Jodi Jacobson from RH Reality Check joins CounterSpin this week to talk about the media’s decision to let Tea Party activists define their movement as one that doesn’t focus on red meat “social issues.” As Jacobson argues, that distinction doesn’t really square with the far-right views espoused by leading Tea Party Republican candidates.
The New York Times (10/7/10) offered a fresh example of this kind of reporting, in a piece by Kirk Johnson headlined “Democrats in Tight Races Put Focus on Abortion Rights.” Johnson notes the perilsof this strategy:
The Democratic strategy is at least drawing the attention of voters. But it comes with a risk, too: Does selling the idea that Republican fiscal warriors are social zealots in disguise send a shiver of fear down voters’ spines, or make Democrats look like they are avoiding the subject on most voters’ minds?
The premise seems to be that because Tea Party Republicans insist that they really care about the deficit, it would be unwise to talk about anything else that these candidates believe that might give some voters pause. It’s a bizarre standard. And let’s not forget Johnson’s suggestion that being a “fiscal warrior” is “the subject on most voters’ minds.” The media have been telling us this for quite some time–the voters-care-about-the-deficit mantra.The Times recently changed its tune on this somewhat, notingthat in their most recent poll “the deficit barely registers as a topic of concern when survey respondents were asked to volunteer their worries.” That was two weeks ago. Now, somehow, fighting deficits is back to being “the subject on most voters’ minds.”
according to the just released public religion research institute american values survey:
They [tea party members] are mostly social conservatives, not libertarians on social issues. Nearly two-thirds (63%) say abortion should be illegal in all or most cases, and less than 1-in-5 (18%) support allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry.
http://www.publicreligion.org/research/?id=386
did this publicreligion.org survey ask people if they were “tea party members”?
This conjuration of a new party by media executives, I wonder if they teach that at journalism school. “You need to push the idea of the little guy.” But the little guy can’t antagonize the powers that be. So you got to find a little guy who’ll toe his mark and speak his lines and then go home.
I remember reading a news item about President Grant for some history class and getting the strong feeling that the writer was fooling his publisher by over-doing the angle he’d been told to pursue, making it sound ridiculous. Those were subtle days, when the news was combines news and entertainment because there was no way to “fact check”. Now that there is, people consume the news products of the big corporations strictly to catch up on the party line, in case they feel like toeing it. They know it’s not factual. Facts only matter to people who care about something more than sucking up.
RE: the public’s purported MAJOR concern about the government’s deficit
Excuse me in advance for being cynical, but how can anyone believe that the government deficit is a big problem in the eyes of most of the US general public (except perhaps when they’re conned by conservatives and are looking for a rationalization to vote the greed-ticket)? This is the same general public that has for a long time had the lowest savings rate of any of the “Western industrialized countries”, as well as large credit-card debit, even with the prevailing usurious rates that should scare off any sane person. Yes, I know that some of these people are individuals who fell on hard-times due to circumstances beyond their control (illness, sudden job loss, injury, etc), but I’d bet that it’s a small proportion of those who are experiencing these conditions. It’s ‘the American way of life’. If a lot of people won’t worry/control their OWN debt in the here-and-now, why would we expect that they’d be especially worried about something relatively abstract and ‘distant’ like the national debt/deficit? This is obviously not saying whether they should or shouldn’t be concerned about it – – – it’s a very debatable question. But it’s disingenuous for either party or the media to try to say that the US public IS very concerned about this topic.
Also, for what little it’s worth, on a personal/anecdotal level, in the political discussions I hear at work here in ‘the heartland’ (i.e.; Wisconsin), I can NOT recall hearing anyone bring up the deficit. People are more concerned with visceral issues – – their jobs, terrorism, taxes, gun-control, abortion, the wars. The deficit is perceived as a dry, boring subject, akin to something like accounting valuation theories.
Most people may not be all aglow about the deficit but if they listen to republican media they would be. Faux Noise and all television now tells us how terrible the deficit is now that President Obama is in office. It really was not worth mentioning to republican politicians before then and it really isn’t now. They are just hypocrites when they talk about any issue. Even abortion was only seriously threatened by Democrats. I want all rights to be protected and honesty to be restored to more media.
You’re right, Big Em, but I would add that our low savings rate is an imperative of capitalist consumerism–we’re instructed, literally since birth, to constantly desire some new thing, some latest product, some ever-receding desire. We must spend in order to prop up our “lifestyles,” and is it any wonder that we, as Americans, are chronically broke? Consumerism is our way of life–the first thing the imbecile G.W. Bush commanded us all to do after 9-11 was to go shopping–psychologically speaking the most revealing and disturbing thing any American leader has said to the populace ever. That the Corporate media and the vast majority of citizens are concerned about entirely different things is something very disturbing, for sure, but this has been going on for some time, and it’s getting worse. They are, literally, just doing their jobs, commanding us all to worry about the “right” things, and forget the rest.
Along this line, if any of you have not seen the 2003 Canadian documentary The Corporation, I HIGHLY recommend it!! The main web page is here: http://www.thecorporation.com/ I guarantee you will not be bored. It’s also designed in short segments that makes it a great film for discussion. I wish we could blanket the country with theater showings of it before the election!
Whoa, how cool is this! When you go to the webpage, click on “The Film” on the left side of the screen and then “Watch Video”. You can watch every single segment for free on their site. How generous of them! I’m going to make sure a lot of people know about this. So much to chew on in this film. Wait until you see the CEO of the carpet manufacturing business who one day visited his conscience. He is a true inspiration!!
As a tea party member I really feel it necessary to point out the limited scope of the so called tea party.When all is said and done it is not a new party.Or a party to be reckoned with at all.It is a referee for “both” parties.I have been to quite a few rallies and political sessions from its inception with the people who use their very powerful voices for this grass roots movement.I will witness that social issues are almost never discussed or voiced.Does it exist?Im sure it does.But in no sense have I seen anything that indicates that this is a wolf in sheeps clothing. Abortion?Such a red herring that it is laughable.You could elect every anti abortion person you could think of in your wildest nightmares and they would never be able to move legislation. Americans are for the limited ability(not late term healthy fetus) to have the right to have an abortion. And there it will stay until public opinion changes.This is all noise.At a time when Rome is burning are we really going to worry social issues?The Tea party is not. You Dems have watched this party ram through things even against the will of the people, and so you think it common place.It is not. And Obama will see how “NOT”it is on polling day.
I really wish this painting of people for political gain would end and discussion and debate begin.Problem is Dems cannot stand on Obama’s record or his beliefs or his words. And in fact he has angered his own base. Why George Sor-oh-so-sore and Bill Air-head called him a war criminal this week!We conservatives hate his every utterance it is so alien to us. Independents are not fooled anymore .He still has 97%of the black vote(no -no racism there).He has the socialists,marxists,progressives,unions,and a shrinking percentage of thinking Democrats.So what is left?My guess….Hilary.Fear mongering.Class warfare. Corporate Dr evil nonsense.And oh yeah George Bush.They will actually continue to blame and run against him.They will frame it in some idiotic fashion like….. “do you want to go back to Bush”?
I would pray the Republicans put forward their ideas.That The Dems prove how well their policies have worked- and how they see moving forward.Debate for America.I hope the important things that will dictate our very future will be at the forefront, and social issues far back. That literally can wait.I know the Tea party will be there to correct both parties in their misuse of constitutional authority and interpretation..They of course in this time in history will fight to throw down Obama and his regime.HE has crossed the line so far there is no welcoming him back.Again the Tea party are simply regular people who feel this government has gone to far.
Does the widening gap–in terms of both money and power–between the rich and everyone else count as a “social issue”? Or is it a “fiscal issue”? Either way, has the Tea Party taken a stand? Or are they unable, because of ideological predisposition, to even process the concept? “Class warfare” is just another way of saying “we ain’t touching that one.” And in that, they are merely parroting the Republican party line.
Ethelred the unready
The Tea party has no stand on equalizing any playing fields through government control- which in the end is the only way of making BILL GATES more equal to you and I. Process the concept?Yes I suppose we could of taken Lord Obama’s idea of “when is enough enough”,and limited Bill to making his first million(if we could go back in time).All the things he did to change the world…gone.All his charity…gone.All the jobs he created and lives enriched …gone.THAT is the truth of artificial limits to the ultimate exeptionalism that America affords.And class warfare is the rubbing of salt in the wound of the propaganda created myth that someone else’s success is the reason for all our failures.The tea party does not parrot.It points out where the parties have strayed. Specifically from the constitution.The republicans offer it lip service to often but they will come around or loose important support from their base. .The left means to throw it down because it inhibits their ultimate control and they will be a harder nut.But they too will come around.Not their leaders who now are their unrepresenting nonrepresentatives.They gotta go.And soon will.They are just to far gone in their quest for power that the founding fathers fought so hard to curtail.
He still has 97%of the black vote(no -no racism there). Mikey, Mikey, Mikey. In every election in American history until this one 100% of white voters voted for the white candidate. No racism there! I would suspect that there was an element of pride involved in being Black in America and being able to vote for an intelligent, well educated black man who had spent so much time working to improve conditions for working people of all races. But to vote for a representative of the party that developed and implimented the Southern Strategy after the Civil Rights Act was implimented would be as stupid as for working white men and women to vote for representatives of a party that just wants to use them to advance their own selfish ajenda (OK, I see tha we’ve proven that Blacks aren’t as ignorant as Tea Partiers). It’s so obvious that the Tea Party movement is strictly about the economy that Glen Beck probably didn’t need to instruct his minions to leave their racist, homophobic, anti-abortion, revolutionist violent signage in their garages from all past rallys (you know, the ones that were machine made to look like home-made signs and passed out by your organizers). Yea, I wonder why he did that???