On the way home, I was listening to NPRs "On Point" and teabaggers were calling in

[Skidmore]

to defend their "movement." They had some past campaign coordinator for Guiliani on swearing up and down that this is some broad diverse representation of discontent in the nation. That MOST Americans believe what this group does. There was a Dem on to rebut his arguments and the offerings of the callers. It occurred to me as I listened that one of the most fundamental ideas they have is that collectively they are the "mainstream" and represent middle America. They firmly believe this. An African-American woman called in to address the concerns about racism among them, only to be called "ignorant" by the next teabagger on the phone. Caller after caller pointed out that eight years of Bush policy got us here, and to that they generally agree. However, they do not seem to realize that the whole goal of the right is to get us back to the same set of policies and practices under different labels. It is mind boggling. The politico tried to sidestep the question of what cuts they would make to pay for the taxes they do not want to pay. How can we get the message across that "they" are no different than "us" here on the left.

I'm feeling rather despairing right now because I see some of the disagreement on this side of the divide in fact contributing to more of the same because so many appear to want to veer off course rather than to hold ground and work to correct course in an inclusive way. Neither side of this will get anywhere that is good for us as a nation engaging in this...I don't even have a word for the type of discourse or lack of it now.



This was the program:

http://www.onpointradio.org/2010/10/midterms-ideas

[dkf]

1. Actually they are more radical than Bush.

Bush didn't do much on entitlements...in fact he increased it through Medicare part D. Teabaggers want to cut taxes by cutting aid to everyone. So really we haven't seen this before...it will be worse.

[gratuitous]

2. The Tea Baggers are the embodiment of a certain strain in politics

And it's hard to discern always, because it lurks just out of sight most of the time. You skirted it with your comment that Tea Baggers believe themselves to be the mainstream of America. The flip side of that coin is that other Americans aren't really Americans. You'll hear it when poll results are analyzed, and (for example) they mention that while President Obama's approval ratings are holding steady overall, the rating is dropping among white men over age 45. There will be some generic comment to follow about what reliable voters white men over 45 are, and then the conclusion, which is that President Obama's approval numbers are slipping. It happens real smoothly, and you hardly notice that the conclusion doesn't follow the poll results. The average viewer is left with the impression that President Obama is losing support.

But is he really? While one segment of the population (a segment that represents a smaller and smaller percentage of the total) shows less support for President Obama, his overall numbers remain steady because he's getting better responses from other segments. Those other segments of the population, however, are tacitly said to not count, or to count for less, because they're not white men over 45. It's no wonder Tea Baggers think they're the mainstream majority of America: In ways obvious and subtle, the popular media tell them that over and over again.