teabagger uprising

in this morning's ny times is an article analyzing teabaggers. when i first saw the breaking news email yesterday, it spoke of teabagger anger, which caused my heart to flip a flop whilst the historian in me immediately thought of the bolshevics, the guillotine, and the maoists. or, a typical uprising defined by class struggles, the anger of the proletariat, the road to communism...

and i sort of freaked out a little bit. i mean, the shit that's been going on in response to obama's radicalism and socialism (give me a fucking break!), the "government takeover of healthcare," big bank bailouts, and the general comments about the "very liberal agenda" of the potus, is really scary. not to mention asinine. i mean, where do these people get this shit? it makes zero sense, is weighted not an ounce in reality, and is an overarching emotional response to fear-mongering on the right.

or, as is more likely the case, racism.

per the ny times poll, the 18% of americans who identify themselves as teabaggers are, "republican, white, male, married, and over 45." translation: an ever-decreasing demographic in the american landscape. futher, most agree that social security and medicare are worth the money (see socialism), that the taxes they pay are fair, and they don't think sarah palin is qualified to be president (see not retarded). so if these are rational, educated, thinking people, what's the deal?

well, they believe that the obama administration is catering to the poor and the blacks, and that the president does not share the values of "most americans" (i hardly consider 18% to qualify as "most americans," but what do i know?). one teabagger was quoted as saying,“over the last three or four years, I’ve realized how immense that drift has been away from what made this country great.” (translation: "all these uppity minorities and gays are taking over the safely homogenous america i always knew and loved").

and my favorite teabagger quote makes my case for me, “I just feel [obama's] getting away from what America is. He’s a socialist. And to tell you the truth, I think he’s a Muslim and trying to head us in that direction, I don’t care what he says. He’s been in office over a year and can’t find a church to go to. That doesn’t say much for him.”

it's plain and simple. old, white guys don't like young black presidents anymore than they like the fact that the demographic landscape of america is changing so's to push them into the minority box. i guess the bottom line is that change is hard, especially for bigots, and their only way to fight the change is to slap non-applicable fear-mongering labels onto the president and his supporters which bear no rational resemblance to reality.

thank goodness democrats' balls are beginning to descend enough to take a stronger stance in the public discourse. let's just hope at the end of the day i'm not the only one calling it what it is: racism.

~k