Co-authored by Zeljka Buturovic, PhD
The attitude toward the Tea
Party movement is an emerging division in the American electorate. Those
who support and those who oppose the Tea Party agenda are often as different
as conservatives and progressives. The Tea Party attitude is more predictive
of President Barack Obama's approval than are education, race, religious
and party affiliation. In addition, a very large portion of the likely
electorate sides with or against Tea Partiers, leaving few moderate
voices in between.
Tea Partiers are not a fringe
phenomenon. The political views of those who identify with Tea Partiers
from a distance and those who are actively engaged in the movement are
very similar. From the perspective of Tea Party detractors, the sympathizers
are for the most part as extreme as are actual Tea Party organizers
and participants.
And there are plenty of those
sympathizers. While people who are official members of Tea Party organizations
and those who attend Tea Parties are relatively few, those who are generally
sympathetic to their cause are many. In fact, taken together, these
three groups comprise 47% of likely voters according to our latest survey.
Senator Scott Brown's assertion that he could not win with a mere
support of the Tea Party Movement misses this larger point: Tea Party
activists can elect few people but Tea Party supporters can elect many
more and winning without at least some of the Tea Party sympathetic
vote is, at the present moment, a tall order.
On the other hand, 32% of likely
voters say they have nothing in common with Tea Partiers, and 11% say
they don't believe in much of what the group believes and would never
join in one of their protests. Sandwiched between two large extremes
are those who believe in some of their goals but consider them to be
too outside the mainstream. Thus, we can divide the likely electorate
into three categories:
| I belong to one of the Tea Party organizations | 7% | 47% | Tea Party Supporters |
| I do not belong to an organization, but I have attended Tea Party protests | 8% | ||
| I believe in most of their agenda, but do not belong to a Tea Party organization nor have I attended a protest | 32% | ||
| I believe in some of their goals, but they are too outside the mainstream for me | 8% | 8% | Ambivalent about Tea Party |
| I don't believe in much of what they believe and would never join in one of their protests | 11% | 43% | Opposed to Tea Party |
| I have nothing in common with Tea Partiers | 32% | ||
| Other | 2% | 2% | Other |
President Obama's approval
among Tea Party supporters is very close to zero. In a very real sense,
this is the most uniting feature of the movement. Yet, in the wake of
the Senate election in Massachusetts, many Democrats seem to believe
that they can co-opt the movement's populist rhetoric, by lashing
out at Wall Street and talking about jobs, and in that way harness its
intensity while changing its target.
The success of this strategy
is by no means assured. The populist wave is at odds with Washington
on a lot of levels. Only 9% of them voted for Obama to begin with. While
they are sometimes perceived as the voice of the independents, this
is not entirely true, though they are somewhat less partisan than Tea
Party detractors. For example, 32% of Tea Party supporters are independents,
compared to 24% of their opponents, and 61% of Tea Party supporters
call themselves Republicans while 71% of those who dislike Tea Partiers
are Democrats.
However, a majority of both
Tea Partiers and their detractors are partisan and it is unlikely that
the current administration can gain much ground among them. To the contrary,
rather than calming them down, the White House's economic populism
might merely shift Tea Partiers' attention to their other grievances.
And a loud airing of these fresh grievances might turn out to be more
damaging to the administration and more widely recognized as legitimate.
For example, take a look at
the Tea Partiers' position on profiling, the causes of terrorism and
its view of the quality of the public discussion about it:
Which of the following best
describes your personal view?
| Overall | Tea Party Supporters | Ambivalent about Tea Party | Opposed to Tea Party | |
| I support ethnic and religious profiling | 53% | 86% | 60% | 21% |
| I do not support ethnic and religious profiling though I believe it can be effective | 16% | 6% | 27% | 24% |
| I don't support ethnic and religious profiling and I do not think it is effective | 22% | 2% | 8% | 45% |
| Other | 4% | 4% | 2% | 4% |
| Not sure | 4% | 3% | 3% | 6% |
Which of the following do you think plays the most important role in terrorists' motivation to attack the US?
| Overall | Tea Party Supporters | Ambivalent about Tea Party | Opposed to Tea party | |
| Making Islam the world's dominant religion | 33% | 60% | 26% | 7% |
| Resentment of Western power and influence | 27% | 21% | 31% | 32% |
| U.S. support for Israel | 12% | 7% | 15% | 19% |
| Death and damage caused by US military | 8% | 1% | 5% | 15% |
| Poverty | 6% | 2% | 10% | 10% |
| Western freedoms | 3% | 4% | 5% | 2% |
| Psychological disorders | 3% | 1% | 4% | 5% |
| Other | 5% | 3% | 3% | 7% |
| Not sure | 3% | 0% | 2% | 4% |
There is too much political
correctness in discussion of terrorism:
| Overall | Tea Party Supporters | Ambivalent about Tea Party | Opposed to Tea Party | |
| Strongly agree | 59% | 93% | 56% | 27% |
| Somewhat agree | 17% | 4% | 34% | 24% |
| Somewhat disagree | 12% | 1% | 9% | 24% |
| Strongly disagree | 10% | 1% | 2% | 21% |
| Not sure | 3% | 0% | 0% | 5% |
The data suggests that terrorism
can be used to reinforce unity among Tea Partiers while scoring legitimate
points with detractors. And it appears that Republicans are increasingly
recognizing this and might have already utilized it in the recent Massachusetts
election. Politico reported that Brown's advisers thought the
"terrorism issue actually broke more in Brown's favor than did his
opposition to Obama's health care reform plan." Though some surveys
showed health care to be the most important issue for Massachusetts voters
and the public is relatively satisfied with the president's handling
of terrorism, Brown did not shy away from his views that he was against
civil trials for accused terrorists and that water-boarding was not
torture. Consistent with this, data
from recent elections in Massachusetts
shows that Brown out-performed Mitt Romney in conservative districts
while he underperformed him in more moderate, suburban districts.
Though, on average, somewhat
more male with a somewhat less formal education than their detractors,
Tea Partiers are most distinguished by their attitudes, not their demographics.
The anger driving opposition to Washington is primarily directed at
the ideas of the intellectual elite, of which health care reform is just
one expression. For example, they are much less likely than their opponents
(5% vs. 40%) to take the globalist view of their residence as planet
Earth - a view, one would guess, shared by a substantive proportion
of the cosmopolitan elite. Likewise, popularity of Sarah Palin with
the movement is probably more due to mutual animosity between her and
assorted intellectuals than to her principled policy positions.
Contrary to the often repeated
claim that Tea Partiers lack agreed upon set of views, our data shows
that terrorism and perceived unwillingness to talk about it in a straightforward
manner might be another issue around which opposition to Washington
will rally. Ironically, shifting their attention from health care might
make Tea Partiers angrier.
John Zogby is president and CEO of Zogby International, a global polling and market research company. He is the author of The Way We'll Be: The Zogby Report on the Transformation of the American Dream (Random House, 2008).
Co-author Zeljka Buturovic
has been a research associate at Zogby International since 2008. She
holds a doctorate in psychology from Columbia University.
Huff TV: Arianna Weighs In On Tea Party: Their Anger Is Based On Real Concerns (VIDEO)
Arianna appeared on CNN's 'The Situation Room' Friday to weigh in on the first national Tea Party Convention in Nashville, Tennessee. Arianna believes that while...
And plenty of people in the movement ''Do not like Sarah Palin" either.
Please provide a link to your polling methods, the region(s) of the country where you made these polls, the age, income, religious affiliation and ethnicity or race (if determined) of your poll subjects, and why you picked the fringe issue questions that you did, instead of something important like jobs, education, constitutional rights, health care, unions, or, heck, whether they've been abducted and probed by a UFO.
One also needs to keep in mind that polls can be manipulated by choosing a particular region or time of day when a particular demographic is more likely to participate.
Moreover, some people have a terrible tendency to make up their minds based on poll results. "Oh look, other people think this way, so I will too." "Oh, look, the polls say so and so is going to lose, so I'll vote for the winner."
He's known mostly for "interactive" Internet polls that are basically meaningless, and his right wing views can be bolstered by skewed questions.
He's no more "respected on both sides of the aisle" than Sarah Palin is.
Project much?
I more than understand their anger, it's the second stage of the grieving process that comes from having to confront ones own failings.
Hopefully, we can get to acceptance without dismantling the entire country.
unfortunately the right wing realized a while back that NS as an election issue is dramatic and gets the attention of voters. they are used to watching 24 and they want national politics to be just as engaging as their favorite TV show. terrorists and the fear of bombings get people marching in the streets.....a focus on education policy puts these voters to sleep.
we have to find a way to get people to understand the PROPER place that NS has in the national policy portfolio. if we let the right wing whip up enough voters into a frothy fear of 'the terrorists', we are all sunk.
That kind of "free speech" is designed to spread fear to those outside the reference group, to shut us up and shut us out. One does not have to scratch too far under the surface of the Teaparty to see that its a fascist revolution in the making. I feel relatively safe from Al Qaeda, (they will never be able to take over America) but not safe from the FOX Newspeak Minitruth supporters, nor the "Christian" Miniluv compassionate conservatives, both of which are represented by the New & Improved brand of conservatism, the Teaparty.
We can not be scared of this woman. It gives her power.
She is offering nothing.
She sounds like she's 18.
Anyone who is intelligent enough will see right through her.
We hsve to look out for ourselves and not worry about them
President Obama is helping us, we should help him
The ones who look up to her,
well...survival of the fittest.
Right?
None of those issues will help win elections.
Their hallmarks are like those of the Creationist movements: false dichotomies, made up problems/controversies or weirdly caricatured problems/controversies, distorted presentation of facts and evidence, repeated statements already solidly proven false, adherence to dogma, feelings, and beliefs in the face of overwhelming contrary evidence, false persecution complexes, made up or exaggerated enemies, labeling nuanced views elitists (indeed attaching the elitist label to almost anything and person that follows the rules of logic and the scientific method). I could go on...
TBers give me a well formed problem/solution statements. E.g., reducing the debt and/or deficit spending is a valid objective to develop solutions to test against historical evidence, future scenarios via modeling, etc. we'd agree. So give me at least one well formed proposal. Include:
impact statement (there are pros and cons to everything),
testable model of operation, historical evidence that leads to your conclusions,
present situations (e.g. other modern countries) that support your means and methods,
some notion of the practical implementation plan to effect it.
Many of you are saying we have too much debt and we are overtaxed.. so my suggested topic seems like one for which you have well formed treatments ready.
And by the way, I think we've seen how well the rich create jobs.
Where do you get your information that the stimulus destroyed more jobs than it created? I know my own company has benefitted from the stimulus and this time last year, employees came to work not knowing if it was their last day and now we are hiring and I work with many companies across the states and while some are just NOW feeling the punch of the economy, business is picking up for many others.
I commend you for not caring about color. So, I hope with that mindset, that you also can see when a particular set of 'leaders' REALLY run this country into the ground. And trust me, it was already done. Now you have a bunch of people trying to dig us out. I don't agree with everything the current administration does...in some ways, they should be more aggressive but who has the answers to the disaster the last administration caused?