Reports of Tea Party's Demise Greatly Exaggerated

The New York Times would have you believe that the Tea Party is a veritable terrorist organization. No one should be surprised that they've managed to generate poll numbers that seem to suggest that the Tea Party is in a state of decline:

So a New York Times/CBS News poll finds 40 percent disapprove of the Tea Party. Given how so-called "news" outlets like the Times and CBS have been mercilessly pounding on Tea Party members for over two years, is that surprising?

Frankly, it's more shocking given the negative media coverage of this group that more Americans don't disapprove of it.

No kidding.

No one can question the New York Times' commitment to excellence in Tea Party defamation. But can we trust their polling?

Let's take a discerning look at the numbers:

Question 31:

"Is your opinion of the Tea Party movement favorable, not favorable, undecided, or haven't you heard enough about the Tea Party movement yet to have an opinion?"

Favorable

Apr 2010 21%

Feb 2011 18%

Aug 2011 20%

That looks like a stable favorable opinion to me.

What about the size of the Tea Party? Any big changes there?

Question 33:

"Do you consider yourself to be a supporter of the Tea Party movement, or not?"

Yes

Apr 2010 21%

Feb 2011 18%

Aug 2011 20%

Again, essentially unchanged.

What about that 40% disapproval rate? Doesn't that prove that millions of Americans hate the Tea Party? Take the Times data with an oversized grain of skepticism.

Would you believe the latest poll results if you knew the poll included a small number of conservatives?

Take a look at these numbers:

How would you describe your views on most political matters? Generally, do you think of yourself as liberal, moderate, or conservative?

Apr 2010 Lib 21% Mod 34% Con 38%

Aug 2011 Lib 22% Mod 43% Con 32%

Note the substantial drop in the percentage of conservatives since April of 2010. Did that really happen? Gallup says no:

Americans' political ideology at the midyear point of 2011 looks similar to 2009 and 2010, with 41% self-identifying as conservative, 36% as moderate, and 21% as liberal.

If this pattern continues, 2011 will be the third straight year that conservatives significantly outnumber moderates -- the next largest ideological bloc.

The New York Times says conservatives are at 32% and dropping, Gallup puts conservatives at 41% strong.

If the NYT/CBS poll is overlooking conservatives, could it also be overlooking a few Tea Party supporters?

Liberal media outlets and liberal politicians (including some Republicans) are diligently working to crush the Tea Party, but I'm not sure that it's working.

Over at NewsBusters, Noel Sheppard provides a helpful reminder:

...the only poll that really matters happens on Election Day, and the last one was quite good for the Tea Party.

x-posted

The Tea Party KKK Jihad

Neo-Confederate Tea Party Extremist, Tim Scott

I don't think I've seen pandemic Progressive psychosis of this sort since the Reagan years.

Patterned after the contents of their most irrational fears, the left has engineered a chimeric misrepresentation of the average Tea Partier, a creature who is part neo-confederate Klansman, part jihadist suicide bomber.

Michael Lind covers the Klansman angle at Salon:

Today's Tea Party movement is merely the latest of a series of attacks on American democracy by the white Southern minority, which for more than two centuries has not hesitated to paralyze, sabotage or, in the case of the Civil War, destroy American democracy in order to get their way...

The fact that Tea Party conservatism speaks with a pronounced Southern drawl may have escaped the attention of the mainstream media, but it is obvious to members of Congress who have to try to work with these disproportionately-Southern fanatics. One is Rep. Loretta Sanchez of California. As a guest on a radio show, she mocked the Southern accent of the typical congressional Tea Party caucus member...

Relying on indirect and arbitrary measures of the Tea Party's demographic composition, Michael Lind and his ignorant ilk conjur up a fictional Tea Party, just one redneck short of a massive, unstoppable lynch mob:

...while there may be Tea Party sympathizers throughout the country, in the House of Representatives the Tea Party faction that has used the debt ceiling issue to plunge the nation into crisis is overwhelmingly Southern in its origins...

The four states with the most Tea Party representatives in Congress are all former members of the Confederate States of America...

The rest of the Tea Party cohort, Lind argues, is comprised largely of transplanted Southern crackers:

If states with significant white Southern diasporas were included, the Southern proportion of the House Tea Party caucus would be even bigger. Many of the other states with Tea Party representatives are border states with significant Southern populations and Southern ties.

With his conveniently flexible definitions of "Southern" and "Tea Party," Lind is coming dangerously close to building an unfalsifiable hypothesis.

Analyzing the hysterical rhetoric of Michael Lind (and a sex-obsessed word salad offered up by Amanda Marcotte), Robert Stacy McCain identifies the elements of psychosis:

So it’s neo-Confederates and/or “sex panic” that cause people to, uh . . . . Wait, what are we talking about? The federal debt.

The only way to exempt yourself from these bizarre accusations is to support infinite deficit spending. Otherwise, you’re like a giant inkblot in a Rorshach test, onto which Michael Lind and Amanda Marcotte will project their paranoid fears.

I won't beat the dead horse with an in-depth discussion of the Left's growing fear of Tea Party Jihad. Suffice it to say that the fact that these delusional obsessions are openly discussed in the New York Times illustrates how hard mainstream lefties have been hit by their pandemic of psychopathology.

Discussion: Memeorandum

x-posted