As if the right-wing fringe politics of the nationally-organized tea parties are not embarrassing enough, almost nobody showed up for them.
Staten Island's Republican fringe show up for a party that almost nobody else cared about. Image: Emmanuel Dunand / AFP / Getty
“Tens of thousands of people” across the United States showed up at the tea parties to denounce taxes, Barack Obama, evolution and whatever else they could throw on the plate.
To give you perspective on the turn-out of ”tens of thousands” across a country of over 300,000,000 people, at Denver, Colorado’s Gay Pride Parade in 2008 there were 250,000 participants in attendance.
An estimated 800,000 people protested the Republican National Convention in 2004.
Tens of thousands nationwide, even with right-wing media stars hyping these events? Perhaps nobody showed up because most Americans think that they are paying a fair amount of their taxes. Robert Schlesinger at U.S. News & World Report:
According to Gallup, for only the second time in more than half a century, a plurality of Americans (48-46 percent) think that they’re paying the proper amount of taxes. The only other time that that has been true since 1956 was in 2003 when 50 percent of Americans felt they were paying the right amount in taxes. Drilling down a bit deeper, the slim plurality comes entirely from Democrats, who 55-40 think we’re paying the right amount of taxes (up sharply from 2008 when they thought so 47-45). Independents narrowly disagree, with 48 percent saying taxes are too high and 46 percent saying they’re just right–though that figure too has narrowed sharply, as it was 54-40 in 2008. And Republicans are not surprisingly opposite Democrats, with 53 percent saying taxes are too high and 43 percent saying they’re about right. (Really? Forty-three percent of Republicans think taxes are correct? I thought it was an article of GOP faith that taxes are by their nature too high.)
A separate Gallup poll released today showed that for the first time in 15 years a plurality of Americans think lower-income people are being taxed fairly (usually, they are seen as overtaxed), while by a margin of 50-43, they believe that middle-income taxpayers are taxed at the proper rate (this has fluctuated fairly rhythmically over the decade). Nobody likes the wealthy, of course: 60 percent of Americans think them under-taxed, 23 percent think they pay their fair share, and 13 percent feel that they are overburdened. (The “fair share” and “too much” numbers both declined this year, while the “overburdened” number went up.)
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David,
Granting that this was a smaller protest in toto than leftist protests in recent years, I think you (and Krugman, and others) are wrong to characterize the protests as AstroTurfing, and as having gone nowhere.
With my proverbial Wikinewsie hat on, I went to the one in Hartford, CT, and was struck by a) the much-larger-than-expected crowd, and b) the enthusiasm and animus of the participants. See my photos: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Hartford,_Connecticut_Tea_Party_protest,_15_April_2009
Certainly, the turnout (nationwide) was largely the result of promotion by Fox News, under the thin guise of (preemptive) coverage. But still, I think dismissal and disrespectful teabagging jokes (e.g., on the part of Rachel Maddow) are the wrong way for liberals (roughly-speaking) to respond. The people at these protests, or at least the one in Hartford, are not simply toeing the Republican party line; in fact, there’s a lot of general anti-career-politician sentiment, 3rd party grumbling, and calls for civic engagement at the local level. It’s roughly a Christian/libertarian hybrid that actually has some common ground with the left, and it’s a shame to shut that out rather than use it to push for progress on issues of common ground like cleaner elections and opening up the electoral system to make it reflect a broader range of political opinion than the fairly narrow current two-party landscape.
As a member of the lower middle class, I don’t have a big problem with my tax rate EXCEPT when I work OT and only see a very small percentage increase in net income. I also am not thrilled with the automatic 40% that was deducted from my meagre bonuses. (when I got them)
My biggest problem with taxes is how it is spent and wasted and how ungrateful some of the lowest income earners are when they receive their food stamps, welfare checks, and other goodies courtesy of my tax dollars.
Two summers ago I worked part-time at Wal-Mart to earn a little extra money. You really get a good glimpse at the sense of entitlement some people have. I had one customer who came through and informed me EXACTLY how I was going to bag her groceries and that she would be WATCHING me like a hawk. She was rude from the start. Now mind you in Colorado (I don’t know how it is in other states) they don’t hand out actual food stamps anymore (cause that’s embarrassing) but give out cards that look like debit cards, so no one can really tell (unless they were really nosy) that it isn’t a real credit card. When I saw her whip out the Food Stamp card, my blood boiled as I was thinking “you just treated me like a dog, even though I’m the one paying for your food!” NICE
As a person who paid my own way through college and worked two jobs at the same time, I would become quite irritated with the cartfuls of steaks, ground beef, Lucky charms, and candy that came through my checkout….while I was eating Ramen Noodles. If you think this was uncommon, go get a job at Wally World and you will soon find out how all too common it is.
Heck, just yesterday a co-worker of mine bragged to me that her best friend lent her a food stamp card and said “why don’t you just go ahead and use it, I still have 53 dollars on it and I’m not going to use it anyway for this month” I said why doesn’t she give it back to the govt (in all honesty who really would) but it was more for me to make a statement. Naturally she just looked at me as if I just asked her to drown her 4 year old daughter in the bathtub.
Bottom line is, it’s not so much how much that is being paid in taxes that’s the issue (we actually have one of the lowest tax rates in the Western world) but how it’s spent. And that problem lies with BOTH parties.
Twitter: davidshankbone
says:
@Sage & Red – I think what is *more* surprising was how little was the turnout given the excessive cheerleading by Fox News, complete with countdowns and hosting parties. One could equally argue that turn-out was spurred by celebrity appearances by the likes of Sean Hannity, et al.
I have a broader philosophical problem with the tea parties, regardless of who is represented: we are fighting two wars and our economy is shattered by an under-regulated Wall Street. It’s the same problem we had the last eight years: it’s all about “I want more money for myself” and less about “What is good for the country right now?” GWB cutting taxes on the rich in the midst of the wars was extraordinarily stupid.
Our country right now needs to pull together and fix some serious issues – issues that are going to require money. Aside from being an historically inaccurate reference, these parties are small, largely extremists or Fox News viewers, who care far more about their self-interest than the collective good of what it means to be part of, and build, a nation.
We see that attitude with health care. It all comes down to who is lucky enough to be able to afford it, or have a job that provides it. That our neighbor may have to die because she can’t afford treatment is considered her problem. I don’t see it that way.
Red, personal anecdotes about welfare aside, it’s a hollow criticism of how our money is spent since the 1990s reforms under Clinton did away with abuse. That’s why you don’t hear about “Welfare Queens” anymore. Yes, our money is wasted in many ways, and we should hold our leaders accountable for that. But it’s not an argument against taxes to try to fix the problems that we are all responsible for trying to repair.
Seriously – one one hand we have the Teabaggers who argue against government borrow-and-spend to fix problems; then when taxes are raised on the rich to levels still 10 percent below the Reagan rates, then one wonders if they just expect the country’s infrastructure and economy to crumble (“creative destruction”) or simply don’t care. But that’s not where the mainstream is at. That’s why the Teabaggers are fringe. And why “tens of thousands” nationwide is really quite a small number.
David,
My welfare anedcote was used simply because that is where I was a direct witness to the ungratefulness of many (not all) of the recipients. I have just as hard a time with the the subsidizing of corporations, a small group of large corporate farm owners and the huge loop holes for the wealthy.
I totally agree there are a lot of projects and issues that are for the common good. I was incredibly excited to hear about increased spending in alternative fuels technology and public transportation. Also as a person who gets to see day in and day out the gross inefficiency in our health system, I was glad to see that money was set aside to upgrade the IT part of the health system. Although, I kind of chuckled at our company meeting, because it was like watching a bunch of vultures trying to figure out how much of the pie they could squeeze out of the government for themselves. We set up study groups, task forces, and leadership teams just for lobbying purposes.
Anyways, I feel that most of our money should be spent on infrastructure, education, protecting the environment, and healthcare (although I’m not totally sold on full government control).
Less of our money should be spent on defense (the Europeans and Japanese are rich enough they need to pony up to pay for their own defense), corporate subsidies, farm subsidies, and some forms of welfare. (by welfare, I’m not just talking about the welfare check) There are plenty of abuses still left in the system.
Let me give you the point of view of an external observer: tens of thousands of protesters, in a country of 300 million inhabitants, for a problem supposedly affecting all of middle class, is a ridiculously low amount.
This is the same order of magnitude as the current academic protests in France, a country with 5 times less population, for issues that concern mostly the academic world.