Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
Just before the Fourth of July holiday, GOP narrative pollster Rasmussen Reports issued a press release citing 23% in AZ poll favor tea party. That 23 percent figure for tea party identification in Arizona is about the highest of anywhere in the country. The national average is about 16 percent.
This was followed by a Gallup Poll that concluded that “almost 8 out of 10 Tea Party supporters are Republicans, compared with 44 percent of all national adults.” PostPartisan – Surprise, surprise: Tea Partyers are Republicans. E.J. Dionne, Jr. writes that the "Tea Party" is just a rebranding of "conservative Republican":
I have not been alone in making this case, of course, and it has been slowly gaining ground, but I hope a new Gallup study will settle the question. Gallup is one of our oldest polling firms and no one’s idea of an agent for the left-wing conspiracy.
Today, Gallup put out a report that concluded:
There is significant overlap between Americans who identify as supporters of the Tea Party movement and those who identify as conservative Republicans. Their similar ideological makeup and views suggest that the Tea Party movement is more a rebranding of core Republicanism than a new or distinct entity on the American political scene.
Here’s Gallup’s summary of its findings from three surveys in March, May, and June of this year.
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Last April, I argued that “both major parties stand to lose if they accept the laughable notion that this media-created protest movement is the voice of true populism. Democrats will spend their time chasing votes they will never win. Republicans will turn their party into an angry and narrow redoubt with no hope of building a durable majority.” I see no reason to change my mind on that.
My favorite poll over the weekend was this Marist poll which shows that 26% of people in this country don't know that the U.S. declared its independence from Great Britain. That includes 20% who aren't sure — and another 6% who think it was another country.
Hmmm… 23% identify with the Tea Party and 26% are clueless about from which country the U.S. declared its independence. I suspect there may be quite a bit of overlap there.
This may explain the latest GOP narrative pollster Rasmussen Reports press release claiming nearly two-thirds of Arizonans reject the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Survey: Most Arizonans don't approve of automatic citizenship:
Nearly two-thirds of Arizonans think children of illegal immigrants should not be entitled to U.S. citizenship just because they were born in this country, a new statewide survey shows.
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But the controversy is not limited to Arizona: Rasmussen reports that 58 percent of people nationwide say citizenship should not be conferred on someone solely because of the location of that child's birth.
This is not surprising. Over the past decade with GOP fear mongering over terrorism following 9/11, poll after poll consistently showed public support for ignoring the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth Amendments for anyone merely suspected of having ties to terrorism. The public supported massive electronic surveillance of U.S. citizens by their government without reasonable cause or due process of a warrant, and tolerated rendition of mere suspects to black site "Gulag" prisons and their torture — a system reminiscent of the old Soviet Union.
While many Americans claim to be "constitutionalists" who want to "return" to the founding principles of this country, in reality they readily reject long-standing fundamental constitutional principles and laws. And demagogues like Sen. Russell Pearce engage in historical revisionism to claim up is down and black is white. The media provides him the soapbox.
America is losing its soul to fear and ignorance. The media simply reports poll numbers, rather than effectively dispelling the fear and ignorance promoted by demagogues.