Will the 14%ers be able to derail the 99%ers?
Asked by
ETpro (
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October 13th, 2011
The Tea Party is plotting ways to discredit and stop the Occupy Wall Street protests that have swept more than 1,000 cities and towns in the US and are spreading around the world. The Tea Party enjoys strong support from only 14% of Americans today, and their numbers continue to slide. Can they succeed in ensuring that Wall Street can continue with casino capitalism so the “Wealth Creators” can grab even more of the nation’s treasure? How will letting them do that resolve the problem that consumers can’t spend because they have no money?
Since most of the Tea Party members are not in the top 1%, why are they so obsessed with destroying their own jobs and incomes in order to further enrich the top 1%, who have seen their incomes rise 300% over the past 30 years and their taxes fall by more than 50% while the average Tea Party member has seen static or shrinking income coupled with increased taxes? What motivates such reverse Robin Hood behavior?
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5 Answers
I’m pretty sure most tea partiers are in the 99% whether they want to admit it or not.
The Tea Party started as a libertarian movement (until Fox “News” and company hijacked them), and a lot of their current views are just perverted or extreme views of that movement. So honestly, some of their views are completely in line with what they believe, as in no taxes, no government, etc. They’re just views that I think a broad group of America realizes aren’t practical.
The “reverse robin-hood-ism” is just a result of them thinking that the government should be small enough to drown in a tub. Some of their movement is driven by huge corporations and billionaire conservatives (see Koch brothers), but many of these people would still have their beliefs even without the 1% adding fuel to the fire for their own purposes.
I doubt the Tea party, or any conservative movement, will be able to stop the “Occupy” movement on their own. What could very potentially do the movement in is the hallmark of the left…. disorganization.
I forget who said it but it’s worth saying… when asked about his political affiliations… “I’m not a member of any organized political party…. I’m a Democrat.”
@tedd I believe that was Will Rogers.
I blame poor math skills and grave misunderstandings about economics. While it is true that most of the money companies use to expand and hire comes from investors, many are of the mistaken view that giving the top more money to invest will lead to prosperity and jobs.
Many of them also believe that high unemployment and poverty rates don’t matter so long as profits are up; only lazy worthless people are unemployed while the top tiers deserve to be rewarded for their benevolence and charity by providing us with all that we have.
The problem is that they are disciplined and cohesive while the Occupy movement isn’t and, if the history of the Democratic party is any clue, probably never will be.
The ones I worry about are The 53%.
I also worry about how mathematically inept Americans will keep their percentages straight.
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