As a liberal, I am completely baffled trying to understand the teabaggers, who they are and what they want. You may ask, why waste time and energy thinking about them? Well, it seems to me that we can find common ground with some of them; and maybe we should.
Tom Tancredo's speech last night was racist and downright ignorant. Is he speaking for the majority of those attending the convention, or just trying to promote his personal agenda?
In reading about the teabaggers, on the surface we seem to have many things in common. We are frustrated, they are frustrated. We support main street over Wall street; from what I've read, they do as well. We support local banks over big banks. They also seem to. Many of us oppose the Patriot Act. Many of them do as well (although probably for different reasons.) Many of us oppose the two (or three) wars. Many of them appear too also. The things I am stating about the teabaggers I have found from different sources; television interviews I have seen, newspaper articles, radio interviews (NPR.) It seems like we have many things in common. Can we as liberals and Democrats, tap into some of that anger and populism, and turn it to our advantage?
Or, is there no common ground? I believe government is a source for good and public service is one of the highest callings. They believe in little government. I am not a racist, sexist or homophobe. It appears that many of them are; judging from the signs some of them carry.
From what I've ascertained, many teabaggers are low income. They probably need health care and other government run programs. Why do they vote against their own self-interests? In fact, why do so many low income people vote against their own self interests?
My conclusion is that they are also low information voters who listen to right wing talk radio and Fox news like it were gospel. They fall for the Becks, Limbaughs and Palins of the world because they don't think about how things affect them. They are like sheep.
My question is; is it worth the time and effort for Dems to try to tap into the anger and populism and try to educate the ones we can? Or are the teabaggers todays version of the KKK? Is the chasm too deep on race, social issues and the role of government to even bother? It has always bothered me that so many poor people vote Republican; when they are voting against themselves. If we could even get a small percentage of them to realize this, it may make a difference in some state-wide elections. What do you think? Is it worth the effort?