The Tea Party's Phony Populism

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http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-04-15/the-tea-partys-fake-populism/?cid=hp:exc#

The Tea Party's Phony Populism

by Peter Beinart

A new New York Times poll shows Tea Partiers are grumpy, older, well-off Americans who think white people are oppressed—in other words, Republicans.

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The Tea Partiers aren’t standing up for the little guy; they’re standing up to the little guy. We’ve long known that their leaders, like Sarah Palin, opposed against real regulation of Wall Street. Now we learn that what the Tea Partiers dislike about Barack Obama’s economic policies is that they don’t do enough for the rich. According to the Times, Tea Partiers are more likely than other Americans to think Barack Obama’s policies favor the poor, and they’re mad as heck about it. Not exactly William Jennings Bryan stuff.

The Tea Partiers aren’t too fond of racial underdogs either. They’re more likely than other Americans to believe that the Obama administration favors blacks over whites, and that black people’s hardships have been exaggerated. America does have a history of right-wing, often racist, populism. Segregationist Alabama Governor George Wallace called his party the Populists in 1968. But at least Wallace’s economic views were reasonably progressive. The Tea Partiers favor the economically and racially privileged. They fail the populism test on both counts.

So the press has a problem: what to call this intriguing new force in American politics? What kind of adjective suits older, grumpy, well-off Americans who believe Democrats are communists, the poor have it too easy and white people are oppressed? The term “Republican” comes to mind.