The Nightman Cometh wrote:Nah, it was new.

"So you're saying David Souter isn't a goat $#@! child molestor?"

I don't mind that so much. If he was funny and profane and occasionally said inappropriate things, that'd be fine. He's just a moron. A politically tone deaf retard who thinks he's really smart.

jerseyhoya wrote:

The Nightman Cometh wrote:Nah, it was new.

"So you're saying David Souter isn't a goat $#@! child molestor?"

I don't mind that so much. If he was funny and profane and occasionally said inappropriate things, that'd be fine. He's just a moron. A politically tone deaf retard who thinks he's really smart.

He also seemed to destroy redstate, which used to be interesting on occasion and is now just a cauldron of reactionary paranoia.

Presumably moderate Muslims, in UK, US & elsewhere, are taking Anjem Choudary to task. I've not seen evidence of it.

Brooks-"Tea Party Teens"

The public is not only shifting from left to right. Every single idea associated with the educated class has grown more unpopular over the past year.

The educated class believes in global warming, so public skepticism about global warming is on the rise. The educated class supports abortion rights, so public opinion is shifting against them. The educated class supports gun control, so opposition to gun control is mounting.

The story is the same in foreign affairs. The educated class is internationalist, so isolationist sentiment is now at an all-time high, according to a Pew Research Center survey. The educated class believes in multilateral action, so the number of Americans who believe we should “go our own way” has risen sharply.

I disagree with Brooks. He thinks the movement becomes more of a force when it develops leadership. I think that this thing falls apart from infighting with leadership.

kruker wrote:Brooks-"Tea Party Teens"

The public is not only shifting from left to right. Every single idea associated with the educated class has grown more unpopular over the past year.

The educated class believes in global warming, so public skepticism about global warming is on the rise. The educated class supports abortion rights, so public opinion is shifting against them. The educated class supports gun control, so opposition to gun control is mounting.

The story is the same in foreign affairs. The educated class is internationalist, so isolationist sentiment is now at an all-time high, according to a Pew Research Center survey. The educated class believes in multilateral action, so the number of Americans who believe we should “go our own way” has risen sharply.

I disagree with Brooks. He thinks the movement becomes more of a force when it develops leadership. I think that this thing falls apart from infighting with leadership.

That, and any evidince of this among teens probably relates more to backlash against the beliefs of their parents than anything else. Though Gen X got absorbed in the beliefs of the Boomers, so maybe not.

Since Brooks evidently is not, am I allowed to point out the proto-fascist tendencies in the Tea Party movement (anti-intellectualism, cultural identifiers, volk mythologizing, yearning for easy answers), or is that offensive to folks?

edit: The "teens" thing confused me too, but I figured that refers to this decade ('10s), not teenagers.

dajafi wrote:Since Brooks evidently is not, am I allowed to point out the proto-fascist tendencies in the Tea Party movement (anti-intellectualism, cultural identifiers, volk mythologizing, yearning for easy answers), or is that offensive to folks?

edit: The "teens" thing confused me too, but I figured that refers to this decade ('10s), not teenagers.

Yes you are. I see the same kind of elements in the Teabaggers that went into the beginnings of Nazism in 1920s/early 1930s Germany. All they need is a charismatic leader that isn't a blithering idiot like their current leaders are and they could be very dangerous for this country.

kopphanatic wrote:

dajafi wrote:Since Brooks evidently is not, am I allowed to point out the proto-fascist tendencies in the Tea Party movement (anti-intellectualism, cultural identifiers, volk mythologizing, yearning for easy answers), or is that offensive to folks?

edit: The "teens" thing confused me too, but I figured that refers to this decade ('10s), not teenagers.

Yes you are. I see the same kind of elements in the Teabaggers that went into the beginnings of Nazism in 1920s/early 1930s Germany. All they need is a charismatic leader that isn't a blithering idiot like their current leaders are and they could be very dangerous for this country.

And their goals to shift from cutting taxes and unachievable cuts to services to world domination and eradication of the Jews.

jerseyhoya wrote:

kopphanatic wrote:

dajafi wrote:Since Brooks evidently is not, am I allowed to point out the proto-fascist tendencies in the Tea Party movement (anti-intellectualism, cultural identifiers, volk mythologizing, yearning for easy answers), or is that offensive to folks?

edit: The "teens" thing confused me too, but I figured that refers to this decade ('10s), not teenagers.

Yes you are. I see the same kind of elements in the Teabaggers that went into the beginnings of Nazism in 1920s/early 1930s Germany. All they need is a charismatic leader that isn't a blithering idiot like their current leaders are and they could be very dangerous for this country.

And their goals to shift from cutting taxes and unachievable cuts to services to world domination and eradication of the Jews.

There has been some scary stuff said at those rallies . . .

There's scary shit said in a lot of places every day.

jerseyhoya wrote:

kopphanatic wrote:

dajafi wrote:Since Brooks evidently is not, am I allowed to point out the proto-fascist tendencies in the Tea Party movement (anti-intellectualism, cultural identifiers, volk mythologizing, yearning for easy answers), or is that offensive to folks?

edit: The "teens" thing confused me too, but I figured that refers to this decade ('10s), not teenagers.

Yes you are. I see the same kind of elements in the Teabaggers that went into the beginnings of Nazism in 1920s/early 1930s Germany. All they need is a charismatic leader that isn't a blithering idiot like their current leaders are and they could be very dangerous for this country.

And their goals to shift from cutting taxes and unachievable cuts to services to world domination and eradication of the Jews.

you're just apologizing for their fktardation because you see them as a juicy opportunity to be exploited by some adroit Rovish rightwing starmaker.

jerseyhoya wrote:

kopphanatic wrote:

dajafi wrote:Since Brooks evidently is not, am I allowed to point out the proto-fascist tendencies in the Tea Party movement (anti-intellectualism, cultural identifiers, volk mythologizing, yearning for easy answers), or is that offensive to folks?

edit: The "teens" thing confused me too, but I figured that refers to this decade ('10s), not teenagers.

Yes you are. I see the same kind of elements in the Teabaggers that went into the beginnings of Nazism in 1920s/early 1930s Germany. All they need is a charismatic leader that isn't a blithering idiot like their current leaders are and they could be very dangerous for this country.

And their goals to shift from cutting taxes and unachievable cuts to services to world domination and eradication of the Jews.

The anger comes first. The goals, whatever they are, come later when someone who's charismatic, well organized and well funded gets out in front of the movement.

I'm not saying the anger isn't justified, by the way, or that it's unprecedented in American history--we've had stuff like this in the 1890s, the 1930s and (less comparably for a bunch of reasons you probably know) the '60s. We've been pretty lucky and/or skillful in finding ways to redirect the anger within the system, either by policy changes to address the root causes and provide material relief or by having wars come along. But this is similar raw material, in terms of public unhappiness and ugly sentiment, to some of the last century's nightmares.

The combination of declining economic and social conditions with an angry and scared citizenry is the perfect breeding ground for extremism, from both the right and the left.

And our political system, with devolved powers to the states and three branches of the federal government and two houses of the legislature and judicial oversight, is a perfect antidote to extremism.

I don't want to overstate this--remember that both Germany in the '20s and Russia in the years before their revolution had been humiliated in wars. We don't have that; yes, our wars haven't gone great, but they're more like grinding stalemates that for most of us are fairly remote than what those countries endured.

Also, a lot of Brooks' concern has to do with polling results. At this point I put close to no stock in polling, since for it to have meaning both the pollster has to really know what he's doing and the polled have to understand what they're opining about. His numbers remind me of all the polls I falsely put hope in during early 2004, when "generic Democrat" kept easily beating Bush. The problems always came when a real person went into the mix.

edit:

jerseyhoya wrote:And our political system, with devolved powers to the states and three branches of the federal government and two houses of the legislature and judicial oversight, is a perfect antidote to extremism.

This is a good point too. We're structurally much better insulated against destabilizing populist movements than were tsarist Russia, Weimar Germany, Spain in the '30s, etc.

dajafi wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:And our political system, with devolved powers to the states and three branches of the federal government and two houses of the legislature and judicial oversight, is a perfect antidote to extremism.

This is a good point too. We're structurally much better insulated against destabilizing populist movements than were tsarist Russia, Weimar Germany, Spain in the '30s, etc.

True enough, but we've relatively little protection against becoming really, really annoyed with teahuggers

Meh. It's just one team PO'ed the other team is in the WH. Your typical "sore losers". Kinda reminds me of Mets fans in 2007 & 2008.

On some level, it's both entertaining and sad to watch them make fools of themselves.

kruker wrote:Brooks-"Tea Party Teens"

The public is not only shifting from left to right. Every single idea associated with the educated class has grown more unpopular over the past year.

The educated class believes in global warming, so public skepticism about global warming is on the rise. The educated class supports abortion rights, so public opinion is shifting against them. The educated class supports gun control, so opposition to gun control is mounting.

The story is the same in foreign affairs. The educated class is internationalist, so isolationist sentiment is now at an all-time high, according to a Pew Research Center survey. The educated class believes in multilateral action, so the number of Americans who believe we should “go our own way” has risen sharply.

I disagree with Brooks. He thinks the movement becomes more of a force when it develops leadership. I think that this thing falls apart from infighting with leadership.

I don't like how Brooks defines (or fails to define) the "educated" position. One would presume such a class would refer to a set of positions informed by some sort of research or evidence-driven analysis. Instead, here he lazily conflates the educated position with the liberal position. Yes, global warming (or climate change) policy is presumably driven by the pursuit of truth, but his other examples are weak. For example, abortion rights are not necessarily dominated by empirical research... support for abortion is based on a very complicated set of values placing the rights of a mother over rights of a fetus, mixed with a concern for the interests of society. And on gun control, I don't think there is a wide body of empirical evidence in support of gun control... but I could be wrong.

Basically, he's arguing that anything associated with Democrats is becoming increasingly unpopular. Yawn.

This is the most interesting part of the article, personally:

The tea party movement is mostly famous for its flamboyant fringe. But it is now more popular than either major party. According to the NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, 41 percent of Americans have a positive view of the tea party movement. Only 35 percent of Americans have a positive view of the Democrats and only 28 percent have a positive view of the Republican Party.

The movement is especially popular among independents. The Rasmussen organization asked independent voters whom they would support in a generic election between a Democrat, a Republican and a tea party candidate. The tea party candidate won, with 33 percent of independents. Undecided came in second with 30 percent. The Democrats came in third with 25 percent and the Republicans fourth with 12 percent.

Tea partiers are slammed here by the people that post the most often (jerseyhoya aside), which led me to believe they weren't as well-liked as the polls suggest.

That independents are more disposed to reject the two major parties doesn't strike me as particularly surprising. They're independents.

edit: but that's a good point about abortion and gun rights (though maybe I say that as a "liberal" who's somewhat ambivalent on both those issues). Maybe he would have been on more solid ground by describing positions of "informed" consensus on economic issues, e.g. free trade, that the tea partiers probably reject.

edit2: Then again, I think a focus on issues misses the point. YMMV, but to me this is a cultural movement fueled by anger at a society that these people feel is leaving them behind, with some justification.

Werthless wrote:

kruker wrote:Brooks-"Tea Party Teens"

The public is not only shifting from left to right. Every single idea associated with the educated class has grown more unpopular over the past year.

The educated class believes in global warming, so public skepticism about global warming is on the rise. The educated class supports abortion rights, so public opinion is shifting against them. The educated class supports gun control, so opposition to gun control is mounting.

The story is the same in foreign affairs. The educated class is internationalist, so isolationist sentiment is now at an all-time high, according to a Pew Research Center survey. The educated class believes in multilateral action, so the number of Americans who believe we should “go our own way” has risen sharply.

I disagree with Brooks. He thinks the movement becomes more of a force when it develops leadership. I think that this thing falls apart from infighting with leadership.

I don't like how Brooks defines (or fails to define) the "educated" position. One would presume such a class would refer to a set of positions informed by some sort of research or evidence-driven analysis. Instead, here he lazily conflates the educated position with the liberal position. Yes, global warming (or climate change) policy is presumably driven by the pursuit of truth, but his other examples are weak. For example, abortion rights are not necessarily dominated by empirical research... support for abortion is based on a very complicated set of values placing the rights of a mother over rights of a fetus, mixed with a concern for the interests of society. And on gun control, I don't think there is a wide body of empirical evidence in support of gun control... but I could be wrong.

Basically, he's arguing that anything associated with Democrats is becoming increasingly unpopular. Yawn.

This is the most interesting part of the article, personally:

The tea party movement is mostly famous for its flamboyant fringe. But it is now more popular than either major party. According to the NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, 41 percent of Americans have a positive view of the tea party movement. Only 35 percent of Americans have a positive view of the Democrats and only 28 percent have a positive view of the Republican Party.

The movement is especially popular among independents. The Rasmussen organization asked independent voters whom they would support in a generic election between a Democrat, a Republican and a tea party candidate. The tea party candidate won, with 33 percent of independents. Undecided came in second with 30 percent. The Democrats came in third with 25 percent and the Republicans fourth with 12 percent.

Tea partiers are slammed here by the people that post the most often (jerseyhoya aside), which led me to believe they weren't as well-liked as the polls suggest.

No, I think he is comparing the poll results for those with a college degree and those without.