Composition of the Tea Party Represents an Existential Threat to Liberal Progressives

The liberal media and the political left have concocted a false narrative about who exactly the “tea party” movement is, and for good reason. The movement represents an existential threat to the left wing progressive movement. Why is the tea party such a threat? Because the tea party looks like America. Politically, ethnically, the break down of the tea party movement looks just like the breakdown of the general population. The “racist” canard was invented precisely because of this.

Dough Mainwaring explains in a recent piece at American Thinker, “Who’s in the Kitchen?“:

The typical Tea Party participant is anything but a crotchety old racist white male.

A Gallup Poll taken in 2010 found that 43 percent of Tea Partiers were independents, and 8 percent were registered Democrats, for a combined 51 percent.  At 49 percent, Republicans were in the minority.

A Quinnipiac University poll published in March 2010 found that 55 percent of Tea Partiers were women.

According to another USA Today/Gallup Poll, African-Americans, Asian-Americans, and Hispanics combined to make up nearly one fourth of the movement’s members, roughly reflecting the ethnic makeup of the general population.  Not surprisingly, the NAACP’s announcement in 2010 of a resolution condemning racism within the Tea Party sparked an avalanche of statements of support for the movement from African-American Tea Party members across the country.  The NAACP chose to allow their ill-conceived effort to simply fade away.

I would submit that the “just a blogger” narrative of the new media exists for precisely the same reason. The old media is afraid of competition that looks like America, rather than just those parts of it inside the DC Beltway, Manhattan, and Hollywood.

Liberty is a universal. It transcends race, gender, and creed (well, most creeds anyway). Once liberty becomes the thing for which individuals want to fight, identity politics becomes obsolete. That scares the hell out of the left.