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On the perception of Tea Parties

May 7, 2010 by B. Daniel Blatt

Last month, I read that a left-of-center friend of mine, a decent person who shows great respect to her ideological adversaries, likened some of the Tea Party language to “hate speech”, with the rallies providing cover for racist rhetoric.

She has, like many critics of this dynamic, grassroots movement, not yet attended a  Tea Party and, like many busy professionals, doesn’t have time to look to as many alternative sources of news as do bloggers.  Thus, given the tilt of the media coverage of the Tea Party, it’s not surprising that the average consumer of news, has a jaundiced view of this phenomenon.

People busy with his work and family don’t have time to surf the web to confirm every story they read in such left-leaning dailies as the New York or Los Angeles Times.  Thus, it is no wonder, as blogging law professor William A. Jacobson observed, a Washington Post poll found that 28% of Americans find racial prejudice underlying the Tea Party.

. . . the fact that “nearly three in ten” Americans perceive the Tea Parties as racist is amazingly low considering how much time WaPo and NY Times columnists, Democratic members of Congress, and left-wing blogs spend calling Tea Partiers racist.

The only reason Tea Parties are “battling perceptions of racism,” as the Post puts it, is because of the prejudices of the reporters from papers like theirs as well as from various and sundry mainstream news outlets.

Since these journalists are predisposed to find racism on the right, they will play up the handful of nasty slogans they see on random signs at our rallies or the occasional nut-bag who happens to show up at the protests they cover.  As we (and other conservative and libertarian bloggers) have said repeatedly, there are nuts in every political movement.  But, somehow, the isolated extremists are supposed to define ours.

Nobody was asking Barney Frank to differentiate himself from the mean-spirited anti-war protesters in Bush era who likened the then-president to Hitler and wished for his death.  Why then are his ideological allies in the halls of Congress and the offices of mainstream news outlets then defining our movement by its fringe?

NB:  I cleaned up a few typos and changed a few expressions to improve the flow of the piece.

Filed Under: Civil Discourse, Media Bias, Tea Party

Comments

  1. American Elephant says

    May 7, 2010 at 4:26 am - May 7, 2010

    …there are nuts in every political movement. But, somehow, the isolated extremists are supposed to define ours.

    You’re very good at the rhetorical post, but you know as well as I that liberals project.

    They assume others are racist because they are racist.
    They assume others lie cheat and steal because they lie cheat and steal.

    And they assume other protests are filled with extremist nutcases because their protests ARE FILLED with extremist drug-addled nutcases. (*warning, link contains naked bearded women that cannot be unseen) More the rule than the exception.

  2. ILoveCapitalism says

    May 7, 2010 at 9:14 am - May 7, 2010

    the rallies providing cover for racist rhetoric

    What rhetoric? (Note: The allegations of Cleaver, Lewis, etc. don’t count, as they are most likely phony.)

  3. Ashpenaz says

    May 7, 2010 at 10:33 am - May 7, 2010

    I think that hard-working undocumented immigrants who are rallying to become tax-paying citizens are more American than people who have been born here who want to become law-breaking tax-evaders.

  4. North Dallas Thirty says

    May 7, 2010 at 3:44 pm - May 7, 2010

    I think that hard-working undocumented immigrants who are rallying to become tax-paying citizens are more American than people who have been born here who want to become law-breaking tax-evaders.

    So you say that people who deliberately break the law are more American?

    Then evading taxes should make you more American, right Ashpenaz? Or are you now going to flip flop and say that breaking the law makes you a criminal and less American?

  5. Ashpenaz says

    May 7, 2010 at 4:16 pm - May 7, 2010

    Tax evaders are law breakers. Gays in the military are lawbreakers and we should go up to every soldier who looks gay and make him/her prove his/her heterosexuality. Gay partnerships are illegal in AZ.

    As far as Tea Parties go, it was the liberals who dumped the tea. It was the conservatives–the Tories–who were willing to pay taxes.

  6. ThatGayConservative says

    May 7, 2010 at 5:35 pm - May 7, 2010

    Gays in the military are lawbreakers and we should go up to every soldier who looks gay and make him/her prove his/her heterosexuality.

    Which goes to show you have not the first fcuking clue what the law says. Other than that, I’d pay money to see you force soldiers to “prove” their sexuality.

    How many buttons of shrooms did you have today?

  7. Ashpenaz says

    May 7, 2010 at 6:34 pm - May 7, 2010

    I’d certainly pay the soldiers to watch them prove their sexuality. 🙂

    Incidentally, have you ever heard of Swiftian satire?

  8. The_Livewire says

    May 7, 2010 at 6:35 pm - May 7, 2010

    Yes I have Ash,

    May I suggest you study it?

  9. Classical Liberal Dave says

    May 8, 2010 at 12:48 am - May 8, 2010

    28% of Americans believing in the racism of the TEA party movement means that the leftists and their allies believe in the racism of the TEA party movement.

    Big deal.

  10. American Elephant says

    May 8, 2010 at 9:23 am - May 8, 2010

    meanwhile 30% of Obama supporters are birthers.

  11. American Elephant says

    May 8, 2010 at 9:24 am - May 8, 2010

    Ooops, sorry, 30% of birthers are Obama supporters….sorry, wrote that backwards, not awake yet!

  12. Lori Heine says

    May 8, 2010 at 1:05 pm - May 8, 2010

    “Gay partnerships are illegal in AZ.”

    Oh, goody…more lies about my home state.

    Gay partnerships are not “illegal” in Arizona. I know a hell of a lot of partnered people here — none of whom has yet been rounded up and arrested for it.

    Kindly do some research before making ignoramus claims.

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