{"id":2902,"date":"2010-10-05T15:23:12","date_gmt":"2010-10-05T22:23:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=2902"},"modified":"2010-10-05T15:23:12","modified_gmt":"2010-10-05T22:23:12","slug":"poll-tea-party-is-wildly-out-of-touch-with-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=2902","title":{"rendered":"Poll: Tea Party Is Wildly Out Of Touch With America"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Fox\/GOPA new poll (pdf)<\/a> by the Public Religion Research Institute reveals what most conscious observers already knew: The views of the Tea Party are wholly removed from those of the rest of the American people.<\/p>\n

The differences between the Tea Party and everyone else are so stark that it should give pause to any media outlet that contemplates treating the so-called movement as if it has any relevancy to current public affairs. The survey identifies a number of examples of what has been considered conventional wisdom and blasts them out of the water.<\/p>\n

The first example of note is the notion that the Tea Party itself represents a significant segment of society. The truth is that there are just 11% of Americans who identify themselves as Tea Partiers. Only 24% say that a Tea Party affiliation would make them more likely to vote for a candidate, while 31% say it would make them less likely to give that candidate their vote.<\/p>\n

Another example is the belief that Tea Partiers have an independent, Libertarian point of view. The survey shows that that is not the case. The Tea Partiers are predominantly Christian, social conservatives who oppose abortion and gay rights. And they are also far more likely to vote Republican (83%).<\/p>\n

Tea Party views on public figures are also outside the mainstream. Seventy-five percent have an unfavorable view of Obama (25% favorable), while the rest of us view Obama favorably by 58% (40% unfavorable). On Sarah Palin the Tea Partiers are 80% favorable (14% unfavorable), compared to 52% unfavorable (40% favorable) for the rest of the country.<\/p>\n

A couple of other interesting results in the poll that are not widely recognized: A majority of voters (54%) say they would be more likely to vote for a candidate who supported health care reform. And nearly 6-in-10 (58%) Americans favor a policy that provides a future path to citizenship to undocumented immigrants who have been in the U.S. for several years. On that subject, 64% of Tea Partiers think that immigrants are a burden on society, while only 48% of Americans overall have that view.<\/p>\n

Some things we already knew, or could reasonably guess, about the Tea Party were affirmed in the survey. They are overwhelmingly white: 80%, compared to 69% of the population at large. They are concentrated in the south with 43% of their numbers residing there. And they are glued to Fox News. While only 23% of Americans overall regard Fox as their most trusted news source (about the same as CNN and the broadcast networks), two and a half times that many (57%) Tea Partiers do. That’s an even higher number than Republicans (48%) or Christian conservatives (39%).<\/p>\n

The conclusion that is abundantly clear is that the Tea Party is a fringe cadre of extremists who have little in common with average Americans. So why do they get so much attention in the press? Well, partly because the press loves controversy, even if they have to invent it. And partly because the Republican Party is anxious to hitch its wagon to the Tea Party express in hopes of enhancing their electoral prospects.<\/p>\n

But the main reason the Tea Party gets so much attention in the press is because they have their own press (i.e. Fox News, talk radio, etc.) that pours out their propaganda in a flood of fury, fear, and foreboding.<\/p>\n

In the face of that Apocalyptic onslaught, it is comforting to see that majorities of Americans have not bought the snake oil being peddled by the Grand Old\/Tea Party. And there is obviously still hope that the American people will surprise the media lackeys who would rather stir the pot than tell the truth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A new poll (pdf) by the Public Religion Research Institute reveals what most conscious observers already knew: The views of the Tea Party are wholly removed from those of the rest of the American people. The differences between the Tea Party and everyone else are so stark that it should give pause to any media […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[152,1],"tags":[33,534],"class_list":["post-2902","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-election","category-general","tag-fox-news","tag-tea-party"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4Ijg-KO","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5108,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=5108","url_meta":{"origin":2902,"position":0},"title":"Fox Nation vs. Reality: Obama And The Tea Party","author":"Mark NC","date":"8\/5\/2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Once again, Fox Nation outright lies in a headline article. The arrogance of the Fox Nationalists is astonishing in that they will brazenly lie even while providing a link to the source data the exposes them as liars. Here we have Fox Nation headlining that President Obama is more unpopular\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5124,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=5124","url_meta":{"origin":2902,"position":1},"title":"Rasmussen Poll Asks If The Tea Party Are Terrorists","author":"Mark NC","date":"8\/8\/2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Rassmussen Reports, the official Fox News source for conservatively biased polling, conducted an interesting survey over the weekend that asked: \"Some people have accused the Tea Party of acting like economic terrorists during the budget debates. Are members of the Tea Party economic terrorists?\" I suppose it depends on how\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Election"","block_context":{"text":"Election","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=152"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6376,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=6376","url_meta":{"origin":2902,"position":2},"title":"Fox News Poll: Obama Shines, Tea Party Whines","author":"Mark NC","date":"2\/10\/2012","format":false,"excerpt":"There are a number of uber-conservative commentators who have arrived at the conclusion that Fox News has slithered down the rabbit hole to a Hades-flavored Wonderland of liberalism. They have convinced themselves that Fox has become as liberal as what they perceive the rest of the media to be. For\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Election"","block_context":{"text":"Election","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=152"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1619,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1619","url_meta":{"origin":2902,"position":3},"title":"Sinking Fast: Sarah Palin And The Tea Bag Sag","author":"Mark NC","date":"4\/14\/2010","format":false,"excerpt":"In a new CNN\/Opinion Research poll, the ephemeral nature of the Tea Party movement is once again revealed. When asked for their opinion of Tea Parties, respondents were decidedly unenthusiastic. \u00a0AprilJanuary Strongly Support12%15% Moderately Support15%20% Moderately Oppose6%8% Strongly Oppose21%11% Don't Know Enough45%45% While the total numbers for support and opposition\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Election"","block_context":{"text":"Election","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=152"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3291,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=3291","url_meta":{"origin":2902,"position":4},"title":"Yet Another Poll Reveals The Tea Party Craze Is A Fraud","author":"Mark NC","date":"11\/24\/2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Despite all the evidence of repeated surveys, the media continues to treat the Tea Party as if it were an influential player in contemporary politics. They salivate at plastering their pages and airwaves with red-meat melodrama that lacks relevance or substance. That's how they end up so pathetically far off\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6207,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=6207","url_meta":{"origin":2902,"position":5},"title":"Has The Tea Party Gone Cold?","author":"Mark NC","date":"1\/17\/2012","format":false,"excerpt":"An article today in The Hill has collected some evidence of the fading influence of the Tea Party. The author, Josh Lederman, leads off the column with the declarative statement that \"The Tea Party is falling to pieces.\" He then goes on to enumerate the reasons for that assessment, including:\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2902","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2902"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2902\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2904,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2902\/revisions\/2904"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}