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- iHaveNet.com: Politics
by Clarence Page
Tea party organizers are outraged that leaders of the
Tea party leaders were outraged to hear that the
Tea party leaders, for whom the "Tea" stands for "Taxed enough already," have tried mightily to beat back charges of racism as they oppose the nation's first black president.
In fact, I'm sure tea party supporters, who are almost indistinguishable from other far-right conservatives, would love to pass a resolution of their own to condemn racist elements in the
Instead, they pride themselves on staying "grass roots" with lots of different organizations carrying the tea party name, but nobody truly accountable for the national movement.
That lack of accountability has its advantages. When you're not obligated to come up with solutions, you can spend more time complaining about the problems.
However, it does leave your national image at the mercy of whoever happens to show up at your rallies and catch media eyes and microphones with the most outrageous protest signs or sound-bites, some of which may be racially tinged.
As a result, according to an
Nonsense, say the tea party supporters I have interviewed at rallies and elsewhere. They're offended that the
Payback is a prominent theme in tea party rhetoric. As liberals took their turn to set the national agenda after Obama's election, tea party conservatives rose up to take their turn as angry, complaining, "grass roots," outsider victims. That's regime change, American-style.
Yet it is hardly surprising that the
As the
That's a big divide between the tea party and most black Americans, who are far more likely to see racism as a problem. In that regard, African Americans are not likely to view professed tea party indifference to racism as much more of a virtue than outright support of it would be.
But a bigger and more revealing surprise about changing attitudes came out of a
Democrats (70 percent) and independents (62 percent) also were more optimistic than Republicans (55 percent). Blacks and liberals may see racism as a bigger problem than white conservatives do, but it apparently has not dimmed their hopes for a brighter future.
Available at Amazon.com:
The Disappearing Center: Engaged Citizens, Polarization, and American Democracy
The Virtues of Mendacity: On Lying in Politics
Bush on the Home Front: Domestic Policy Triumphs and Setbacks
The Political Fix: Changing the Game of American Democracy, from the Grassroots to the White House
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