They are older, white Boomers. Now you know why they can hold these rallies nearly every day of the week.
Eighteen percent of Americans identify as Tea Party supporters. The vast majority of them -- 89 percent -- are white. Just one percent is black.
They tend to skew older: Three in four are 45 years old or older, including 29 percent who are 65 plus. They are also more likely to be men (59 percent) than women (41 percent).
And you can start to understand the media fascination with this group; advertisers like to target the middle-age to older demographics who have more disposable income. Teabaggers tend to have higher-than-average household incomes, with 56% making more than $50 grand a year. 37% are college graduates. A whopping 95% say they are "Republican" or "Independent" - but 66% "usually" or "always" vote Republican, and they are very conservative.
Nearly three in four describe themselves as conservative, and 39 percent call themselves very conservative. Sixty six percent say they always or usually vote Republican. Forty percent say the United States needs a third party, while 52 percent say it does not.
What they most have in common is they just don't like President Obama. They really can't say why, but when you get into the vast difference in perception about the President's policies, it starts to become clear that they feel he favors the poor - with a dose of racism underlying that as well. 52% believe that too much has been made of the problems facing black people; 28% of Americans have that opinion, a number that is scary in itself. 25% feel that the President favors blacks over whites - only 11% of non-bagger Americans feel the same way.
And they are dead wrong about taxes.
Asked to volunteer what they don't like about Mr. Obama, the top answer, offered by 19 percent of Tea Party supporters, was that they just don't like him. Eleven percent said he is turning the country more toward socialism, ten percent cited his health care reform efforts, and nine percent said he is dishonest.
Seventy-seven percent describe Mr. Obama as "very liberal," compared to 31 percent of Americans overall. Fifty-six percent say the president's policies favor the poor, compared to 27 percent of Americans overall.
Sixty-four percent believe that the president has increased taxes for most Americans, despite the fact that the vast majority of Americans got a tax cut under the Obama administration. Thirty-four percent of the general public says the president has raised taxes on most Americans.
95% of working families received a tax cut last year thanks to President Obama, but the tax fetish of elected Republican leaders and a media that reports their every misleading statement without correction has the public believing otherwise. That's a real shame. Oddly enough, "lowering taxes" isn't the main goal of the baggers though - only 6% saw that as a concern. Nearly half claim "reducing the role of federal government" is what they are after, except when it comes to the two biggest areas of domestic spending, Medicare and Social Security. The New York Times has the money quote there, so to speak.
But in follow-up interviews, Tea Party supporters said they did not want to cut Medicare or Social Security — the biggest domestic programs, suggesting instead a focus on “waste.”
Some defended being on Social Security while fighting big government by saying that since they had paid into the system, they deserved the benefits.
Others could not explain the contradiction.
“That’s a conundrum, isn’t it?” asked Jodine White, 62, of Rocklin, Calif. “I don’t know what to say. Maybe I don’t want smaller government. I guess I want smaller government and my Social Security.” She added, “I didn’t look at it from the perspective of losing things I need. I think I’ve changed my mind.”
Notice the use of the word "I" in that quote, as in "I want mine". Incredible, pathological arrogance abounds with the baggers. This next number was astonishing.
An overwhelming majority of Tea Party supporters, 84 percent, say the views of the Tea Party movement reflect the views of most Americans. But Americans overall disagree: Just 25 percent say the Tea Party movement reflects their beliefs, while 36 percent say it does not.
And why are the baggers angry, arrogant, and misinformed about issues such as taxes?
Sixty-three percent say they get the majority of their political and current events news on television from the Fox News Channel, compared to 23 percent of Americans overall. Forty-seven percent say television is their main source of Tea Party information, the top source; another 24 percent say they get Tea Party information from the internet.
And they loves them some George Bush. 57% have a favorable view of the former President.
With an overall picture of the baggers in hand, it becomes clear why Michigan Republican gubernatorial candidates are milking this crowd for all it's worth. Candidates will continue to lie about taxes, whip up the fear about a "big government" that will give to those "other people", solicit those donations so they can "stop the liberals", and most of all, fuel that divisiveness that marked the Bush years, one that sought to split this country apart in a divide and conquer strategy. If the rabble are fighting amongst themselves, it becomes harder to notice that the rich are receiving all the benefits of Republican rule, right? Right.
It's the Bush (Reagan) Republican way, rearing its ugly head once again, the only difference here is that it has a new name. One can only hope that all the Tea Party over-exposure from the media lately will remind people of why we threw this group out of power in the first place.