’t really have any central organized leadership (they’re working on this part). It’s frustration, made visible. Moreover, identifying with the Teaparty name got your frustration media coverage. Bingo. The recent Repubs seemed to be an odd agglomerate of evangelicals/hard-line social conservatives, glibitarian/wall streetists and militarists (plus less obvious, probably less extreme and contradictory elements). So logically those are the loose elements shed as the party lost market share. Throw in the loose elements that didn’t have a home in either party and we should have the basic matrix from which the frustrated emerge and grab the media’s attention with the label Teaparty. Small, self-identifying groups erupting because of local reasons but adopting an internally known (and presumably feared) moniker anyone? This calls for guerrilla campaigning.

    Just cause it’s dark and you’re feeling something similar to a trunk and somebody near you yells they’ve got a leg, do NOT assume you’re feeling up with same critter.

    EDIT. This could also explain why the stats are all over the place. Very sensitive to the pool the questioned are taken from.

  34. 34.

    scav

    April 15, 2010 at 10:33 am

    @scav: Lost permission to edit my own comment at about the minute mark. Just wanted to add that those funding at least portions of this mess are probably the same ol’, same ol’. They cover their bets.

  35. 35.

    OriGuy

    April 15, 2010 at 10:35 am

    @Fergus Wooster: Just wait until the ones who have misspelled signs are accused of being Commie Sociulist liberals in disguise by those who can spell. (There must be some at those things.) Fights break out at the Tea Party. Popcorn sales go through the roof.

  36. 36.

    Sanka

    April 15, 2010 at 10:54 am

    Yeah, stick it to those fat-cat bankers. Democrats really know how to keep these banksters in line, with billions in federal money to stop the foreclosure crisis:

    A record number of U.S. homes were lost to foreclosure in the first three months of this year, a sign banks are starting to wade through the backlog of troubled home loans at a faster pace, according to a new report.

    RealtyTrac Inc. said Thursday that the number of U.S. homes taken over by banks jumped 35 percent in the first quarter from a year ago. In addition, households facing foreclosure grew 16 percent in the same period and 7 percent from the last three months of 2009.

    More homes were taken over by banks and scheduled for a foreclosure sale than in any quarter going back to at least January 2005, when RealtyTrac began reporting the data, the firm said.

    That’s right. Time to work for the people and not the fat-cats, you betcha….

  37. 37.

    frankdawg

    April 15, 2010 at 12:00 pm

    I ain’t gots no gud edjumacation so ken you guys help me out?

    What is it that makes people fight against their own best interest? Seriously, this has driven me nuts about the Civil War Confederates. Most of the dumbfarks fighting in gray were poor farmers & merchants who gained nothing, and in the case of the farmers lost a lot, from slavery. Yet they gladly fought and died for the wealthy land baron slave owners to preserve a way of life that hurt them.

    These Scheisse fur Gehirne teabaggers seem to fall into this same category. They are against the programs that will benefit them the most and for the tax breaks and anti-regulatory controls that weaken the country at large and them in particular.

    Can anyone point me to how this happens?

  38. 38.

    Tommy

    April 15, 2010 at 1:24 pm

    @frankdawg:

    I have a friend from Mississippi who took me through this very same issue. Her point was that most southerners were willing to trade off all fiscal policy issues for social issues, namely one: religion. The fact that the GOP has co-opted ‘faith’, however hypocritical that stance ends up becoming, assures them of winning elections from now until eternity down south.

Comments are closed.

Primary Sidebar

Do Something!

Call Your Senators & Representatives
Directory of US Senators
Directory of US Representatives

Vaccine Venting Here!
I Got the Shot!  (Month 2)
I Got the Shot!

 

🎈Ways to Support Our Site

Become a Balloon Juice Patreon
Donate with Venmo, Zelle or PayPal
Shop Amazon via this link to support Balloon Juice ⬇  

Recent Comments

  • Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) on I Think You Need Some Respite (Mar 4, 2021 @ 10:36pm)
  • Steeplejack on Open Thread: *All* Repub Officials Are Corrupt, No Exceptions: Elaine Chao Edition (Mar 4, 2021 @ 10:36pm)
  • Amir Khalid on I Think You Need Some Respite (Mar 4, 2021 @ 10:36pm)
  • debbie on I Think You Need Some Respite (Mar 4, 2021 @ 10:29pm)
  • debbie on I Think You Need Some Respite (Mar 4, 2021 @ 10:25pm)

Team Claire, and Family

Claire Updates
Claire is Home!

Balloon Juice Posts

View by Topic
View by Author
View by Month & Year

Featuring

John Cole
Silverman on Security
COVID-19 Coronavirus
Medium Cool with BGinCHI
Furry Friends

Calling All Jackals

Site Feedback
Submit Photos to On the Road
Nominate a Rotating Tag
Meetups: Proof of Life
2021 Pets of Balloon Juice Calendar

Culture: Books, Film, TV, Music, Games, Podcasts

Noir: Favorites in Film, Books, TV
Book Recommendations & Indy Recs
Mystery Recommendations
Netflix Favorites
Amazon Prime Favorites
Netflix Suggestions in July
Longmire & Netflix Suggestions

Twitter

John Cole’s Twitter

[custom-twitter-feeds]

Site Footer

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • Comment Policy
  • Our Authors
  • Blogroll
  • Our Artists
  • Privacy Policy

Copyright © 2021 Dev Balloon Juice · All Rights Reserved · Powered by BizBudding Inc

Share this ArticleLike this article? Email it to a friend!

Email sent!