On tea parties and liberty
I’m trying to write less about the tea party movement, which has been pretty definitively proven to be no “movement” at all, but rather a cobbled together group of conservative Republicans and Paulite Libertarians. But the new University of Washington study on white American attitudes contains some very interesting information, not just about race, which you can probably predict for yourself, but rather on the subject of liberty.
The survey found that as a rule, the white Americans who are most sympathetic to the tea parties are the least committed to civil liberties. Let me say that again: the more a person supports the tea party movement, the LESS likely they are to oppose things like wiretapping, indefinite detention, racial profiling, and denial of someone’s rights based on their political beliefs. And tea party sympathizers support these assaults on civil liberties, by the same federal government they claim to fear.
Here are the numbers:
When read the following statement: “The government can detain people as long as they wish without trial,” 90 percent of “true skeptics” of the TPM disagreed, versus 79 percent of “middle of the roaders” 70 percent of all whites surveyed, and just 54 percent of tea party “true believers.” The gap between true believers and middle of the roaders was a whopping 25 points.
On the statement, “The government can tap people’s telephone conversations,” 72 percent of true skeptics disagreed, 53 percent of middle of the roaders, 50 percent of all whites and just 33 percent of tea party true believers. The gap this time: 20 percent.
On the statement: The government can profile someone on account of race or religion,” 74 percent of skeptics disagreed, 57 percent of MORs, 57 percent of all whites and just 33 percent of tea party true believers disagreed. The gap: 24 percent.
And one more: “No matter what a person’s political beliefs are, they are entitled to the same rights as everyone else,” — now this one is stunning, given that one of the arguments tea party people make is that the Obama administration is trying to silence them based on their political beliefs. On this one, 94 percent of skeptics agree, 85 percent of MORs, 89 percent of all whites, and 81 percent of tea party true believers, a TP-MOR gap of 8 percent. In other words, 2 in 10 tea partiers, and virtually no tea party skeptics, think the government should be allowed to persecute people based on their political beliefs.
Who are these people?
The simple answer is that they are partisan authoritarians, as John Dean has described, including in his book “Conservatives Without Conscience,” who don’t really believe in small, unobtrusive government. They believe in big, intrusive government that provides them with Social Security and Medicare (or even a government job,) but which they fear is giving away too much to minorities and the poor. But if a Republican should return to the White House, these people and their protests would likely melt away, no matter how far the government overreached in terms of Americans’ civil liberties, because clearly, it’s not big government they hate, it’s any government led by Barack Obama.a
Read the liberty portion of the survey here. More info on the survey, including the race crosstabs can be found here.
Cross-posted at TPMCafe.
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