Race as a Cudgel Against the Right
Charles M. Blow has published an op-ed, A Mighty Pale Tea, that seems quite unfair to me.
After attending a tea party rally in Dallas, Texas, he writes:
I had specifically come to this rally because it was supposed to be especially diverse. And, on the stage at least, it was. The speakers included a black doctor who bashed Democrats for crying racism, a Hispanic immigrant who said that she had never received a single government entitlement and a Vietnamese immigrant who said that the Tea Party leader was God. It felt like a bizarre spoof of a 1980s Benetton ad.
I wouldn’t say it’s like a spoof of a Benetton Ad so much as evidence that the ideology responsible for Benetton ads has triumphed in America. Ethnic diversity has positive associations, and so it is pursued for the sake of appearances even when the visuals that result are contrived and artificial.
In any context except a Tea Party, the vast majority of liberal writers would praise the act of highlighting the voices of “people of color” even if they aren’t particularly representative of a crowd or corporation or university class. Let it happen at a rally of conservatives, however, and this winds up on the nation’s premier op-ed page:
I found the imagery surreal and a bit sad: the minorities trying desperately to prove that they were “one of the good ones”; the organizers trying desperately to resolve any racial guilt among the crowd. The message was clear: How could we be intolerant if these multicolored faces feel the same way we do?
And later in the same piece:
Thursday night I saw a political minstrel show devised for the entertainment of those on the rim of obliviousness and for those engaged in the subterfuge of intolerance. I was not amused.
It’s this kind of piece that causes people on the right to think that on matters of race, they’re damned if they do, and they’re damned if they don’t — if they don’t make efforts to include non-whites they’re unenlightened propagators of privilege, and if they do make those efforts they’re the cynical managers of a minstrel show, but either way, race is used as a cudgel to discredit them in a way that would never be applied to a political movement on the left.
The piece also treats the minorities who willingly spoke at the rally with some pretty profound disrespect. Elsewhere, the always enjoyable Michael Moynihan gives his impression of who attends Tea Party rallies:
…we met some perfectly normal, clever, interesting people (including a black goth kid from West Virginia who really, really wanted to “end the Fed”) and a cluster of weirdos not entirely convinced that President Obama was a Christian or that he wasn’t born at a madrassa in Swaziland. There were limited government types, libertarians, conspiricist kooks, and a handful of people who desperately need someone to elucidate the differences between liberalism, social democracy, socialism, and communism. One attendee, who was incredibly well informed on a number of issues, nevertheless explained that we were seeing an incrementalist approach to a Stalinist state. Interrupting, I said with sarcasm, “but, ya know, without the genocide.” Oh you naive young lad, he sighed, just wait and see.
Now, I usually preface all discussion of the Tea Parties with links to my criticism of some of the nonsense I have come across interviewing, to clarify that I find some of the rhetoric I’ve come across when reporting from various Tea Party events to be deeply problematic. But most of it, though, is simply a canned case against government spending.
What I really loved about this passage was the “black goth kid from West Virginia who really, really wanted to ‘end the Fed’” — as everyone knows who has actually attended any mass political rally, America is a deeply weird country filled with colorful individuals whose identities almost never fit into the categories that are so often discussed in the media.
I’d bet that “the black doctor who bashed Democrats for crying racism, a Hispanic immigrant who said that she had never received a single government entitlement and a Vietnamese immigrant who said that the Tea Party leader was God” are all interesting people with honestly held convictions that are understandable outgrowths of their reason and experience.
Mr. Blow, meanwhile, thinks that they are minstrels.
“Charles M. Blow has published an op-ed, A Mighty Pale Tea, that seems quite unfair to me.”
But he didn’t mention you! I kid, but this sentence was a little confusing, given that many of your pieces on this blog are written in response to articles directly or indirectly addressed to you.
And Charles Blow is right. Whether or not the people speaking at the rally were “interesting people” (which can mean anything from brilliant thinkers to sadly amusing barflies), the fact is that many if not most of the minority speakers at Tea Parties are marginal people who are put onstage primarily to rebut the (not unreasonable) view that racial resentment is a part of the long list of resentments and grievances that many Tea Partiers carry around with them.
— Mark in Houston · Apr 17, 03:12 PM · #
Its not a cudgel…it is the Right’s achilles heel.
The leader of the Tea Parties is Jesus.
My hypothesis is that all Tea Partiers are some stripe of christian….that is the unifying force theory of the Tea Parties.
The sooner you accept that, Conor, the sooner we can move on.
Palin’s demonization of the other, and demonization of elites and the “real-america” culture baiting was a deliberate tactic…….a tactic that always worked in the past, and thus is emminently conservative.
But it won’t work anymore….because of the demographic timer.
This is the last gasp of traditional republican racebaiting and IQbaiting.
Evolve or go extinct.
It seems to me that you, Conor, are indulging in a little non-empiricism here.
The party of the South has embedded, intrinsic racism….the republicans are now the party of the south.
Thass a fact, jack.
Shut up and deal with it.
You are culturally and demographically screwed….by your Great Adversary, Evolution.
A tactic might be to attract racial minorities by appealing to the Unified Force Theory of Tea Party Jesus.
Like Arminius pointed out, a lot of blacks are christians.
But that will alienate college-educated and youth voters, two other demographics you are getting creamed in.
— matoko_chan · Apr 17, 03:23 PM · #
heh
The Unified Force Theory of Tea Party Jesus.
instant classic, don’t you think?
— matoko_chan · Apr 17, 03:38 PM · #
You could try to prove me wrong…..but somehow I think it is going to be MUCH MUCH HARDER to find some token atheists to get up and spew praise for anti-empirical teatard bullshytt.
Aetheists are mostly upper right tailers on IQ.
— matoko_chan · Apr 17, 03:48 PM · #
accept it, bourgie conservatives.
The Tea Party is a white christian grievance movement.
And that is all it is.
— matoko_chan · Apr 17, 03:53 PM · #
Maybe they could try not being racists?
— Chet · Apr 17, 04:40 PM · #
Uh, Conor? Liberals have been getting bashed for tokenism since the early 1900s at least. Why should conservatives be immune, especially when the evidence as clear as it seems to be in the case of the Tea Party? If Charles M. Blow were guilty of trying to downplay equally clear evidence of tokenism in a liberal group, you could charge him with hypocrisy, but the article itself isn’t unfair. You might want to claim Blow should have raised the issue himself, but you can’t reasonably expect every article on any political group not to criticize the political group without asking whether similar criticisms can be made of opposing groups. One thing at a time.
— Chris Hallquist · Apr 17, 05:18 PM · #
Matoko,
Due to your continued inability to format comments, and your willful insistence on posting numerous comments in succession, often adding nothing to the debate, I reiterate my request that you do not comment on my posts here.
— Conor Friedersdorf · Apr 17, 06:47 PM · #
An African-American, a Hispanic and a Vietnamese person in front of a sea of white faces? Sounds like a NPR listeners’ convention.
— Klug · Apr 17, 08:11 PM · #
Huh. Well, I’m an atheist in total sympathy with the tea partiers (I suppose can’t call myself one of them, as I’m living abroad now). There is still a libertarian right and I’d be willing to bet our numbers aren’t far off those of the hardcore evangelical right. We don’t always get along, but we’re in complete sympathy on the tea party agenda.
— S. Weasel · Apr 17, 09:26 PM · #
interesting comments from the “tolerant” and “race-blind”. Projection much?
— Frank G · Apr 17, 09:40 PM · #
If the Tea Partyers don’t have black Americans among their leadership or rank-and-file, it’s evidence of their racism or racial hostility.
If black Americans do show up and speak, it’s evidence of a minstrel show act used by racists in the movement to manipulate public opinion.
Notice a trend here?
Instead of responding at any point to the arguments made by those at the protest, Mr. Blow draws two-dimensional caricatures for his two-minute hate session.
Sorry Mr. Blow, using racial stereotypes won’t work anymore. Whether it’s used from the right or the left.
Answer their arguments first; then challenge their motives.
— SteveMG · Apr 17, 09:48 PM · #
The default is that tea partiers are racist with no proof at all. The fact that minorities are cautioned away from them is proof that the left fears this movement most of all. My God, what if the worst should happen and the minorities would find something appealing about the literal reading of the Constitution? What if, from the left’s perspective, they couldn’t count on the minority vote in their corner? Look at how bad they are getting creamed in the polls as it is, what if in addition to that resistance, they had to worry about losing the minority vote? All very terrifying from a liberal point of view.
Now, you know why the tea partiers MUST be racist. Simple as that.
— T.L. Davis · Apr 17, 10:04 PM · #
matoko_chan
I’m a tea party participant and an athiest. Well, more agnostic than athiest, but definitely not an evangelical Christian. There are quite a few of us at those rallies, which you would know if you bothered to speak to us without looking down your nose at us all.
— Sherri · Apr 17, 10:07 PM · #
A mighty pale tea? Oh please, Tea Partiers are about 75% white, rich is roughly the same as the general population. And they are not half as weird as the people who hang out on most lefty blogs. After years of the most hysterical, over the top, paranoid ravings imaginable from the left…these people are just freaking out that Americans are speaking their minds without asking the permission of people like Charles Blow. Talk about provincial small minded people. Who decided that the left gets to decide what is and is not proper for the black doctor or the hispanic immigrant or the Vietnamese immigrant to say or do or think?
— Terrye · Apr 17, 10:24 PM · #
gee Conor, I’m not polite or formatted enough for you?
Sorry…I’m just tired of you vomiting high verbal apologia when you know I’m telling the truth.
Just acknowledge the empirical-data, the Tea Party is a purely christian grievance movement.
That is the sum of it.
There are quite a few of us at those rallies
Sherri, I don’t believe you. And I didn’t say the common denominator of Tea Party membership was evangelical christian I SAID it was christian, meaning belief in Jesus Christ.
If there are atheists and agnostics in the Tea Party, let them stand and declare themselves…..lol…..let them carry God is Dead signs.
rawr.
The Unified Force Theory of Tea Party Jesus.
Conor, I’m sick unto death of your pretending and tiptoeing around the truth.
Like I said to E.D., “conservatives” are not promoting their ideology by fluffing the bigotry and grievances of your base and pretending they are in ANY way concerned about the size of government or government spending.
They were uniformly FOR big government and big spending as long as it was THEIR government and their spending.
You know all this. All you are is a cheerleader for fakery, and an enabler for a pathology that is going to kill your party.
Tell your base the truth….some “conservatives” are racists, and racism is wrong, just-saying-no shuts “conservatives” out of representative government, torture is wrong, socialconservatism is profoundly illiberal, supply-side economics don’t work and Thomas Jefferson would have spit on the Tea Party en toto.
And the Tea Party movement is only representative of CONSERVATIVE CHRISTIAN America.
The liberal christians don’t attend. ;)
You could educate your base, try to reform them.
I somehow doubt any of you will….instead you will be educated by the long arc of justice, and in the twin schools of cultural and demographic evolution.
sayonara
— matoko_chan · Apr 17, 11:14 PM · #
oh pardon…..
the Voice of the Tea Party.
LOUISVILLE, KY. (AP) – Sarah Palin spoke to a crowd of about 16,000 attending an evangelical Christian women’s conference in Louisville Friday night.
The Courier-Journal reports the 2008 Republican candidate for vice president mixed stories of personal struggles and calls for women to be good mothers and good citizens with criticism of President Barack Obama – although she did not mention him by name.
Palin asked the women to provide a “prayer shield” to strengthen her against what she said was “deception” in the media.
She asserted that America needs to get back to its Christian roots and rejected any notion that “God should be separated from the state.”
— matoko_chan · Apr 17, 11:33 PM · #
TL Davis: What have conservatives ever done to encourage minority support? When Lee Atwater and the Southern Strategy is the political heritage of modern conservatism, what do liberals really have to worry about?
— Y · Apr 17, 11:34 PM · #
@matoko_chan
“My hypothesis is that all Tea Partiers are some stripe of christian….that is the unifying force theory of the Tea Parties.”
It doesn’t take much insight to guess that a majority of Tea Partiers are Christian, considering that 76% of Americans self-identify as Christian, including the current POTUS, as well as his Democrat predecessors, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, both of whom are not only Christians but Christians from the South. So IF Christianity was the “unifying force” behind the Tea Party it’s only because it’s still the “unifying force” behind American society in general But the reality is that religion is not even close to being the raison d‘être of the Tea Party. The Tea Party came into being over fiscal policy and taxation, period. The majority of Tea Partiers are Conservative but their religious affiliation is incidental. The real question is: what is the basis for your irrational hatred of Christians?
— Moira · Apr 17, 11:52 PM · #
@matoko_chan
“But it won’t work anymore….because of the demographic timer. This is the last gasp of traditional republican racebaiting and IQbaiting. Evolve or go extinct.”
You have it exactly backwards, this is the last gasp of the illegitimate, tired strategy of attempting to silence the opposition with baseless claims of “racism.” In fact, it’s members of the Left, like yourself, who repeatedly play the racecard…exactly like you’ve done here. It’s really rather pathetic to see so much racism employed in an attack on people whom you erroneously call “racist.” It’s the race-hustlers on the Left who will either evolve or go extinct.
— Moira · Apr 18, 12:02 AM · #
@matoko_chan
The Tea Party movement has nothing to do with religion. It’s about out of control government spending. Your inability to counter the arguments made by the Tea Party reduces you to a poo-flinging monkey. Nobody accepts your accusations and slanders as argument or debate. Yours are the posts of a young child, unable to comprehend the grown-ups, thus unable to contribute to the discussion in any substantive way. It must be truly painful to be trapped in such a small mind. You have my pity.
Charles Blow calling anybody a minstrel is rich. The editorial board of the NY Times features exactly one black person, out of 17. I can only guess that the irony of his name-calling is lost on him.
— Brian · Apr 18, 12:12 AM · #
Hummm, the Tea part is about Government, the Constitution, and Ideas this country was built on.
They want to deal with the events that are actually occurring now.
Charles Blow, like most of the left is fixated on the people who attend, hummm.
How does that old saying go?
Great minds discuss ideas;
Average minds discuss events;
Small minds discuss people.
Eleanor Roosevelt
Guess all know what we need to know about Charles Blow.
— Dschoen · Apr 18, 03:07 AM · #
Which most of the teabaggers are in favor of – at least when it comes to their disability and welfare.
We know the teabaggers are racist because they tell us they are.
— Chet · Apr 18, 05:22 AM · #
“An African-American, a Hispanic and a Vietnamese person in front of a sea of white faces? Sounds like a NPR listeners’ convention.”
succinctly put.
i observed about 70% of the major street protests of the left during the bush administration which were conducted in chicago and more than a couple in dc and nyc. the racial makeup of these events were always somewhere around 99% white – entirely white in the case of the organizing meetings i’d snoop around at – and i always found it sort of ironic and off message.
for instance, for one organizing meeting conducted by the international socialist organization, the only non-white participant was a black woman they had watching the kids in an anteroom. it wasn’t clear whether she was a comrade who had volunteered for nanny duty or just a nanny. i think if it were the former, the tortured narrative about “false consciousness” and “internalizing oppression” would write itself.
sometimes it would occur to me that i could invest some time counting the crowds by race, but that always seemed like it would be a lot of work toward an unfair argument. who would care, anyway? they were “antiwar” protests. to talk about the overwhelming whiteness of lefty “antiwar” rallies would be an ad hominem dodge.
now that the primary discourse about this strange new protest movement of the right centers around how many black people are in attendance and whether they’re “real” black people or not, i wish i had prepared at least one well-documented racial headcount of an “antiwar” rally. it would be something.
of course the “real black people” thing is a problematic theme which progressive are free to visit without reproach. for how long, i wonder. when progressives race-bait conservative ideas, they scare some away, but many others who investigate the left’s phony oppo claims about race tend to come away sympathizing with the conservatives who were smeared. i wonder how many black libertarians and black conservatives the white left has to dismiss as “minstrels” or “uncle toms” before it starts producing a net increase in black americans sympathetic to conservative and libertarian ideas. or at least unwilling to join with the people calling them names.
— jummy · Apr 18, 06:28 AM · #
I dunno, but it pretty much takes one “Confederacy History Month” or invocation of the “states rights” dogwhistle to send them right back.
It’s funny how clueless you guys are about race. Not a fucking clue!
— Chet · Apr 18, 06:33 AM · #
Oh, those poor conservatives. They’re damned if they do make showy and tokenistic displays of post-racism while advocating policies that will harm minorities at the expense of the white upper-middle-class, and they’re damned if they don’t make showy and tokenistic displays of post-racism while advocating policies that will harm minorities at the expense of the white upper-middle-class. Truly, a tragic catch-22.
— Evan Harper · Apr 18, 07:22 AM · #
Dear Conor,
If you don’t want conservatives to keep getting taken to task for race issues, you should get them to stop advocating political policies that are a disaster for black and Hispanic Americans.
love,
Freddie
— Freddie · Apr 18, 01:12 PM · #
One more chance to be honest, Conor.
The unifying principle, the common denominator of the Tea Party movement is conservative christianity.
Sure, most of America selfdescribes as christian.
But liberal christians don’t attend Tea Parties.
Obama is a liberal christian….don’t you remember Joe Carter getting all frothy about that?
The Tea Party movement is primarily a RELIGIOUS movement.
Grievance conservative christianity.
One more time— my hypothesis is that nearly all the selfdefined Tea Partiers will selfdescribe as christian, meaning they profess to believe in Jesus.
Can you disprove that? It should be simple. Just takes enough counter examples to be statistically significant.
Is it good for America to have a political movement that is homogeneously religious on a single religious orientation, a single sect?
See what I mean about Thomas Jefferson?
Palin EXPLICITLY rejects separation of church and state.
The demographics the Tea Party needs to display to prove they represent “real america” are not racial….. but religious…..the Tea Party needs to show some religious diversity.
There is the reason for closure of conservative minds…..“conservatives” all belong to a single sect.
Conservative christianity.
— matoko_chan · Apr 18, 01:25 PM · #
Dear Freddie.
That isn’t the problem.
The minorities that advocate for the Tea Parties are still religiously homogeneous, from a single sect.
Black people and brown people can be conservative christians.
<3
— matoko_chan · Apr 18, 01:49 PM · #
Moira….“But the reality is that religion is not even close to being the raison d‘être of the Tea Party.”
lies.
Grievance conservative christianity is the unification principle of the Tea Party movement. Sure, other americans are christians…..but they are liberal christians.
Liberal christians dont go to the Tea Party.
Barack Obama is a liberal christian.
thats what she said.
lawl.
— matoko_chan · Apr 18, 02:01 PM · #
It amazes me that Clinton and the left are talking about the danger of demonizing people, but from the comments here and all over the net and media it’s clear the right is being demonized as racists. If I was on the left and was psychologically unstable, and if I had very strong feelings about racists being less than human, then wouldn’t this rhetoric likely push me over the edge to become violent and kill these non-human, racist beasts?
— mike farmer · Apr 18, 03:08 PM · #
Conor, I apolo for my stream of consciousness…..but….I had an epiphany, right here on your threads.
The identity of the Tea Party isn’t racial……it is religious.
That is what all the Constitutional originalist interpretation is about…..a wished-for return to the time when the electorate was all conservative christians.
All the “Obama is raping liberty, Obama is shredding the constitution” bullshytt.
The Constitution is WAI (working as intended).
But it reflects the selfgovernance of a different completely electorate than the electorate of 2 1/2 centuries ago.
That is why the teapartiers are irrational about opposing large government while supporting medicare and medicaid and medicare D.
That is why the teaparitiers are irrational about promoting illiberal policies while screaming about liberty and personal freedom.
It is because the tea party is a religious sect—conservative christian, not a political or racial demographic at all.
— matoko_chan · Apr 18, 03:37 PM · #
And if you think race is an “unfair” cudgel against the right….just wait until the left picks up this religion cudgel.
How can something be “unfair” when it is empirically TRUE?
— matoko_chan · Apr 18, 03:55 PM · #
If you don’t want conservatives to keep getting taken to task for race issues, you should get them to stop advocating political policies that are a disaster for black and Hispanic Americans.
which policies are those?
— jummy · Apr 18, 04:18 PM · #
the progressive comments left here have been mostly useless, but i’ve seen one assertion put forth a couple of times, so i’ll ask:
which policies that are advocated by conservatives and republicans specifically “harm” black americans?
— jummy · Apr 18, 04:26 PM · #
@matoko_chan
The civil rights movement was led, almost exclusively, by Christians. Recall that Martin Luther King was even a reverend. Was this a “Christian grievance movement”? Spare me the liberal Christian vs. conservative Christian, as that is a political distinction, not a religious one.
My “hypothesis” is that you can not debate the agenda of the Tea Party, so you yell out “Christians!”, hoping to distract everyone from the actual debate. Our government is spending money it doesn’t have. We are spending the fortunes of generations to come. This can not be sustained. These are facts, regardless of the messenger, or his religion.
— Brian · Apr 18, 04:29 PM · #
and, to respond to “chet”:
“states rights” is not a “dogwhistle”. it’s a reference to the tenth amendment of the constitution. that would be part of the bill of rights.
i would imagine that among the discoveries made by my hypothetical investigator, one would be that the tenth amendment isn’t “the racist amendment” just because progressives say so; that progressives had been at war with the tenth amendment since long before the civil rights era when some southern new-dealers latched onto the principle as a fig-leaf; and that the tenth amendment is no more racist because it can be cited to protect a shopkeeper’s racist behavior than is the first amendment racist because it can be cited to protect racist speech.
and, did you ever wonder why nobody on the right really gets upset when progressives talk about things in terms of “dogwhistles”? it’s because it’s a ludicrous contrivance. basically the notion is that there are all of these racists out there who were just about to vote for the black guy because they couldn’t tell that he was black until some republican with black-o-vision helps them out by blowing the dogwhistle.
we know it’s supposed to be some really irksome, through-the-front-door transgression of rhetorical ethics by which progressives privilege themselves to wholesale rewrite their opponents’ text with their own strawman and change the subject entirely. but it’s so clearly a thing where you know that you’re not actually talking about a real thing when each instance in which you call “dogwhistle” is preceded by a huddle at tpm or somewhere where you have to convince the stragglers who are like, “wait, which is it? i didn’t catch it.”
more often than not, it put’s progressives’ racial attitudes on display. when progressives see, for instance, the “celebrity” ad and screech “MISCEGENATION!” (miscegenation?) it is clear where their minds are at. when progressives see a criticism of president obama’s policies and call out “VIOLENT HORDES OF NEGRO THUGS ARE COMING FOR YOUR WHITE WOMEN! …uh yea, that’s what they meant to say…” it’s amusing and a little pathetic. biden-esque, really.
and when progressives try to frame the word “professorial” in reference to the president as a “dogwhistle” for “uppity”, the shark has been jumped and it becomes transparent that the point of it all is to proscribe any discussion of the president which may be critical in any terms.
at that point people are looking at progressives as they truly are: as a group unified in their contempt for free speech and political pluralism.
— jummy · Apr 18, 05:14 PM · #
As long as conservatives live in denial about the majority of politically active conservatives being against almost every advancement in civil rights for minorities and women since, well, let’s just say the Civil War, they’ll never understand why liberals get treated differently on issue of race and controversy.
Mike
— MBunge · Apr 18, 06:09 PM · #
“and, did you ever wonder why nobody on the right really gets upset when progressives talk about things in terms of “dogwhistles”?”
That statement might be more convincing if you didn’t follow it with 3 1/2 paragraphs of obviously agitated whining about liberal accusations of “dogwhistles”.
Mike
— MBunge · Apr 18, 06:12 PM · #
no brian, YOU cannot debate the policy positions of the tea party….
and the reason is that the Tea Party attendees hold many conflicting and amorphous positions.
I am saying that ALL TEA PARTY attendees are SELFDESCRIBED CHRISTIANS.
That is the unifying principle of Tea Party membership.
You can say what you like about what sort of christian they are….
but if all the Tea Party members say they are christians (w/e that means to them) doesn’t that mean they are not a political movement, but a religious sect?
— matoko_chan · Apr 18, 06:33 PM · #
let me fix this for you, Brian.
The civil rights movement was led, almost exclusively, by LIBERAL NORTHERN and LIBERAL BLACK Christians.
The civil rights movement was opposed, almost universally, by CONSERVATIVE SOUTHERN and CONSERVATIVE WHITE Christians.
— matoko_chan · Apr 18, 06:39 PM · #
no jummy sowwy.
The conservative movement in this country has achieved electoral majority through dogwhistle racebaiting and IQbaiting….anti-elitism and anti-intellectualism if you will.
Demographic and cultural evolution are decreasing the effectiveness of those tactics.
— matoko_chan · Apr 18, 06:44 PM · #
@ MBunge
just offered as a service. you don’t have to benefit from it if you don’t want to.
noticed you couldn’t identify any of these conservative policies which specifically harm black americans.
probably better that you shout “oh, look a racist!” and move on. i think “and” and “the” are codewords for something or another.
lulz.
— jummy · Apr 18, 06:55 PM · #
No, it’s a reference to chattel slavery of black Americans.
Because you know we’re right, that a significant portion of conservative discourse occurs in the form of shibboleths that mainstream Americans don’t understand, but are coded appeals to far-right positions? Like when Bush famously promised not to appoint any Supreme Court justices who condoned the Dred Scott decision. For most Americans, that was a confusing reference to a court case they’d last heard of in 5th-grade civics. To conservatives, of course, it was a way to promise the appointment of justices who would overturn Roe v. Wade without actually saying he’d do that.
It’s called a “dog whistle” because only conservatives are meant to hear it.
No, jummy, it’s what they do say.
— Chet · Apr 18, 07:06 PM · #
nishi/matoko – How many Tea Party gatherings have you attended or do you rely on MSNBC to form you opinions?
Are the Tea Partiers advancing any “Christian” policies that explain your fear of them?
Your two digit griefer act is stale.
— daleyrocks · Apr 18, 07:09 PM · #
jummy- “noticed you couldn’t identify any of these conservative policies which specifically harm black americans.”
Well, there’s the long standing conservative opposition to just about any and all government action to protect the civil rights of black Americans. I’d give a more complete list but if that isn’t enough, more examples aren’t going to help.
By the way, jummy is what epistemic closure looks like in practice.
Mike
— MBunge · Apr 18, 07:15 PM · #
daleyrocks, all i am saying is that i “betcha” every Tea Party attendee polled will self-describe as a christian.
that is why Tea Party policies are unexplainable……teapartiers on medicare complaining about a goverment funded health care? Medicare is government funded healthcare.
The Tea Party is a religious sect, not a political movement.
Don’t agree?
Prove me wrong.
“go for it”.
— matoko_chan · Apr 18, 07:27 PM · #
@matoko_chan
“The civil rights movement was led, almost exclusively, by LIBERAL NORTHERN and LIBERAL BLACK Christians.”
So you’ve admitted that it was led, almost exclusively, by one religious group. By your standard, it was therefore illegitimate, as it didn’t “represent real America.” Calling the civil rights movement illegitimate? How racist of you. Please go spout your white-supremacist garbage elsewhere.
— Brian · Apr 18, 08:19 PM · #
which policies that are advocated by conservatives and republicans specifically “harm” black americans?
As Hispanic and black Americans are disproportionately represented in the lower socioeconomic classes and underrepresented in the upper socioeconomic class, I am referring to policies that seek to defund or end social programs that help the lower economics classes, and tax schemes that shift the tax burden off of the upper class and onto the lower classes. That is to say, the general economic strategy of the Republican establishment since before I was born.
You don’t need to take my word for Hispanic and black support for such a policy platform, either. Hispanic Americans vote in healthy majorities for Democrats; black Americans vote in dominant majorities for Democrats. Rather than trying to explain everything in terms of liberal trickery, perhaps it would be best to identify the structural motives, based in rational self-interest, that have ensured that these groups vote Democrat time and time again.
— Freddie · Apr 18, 08:31 PM · #
@Freddie
“perhaps it would be best to identify the structural motives, based in rational self-interest…”
Self-interest I’ll buy. Rational, I’m not so sure. It is these very social programs, designed to help, that have kept these communities down for decades. You know what they say. The road to hell is paved by Liberals. Something like that, anyway.
— Brian · Apr 18, 09:04 PM · #
The right wouldn’t have a perception problem with race if it wasn’t an almost exclusively white movement. There are two kinds of Republicans… crackers and racist crackers.
— JakeCollins · Apr 18, 09:32 PM · #
So, according to many commenters here, conservative, Republican, white Christians are racist. Do you people really believe that there are around 50 million white racists in this country? Do you realize how kooky this sounds. All I’ve read lately from the left is how open-minded and intellectully objective they are for the most part. This stance is incredibly fringe and scary, to tell you the truth. I hope this isn’t representative of a large group of Americans.
— mike farmer · Apr 18, 09:42 PM · #
We certainly live in a country that looks like what it would look like if one in every seven people was racist against three of the others.
— Chet · Apr 18, 10:10 PM · #
Brian you are twistin’ in the wind.
All I am saying is that the Tea Partiers would UNIFORMLY self-describe as Christains.
I am not saying you or I would describe them as Christians…..I am saying they would describe themselves that way.
If everyone in the Tea Party describes themselves as a christian, then the Tea Party is a religious movement, not a political one.
This is a hypothesis based on observed data.
I have not seen an atheist or a buddhist step forward to represent the religious diversity of the Tea Party.
I have not seen “god is dead” (or “god is ded” lol) popping up among the socialist/hitler/monkey/witchdocter signs carried by the Tea Party attendees.
Have you?
Don’t believe me?
Then provide some empirical evidence that the Tea Party is not a movement composed ENTIRELY of self-described christians.
Please note, Conor, that Brian is practicing epistemic closure in denying empirical data and attempting to deflect the charge of racism onto the other side.
I think, Conor, that if the Tea Party is revealed as being wholly self-described christians that will be a PR disaster for them…… even more epic than being labelled racists.
— matoko_chan · Apr 18, 10:58 PM · #
@matoko_chan
“All I am saying is that the Tea Partiers would UNIFORMLY self-describe as Christains.”
Nonsense. To suggest that every single one would call themselves a Christian is ridiculous. If this is your “hypothesis”, the burden of proof falls on you. An absence of “God is dead” signs will not cut it, unless you also stipulate that Obama rallies were “Christian grievance” protests as well. In fact, no serious political movement in the history of this country featured signs like that. I would suggest you get to work gathering evidence, but instead I’ll tell you not to bother. It took me less than two minutes to find what you claim doesn’t exist. A Jewish Tea Party member, with a blog to boot.
Every post you make proves you less intelligent than I believed the post before. You say nothing with more words than any commenter I’ve ever read. You are the definition of pseudo-intellectual.
— Brian · Apr 19, 12:53 AM · #
I’m in the curious situation of partially agreeing with matoko_chan and partly disagreeing with her.
The conservative movement in this country has achieved electoral majority through dogwhistle racebaiting and IQbaiting….anti-elitism and anti-intellectualism if you will.
I don’t think this is true of TAS, but I do (regretably) think it’s true of the wider conservative movement. I too see the anti-intellectualism and pandering to populism. And it disturbs and repels me.
The unifying principle, the common denominator of the Tea Party movement is conservative christianity
I suspect your perceptions are being distorted by your own biases here. You are obsessed with religion. You are indifferent to economics. Ergo you perceive that a grassroots conservative movement has the same biases in the opposite direction.
No I think you are mistaken. The conservatism that drives the Tea Party movement is overwhelmingly anxious about fiscal responsibility. In this it is distinct from both Bush-era Republicanism and the current Democrats.
I believe the Tea Party Movement is an attempt to reallign the Republican Party with econo-conservatism. Naturally there are serious forces in the GOP that would like to subvert this and reallign the TPM with their own vision of the GOP. I think socons would love to hijack the TPM, but for now the TPM remains fixated on fiscal issues.
It is in many respects a difficult judgement call because socons and econocons are not disjunct sets. There is a lot of overlap in the self-identification of the factions. Nothing stops a so-con from also being an econo-con if that’s the way the wind is blowing. I would say that is what the fiscal conservatives of the TPM are hoping for – to drive the GOP much further in the direction of econoconservatism.
— Keid A · Apr 19, 01:38 AM · #
All I am saying is that is I believe polling the question would reveal a uniform consensus of self-defined christians.
Do you think of yourself as a christian?…….yes or no.
Simple.
We know from the recent CNN survey that 83% self-define as either catholic or protestant.
Both catholics and protestants are christians, right?
What do the other 17% self-define as?
I think i will go ask Nate Silver.
He has great cross-tab access.
— matoko_chan · Apr 19, 02:37 AM · #
Shut the eff up, matoko. I’m an atheist Asian-American and I support what the Tea Party is saying. Are there racists in the Tea Party? Sure, there are racists all over the world. And don’t give me some fucking shit about Tea Partiers being overly white or overly Christian. So the fuck what? Does the Tea Party say anything about race or social policy in its rallies? No. It’s about the runaway gov’t spending.
And stop with the fucking smear of conservatives. You know what’s the largest organized group of racists in America today? The Democratic Party. Name me another organization that presumes, as a matter of its political ideology, that one’s race should determine one’s political beliefs. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve been told, “Wait, you’re a Republican? But you’re Asian!” I’ve never had a conservative presume that my skin color must determine the way I think, but it comes at me from the Left all the fucking time. It’s fucking annoying to have some jackass white Democrat tell me that I’m voting against my own interest. Thanks, you fucking bigots, but I think I can determine my interests by myself. I can’t even imagine what black conservatives and Republicans must have to deal with.
And if you are Asian, matoko (and I’m dubious since you mix Japanese and Chinese names), go eat a bag of dicks. Start thinking for yourself and stop drinking up the propaganda about how the evil conservatives are racists. Start looking over your own shoulder and note how you’re being used and manipulated.
— JTHC · Apr 19, 06:56 AM · #
I will say this one more time.
I am saying nearly all Tea Party attendees will SELFDESCRIBE as christian. That is a hypothesis.
From the CNN poll 83% selfdescribe as christian, either catholic or protestant.
What is the other 17% percent?
Anecdotal from a handful of “atheists “ that self-select to read this blog is irrelevant.
If we consider that the Tea Party is a religious movement, ie grievance conservative christianity, a lot of illogical Tea Party policy positions begin to make sense….people on medicare protesting government healthcare, people who supported BushRove on drunken-sailor spending having an instant conversion to fiscal responsibility when Obama got elected…
Claiming Thomas Jefferson when he was purely antipathic to core Tea Party ideology like Jesus-take-the-wheel Palinism.
Religions are not logical.
The Tea Party is a religion.
— matoko_chan · Apr 19, 12:30 PM · #
pardon, anecdotal data…..
The liturgy of the Tea Party is taxcuts, god and country, “real” America, patriotism, Israel uber alles, ancestor worship of some imagined parody of the Founders and Framers, and furious opposition to the new social cohesion paradigm which is evolving to replace the failed SCP of White Patriarchy.
I’m a cauc. A minimum of 33% of non-hispanic caucs traditionally vote liberal, Carter to Obama.
But demographic evolution and the whitening of the GOP has made that 33% increasingly important.
— matoko_chan · Apr 19, 12:42 PM · #
Religions are anti-rational ……and religions are certainly epistemically closed.
Conor, cher …….
chew on that.
lawl.
— matoko_chan · Apr 19, 12:58 PM · #
Matoko,
The Bank of International Settlements in Basle was one of the few international agencies that warned about the recent credit crisis in advance.
In their latest report they have warned about the growing unsustainability of fiscal policy in a number of Western countries including the USA.
— Keid A · Apr 19, 01:51 PM · #
This was their earlier warning in 2007
— Keid A · Apr 19, 01:59 PM · #
Tell that to Dr. Manzi, Spock.
Then perhaps he could start using his superpowers for good instead of evil.
— matoko_chan · Apr 19, 02:15 PM · #
I wish I knew what you were talking about matoko_chan.
My point is one doesn’t have to fit your stereotype of a US conservative to be concerned. I believe the BIS. But I am not a Christian or even an American.
— Keid A · Apr 19, 02:43 PM · #
You must be dumber than a bag of bricks, Makoto. Most fiscal conservatives did not support Bush’s spending spree, disapproval reflected in their decision to stay home in big numbers in 2006 and 2008. Again, there’s nothing in the TP movement that suggests that religiosity or preference for a white America.
The whiteness of the crowds is itself a sad reflection of the racist bullshit spewing from bigots like you. Fuckhead white liberals like you demand racial groupthink from non-whites and reflexively label any conservative movement as racist.
We non-white Americans don’t need any more lectures from white liberals like you. Don’t purport to tell me what the Tea Party is and what it isn’t, because YOU DON’T HAVE A FUCKING CLUE. Seriously, all you know is what you’ve read. Go to an actual rally and then come back here with firsthand knowledge. Until then, go eat a bag of dicks.
— JTHC · Apr 19, 03:04 PM · #
Anecdotal evidence is not valid statistical data.
My hypothesis, again, is that nearly all Tea Party attendees would self-describe as christian.
83% already have.
Here is empirical evidence, or what statisticians like to call statisically significant data……..
In 2008 grouped electoral minorities achieved electoral parity resulting in the election of Barack Hussein Obama.
In 2008 the aggregate of minority children under five achieved demographic superiority over non-hispanic cauc children under five for the first time.
The first Tea Party protest took place in 2009.
I agree with Freddie…..minorities vote their economic self-interest.
They are not scammed into voting a liberal ticket.
Some people ARE being scammed into voting against their economic self-interest though.
I wonder who they could be?
lawl.
— matoko_chan · Apr 19, 04:01 PM · #
“Most fiscal conservatives did not support Bush’s spending spree, disapproval reflected in their decision to stay home in big numbers in 2006 and 2008.”
They must be pretty dumb to take that long to react to Bush II’s gigantic, unpaid-for, prescription drug entitlement that he signed into law in 2003.
Mike
— MBunge · Apr 19, 04:22 PM · #
“We non-white Americans don’t need any more lectures from white liberals like you.”
No, you need more thoughtful leadership from Tom Tancredo and more public wisdom like William Bennet saying we could reduce the crime rate by aborting all black babies.
Mike
— MBunge · Apr 19, 04:25 PM · #
Matoko, protests opposing the TARP bailout occurred in over 100 cities across the United States on Thursday September 25 2008, also mass phone-ins etc. The government ignored the protests and passed an ammended version of the bill anyway on the second attempt.
There has been constant popular opposition to all the bailouts and stimuli. This began during the last months of the Bush administration, even though the name “Tea Party” had not been applied to it yet.
— Keid A · Apr 19, 04:33 PM · #
I should cite Wikipedia for that reference
— Keid A · Apr 19, 04:37 PM · #
I find it more than just a little dubious that an Asian person would perceive the name “Matoko-chan” as a “mix of Japanese and Chinese names” and not, say, the Japanese name “Matoko” and the Japanese diminutive title “-chan”.
But not 2004? Sorry, no, there’s no evidence that conservatives “stayed home” in 2006 and 2008, years that had record participation by both parties.
— Chet · Apr 19, 04:42 PM · #
“There has been constant popular opposition to all the bailouts and stimuli.”
And the alternative offered up to the worst financial crisis since The Great Depression and the worst recession in over 25 years was….what? More tax cuts?
Mike
— MBunge · Apr 19, 04:55 PM · #
even though the name “Tea Party” had not been applied to it yet.
zactly.
…the origins of the present day tea party movement can be traced to grassroots Paulite libertarians that supported his presidential campaign in 2008 through an email trail.
In 2009 the Tea Party movement was reborn as a grievance conservative christian protest movement (IMHO).
— matoko_chan · Apr 19, 05:08 PM · #
And the alternative offered up to the worst financial crisis since The Great Depression and the worst recession in over 25 years was….what? More tax cuts?
You are assuming the USA economy will survive. Your opponents believe you have only delayed the day of reckoning – At the price of an even worse collapse soon to follow.
— Keid A · Apr 19, 05:27 PM · #
More Tea Party liturgical guidance.
“Pastor Stan Craig, of the Choice Hills Baptist Church, was particularly angry about the state of Washington, saying he “was trained to defend the liberties of this nation.” He declared that he was prepared to “suit up, get my gun, go to Washington, and do what they trained me to do.”
— matoko_chan · Apr 19, 05:38 PM · #
<i>grievance conservative christian protest movement (IMHO)</i>
Well if you ask me, it is more inspired by Austrian Economic theory than Christianity. More Ludwig von Mises than Jesus Christ. So I agree that the Paulites are a major influence.
— Keid A · Apr 19, 05:43 PM · #
“You are assuming the USA economy will survive. Your opponents believe you have only delayed the day of reckoning – At the price of an even worse collapse soon to follow.”
Well, if there’s nothing that can be done about it…why not delay the day of reckoning as long as possible?
Mike
— MBunge · Apr 19, 05:57 PM · #
Austrians believe that the basic need is for the growing malinvestment to be unwound. They see recessions as the means by which the economy rebalances after a credit bubble bursts. They believe there can be no stable growth until the soundness of the capital structure (based on savings) is restored.
So in the Austrian universe you can either have periodic mild recessions or you keep reinflating bubble after bubble until finally, the state itself collapses.
— Keid A · Apr 19, 06:18 PM · #
“So in the Austrian universe you can either have periodic mild recessions or you keep reinflating bubble after bubble until finally, the state itself collapses.”
Uh, periodic mild recesions are what the country had between roughly 1983 and 2007. At the same time there were two massive bubbles – high tech in the 90s and housing during the 00s. So, what the hell are the Austrians talking about?
Mike
— MBunge · Apr 19, 06:39 PM · #
Austrians argue that you had a series of bubbles, say the tech bubble followed by the real estate bubble followed by the current treasury bubble.
In each case as a bubble burst and the inevitable recession takes hold, the central bank forces the interest rate down to the point that bank credit expansion begins again. So no real reset has occured.
In the most recent case, even zero interest rates have not sufficed to reignite bank lending, because of the poor state of bank balance sheets post-crash, banks refuse to lend. So the Fed has tried to force more liquidity into the economy directly through purchasing financial assets.
In this they have only been partially successful.
In a straight Austrian scenario, the Fed would not exist, there would be a spontaneous commodity money like gold. And interest rates would be set entirely by the market.
It’s worth remembering that the Fed was only created in 1913.
— Keid A · Apr 19, 07:10 PM · #
Right Spock.
Like people that have trouble spelling “Constitition” or promised their constituency an HCR Waterloo for President Obama are able to assimilate Austrian socio-economics.
like i SAID….the Tea Party is a religious movement….. a conservative christian grievance moment that erupted when Obama was elected.
— matoko_chan · Apr 19, 09:03 PM · #
Erupted when Washington started bailing out Wall Street plutocrats, and their schemes, with unheard-of amounts of taxpayers money.
— Keid A · Apr 19, 11:58 PM · #
No, dammit! that was something else, a true grassroots protest against the bailouts.
The Tea Party movement STARTED when Obama took office….that is why the anti-Obama signage, and why HCR was demogogued as Obamacare.
the ron paul r-EVO-lution grassroots preceded it….the paulites are much younger and much less religious than the teatards.
they have gradually faded from the scene, not wanting particularily to be associated with angry old christian white people with badly spelled signs and funny hats.
— matoko_chan · Apr 20, 12:59 AM · #
THANK YOU for posting this! I love your blog!!
COMMON CENTS
http://www.commoncts.blogspot.com
ps. Link Exchange??
— Steve · Apr 20, 03:02 AM · #
“By the way, jummy is what epistemic closure looks like in practice.”
Oh my God*, are you trying to tell me that you people are actually letting this meme stick? Are you kidding me? Is this going to be the new thing — “conservatives suffer from epistemic closure”? All because this one guy on the web wrote a ponderous post about it?
This is how this stuff works, isn’t it? This is how these half-baked memes get started and stick. It’s amazing to watch it in its toddler stage.
* Yeah, weird thing to say, because I’m a tea-partying atheist. I couldn’t care less about Christianity. I do care a lot about idiot power-seekers screwing with my life, freedom and wallet. This stuff is all really simple. Some of you — looking at you, “makota_chan” and MBunge — spend way too much time thinking way too much and reading way too much extraneous stuff into it all. Reality isn’t as complicated as you want it to be, even though I know it’s more fun and dramatic to pretend it is.
— Thomas · Apr 20, 05:38 AM · #
(And with all due respect to you guys at The American Scene: If you don’t have a problem with italics or other formatting in comments — and clearly you don’t, because you happily embrace this convoluted “Textile” thing — could you not just frikking activate HTML here? Good grief!)
— Thomas · Apr 20, 05:41 AM · #
Well hadn’t visited TAS in awhile. Its nice to see things haven’t changed.
Conor you’re admonition to Matako and his continued posting reminds me of that scene from “What About Bob?”
“why’d you kick Bob out of the house”
“You think he’s gone! He’s not gone; he’s never gone”
Youtube here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pKymngWgJw
— c3 · Apr 20, 08:27 PM · #