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Friday, April 16, 2010

Not the Joads

Turns out, the tea party folks are wealthy egg heads. Huh? I was thinking poor, uneducated rowdy Southern types with provincial politics: the Tom Joad response to Obama's fancy talk from the big city. But, alas, they're not so easy to dismiss, it seems ("Hey Ma! Can't we still play the racist card, can't we play the race card!" True, they can still be racist. They can still be evil. says a voice, from nowhere in particular. "No one thought that Hitler was missing teeth, but he's still universally despised", offers Whitfield, a twinkle in his eye. Ma smiles knowingly, nodding, her stout body stirring the great cauldron of stew.).

I have a hunch--just a hunch--that intellectual right-of-center types like David Brooks, who've been dismissive of the Tea Party movement heretofore, will take them a bit more seriously after these polls recast the movement in a more-acceptable light, more acceptable to those (like me) who knee-jerked the connection between an anti-big government message and white red necks with farmer's tans and bad attitudes about them folks talkin' change in the big city. Just a hunch.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Erik,
I will admit that reading the stats on who actually made up tea party roster membership made my mouth drop to the floor. This will, indeed, make the so called "intellectual, leftist elite" stand back and take notice to some of the messages being bantered about. I don't know, whenever I see a tea party rally on tv, I can't help but hear banjos, ala Deliverance. Beck

Erik J. Larson said...

Beck,
Yeah, I too was surprised. I had most of them pegged as Snake Jailbird types (of Simpsons fame); it's still the case that there's a disproportionate number of birthers in the tea party crowd, however, which says that something is still a bit, mmm, askew.

Erik J. Larson said...

Snake Jailbird:

http://simpsons.ugo.com/images/obscure-characters/snake-jailbird.jpg

Unknown said...

Erik,
Hilarious reference to 'Snake'! However, I was thinking more along the lines of Cletus....hmmmmm. This may be my own scary image of some of party members though.

http://www.robbspewak.com/robbradio/uploads/cletus-simpsons.jpg

Beck