Thread: Most 'tea party' followers are baby boomers reliving the '60

Opinion

Most 'tea party' followers are baby boomers reliving the '60s

A poll debunks assumptions about the movement, showing that it's largely middle-class, college-educated, white and male.

By Jim Spencer and Curtis Ellis
February 24, 2010 | 5:01 p.m.

Oceans of ink, terabytes of blog space and an eternity of television time have been devoted to the latest object of media fascination, the "tea party" movement. Now (finally!), a poll conducted by CNN gives us some hard data on the Tea Party Nation.

Neither "average Americans," as they like to portray themselves, nor trailer-park "Deliverance" throwbacks, as their lefty detractors would have us believe, tea partyers are more highly educated and wealthier than the rest of America. Nearly 75% are college educated, and two-thirds earn more than $50,000.

More likely to be white and male than the general population, tea partyers also skew toward middle age or older. That's the tell. Most came of age in the 1960s, an era distinguished by widespread disrespect for government. In their wonder years, they learned that politics was about protesting the Establishment and shouting down the Man. No wonder they're doing that now.

Look closely at the tea partyer and what you see is a famil- iar American genus: a solidly middle-class, college-educated boomer, endowed by his creator with possessions, opinions and certain inalienable rights, the most important of which is the right to make sure you hear what he has to say.

The tea party is a harbinger of midlife crisis, not political crisis. For men of a certain age, it offers a counterculture experience familiar from adolescence -- underground radio, esoteric tracts, consciousness-raising teach-ins and rallies replete with extroverted behavior to shock the squares -- all paid for with ample cash.

The partyers are essentially replaying the '60s protest paradigm. (We're aging boomers ourselves, so we know it when we see it.) They fancy themselves the vanguard of a revolution, when in fact they are typical self-absorbed, privileged children used to having their way -- now -- and uninhibited about complaining loudly when they don't. It's the same demographic Spiro Agnew called "an effete corps of impudent snobs who characterize themselves as intellectuals."

In a flashback of "turn on, tune in, drop out," the partyers reject mainstream culture, don the equivalent of Che T-shirts that say "Don't Tread on Me," and join sects with trippy names like Oath Keepers, Patriotic Resistance and Freedom Force. Instead of getting themselves "back to the garden," they get off the grid and, like the Bill Ayers crew, indulge in fantasies about armed rebellion against the establishment.

But the (often-overlooked) truth about the '60s is that the great accomplishments we associate with the era -- civil rights, putting a man on the moon -- were made not by boomers but by the generation born before World War II, which accepted shared sacrifice and saw it as an expression of their belief in duty, honor and country, not as socialism.

At Woodstock, Haight-Ashbury and the marches on Washington, the boomers socialized rather than sacrificed. They made great theater, and the media couldn't resist them. It still can't.

The tea partyers' pictures and sound bites are so good, no one cares that their math doesn't add up: Cut taxes and the deficit but keep your hands off my Medicare; do something about jobs but don't increase spending. Everyone understands it's about something deeper.

Ah, tea partyer, we know ye well. One of your signs says "Listen to ME!" That's all that's ever really mattered -- the original "me generation" grabbing the spotlight and the world's attention by whatever means necessary. The rest, whether beads, bell bottoms or birther slogans, is just a means to the same end.

Jim Spencer and Curtis Ellis are Democratic political consultants based in Boston and New York, respectively.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/com ... 4643.story

they forgot to mention we are tax payers and have been for 40+years.

So what if many of the Tea Party folks are white, middle class and college-educated. But to draw this ridiculous psycho profile from those facts should get these authors thrown out of the Dem party. It is beginning to sound like another bashing on people they do not know so they can feel better about themselves.

They have to bash the whole since they don't have a single face to point to, and smear, so the dems do what they do best when they can't argue facts anymore, grab bucket after bucket of mud. I wonder if some strw effigies might give them a clue like the colonists did.

Terrorist bomber Ayers is white, middle class, educated and a revolutionist of the 60's. So their point is what?

I think the Tea party people are a mix of boomers that protested in the 60's BUT I think most are boomers that never protested and knew that watching TV wasn't all they needed to do. They felt compelled to go to the Townhalls and it started there. IMHO

Jim Spencer and Curtis Ellis are Democratic political consultants based in Boston and New York, respectively.

Well I think this explains why the elite don't get the Tea Party movement and never will, it has nothing to do with race, income, or background. But it is kind of funny that some former 60's radical hippies are now looked at with disdain by Y2K radicals!

I have attended at least 12 Tea Party events and I don't find any of that "data" true.

Here is what I experienced:
1. All ages - especially college age Ron Paul fans
2. In CA - lots of hispanics and blacks! At one of the largest anti-health care bill in West Los Angeles a large group of blacks, including some black doctors had a table set up to register blacks to vote - they were registering Republicans.
3. Democrat's - I was registered as an Independent, but re-registered Republican so I could vote for Chuck DeVore in the June Primary. The eight people in line with me were all Democrat's. As I talked to those in the crowd, there were many Democrat's and they all were talking about how they didn't want to be part of this "new" Democrat party. They did not like Saul Alinsky, or Van Jones etc. They were more upset than the Republicans or Independents because they felt their "party" had been hijacked.
4. Finally almost to the tee - the people I met had never been part of any 60's movement and had not protested before. They were in elementary school or high school in the 60's for the most part or not yet born.

In the groups that I have gone to though there have been many in their 60's to 70's the huge percentage has been 50 and below, again with many college age Ron Paul fans.

HOW DARE THEY STEREOTYPIFY!!!!! THEY ARE RACIST!!!! I AM MIXED ETHNICITY AND BORN IN THE LATE 70'S... WHO ARE THESE "WHACK JOBS"... I WANT TO FILE A LAWSUIT AGAINST CNN AND THESE IDIOTS!!!! I'LL FIND OUT WHO AND DO JUST THAT!!!!

Originally Posted by American-ized

HOW DARE THEY STEREOTYPIFY!!!!! THEY ARE RACIST!!!! I AM MIXED ETHNICITY AND BORN IN THE LATE 70'S... WHO ARE THESE "WHACK JOBS"... I WANT TO FILE A LAWSUIT AGAINST CNN AND THESE IDIOTS!!!! I'LL FIND OUT WHO AND DO JUST THAT!!!!

It says at the top of the piece that it is an "OPINION".
That means that it is their OPINION.
It isn't a "NEWS ARTICLE".
I doubt that you can sue someone because their opinion differs from yours.