This is a hoot. Rolling Stone has David Gergen, Matt Taibbi and Peter Hart dissecting the election results, and Taibbi says what he thinks about the teabaggers:
Gergen: If it were not for the extra boost of enthusiasm the Tea Party provided, I imagine the Republicans would have won only 40 to 50 seats, instead of the 60-plus they gained. But the Tea Party also makes it harder in the future for Republicans to maintain a coherent party. Matt is right that they will have a large voice in the nomination process in 2012. But one cannot discount that someone could arise, as Reagan did in the past, who can bridge the differences within the party and keep people united.
Taibbi: To me, the main thing about the Tea Party is that they’re just crazy. If somebody is able to bridge the gap with those voters, it seems to me they will have to be a little bit crazy too. That’s part of the Tea Party’s litmus test: “How far will you go?”
Gergen: I flatly reject the idea that Tea Partiers are crazy. They had some eccentric candidates, there’s no question about that. But I think they represent a broad swath of the American electorate that elites dismiss to their peril.
Hart: I agree with David. When two out of five people who voted last night say they consider themselves supporters of the Tea Party, we make a huge mistake to suggest that they are some sort of small fringe group and do not represent anybody else.
Taibbi: I’m not saying that they’re small or a fringe group.
Gergen: You just think they’re all crazy.
Taibbi: I do.
Gergen: So you’re arguing, Matt, that 40 percent of those who voted last night are crazy?
Taibbi: I interview these people. They’re not basing their positions on the facts — they’re completely uninterested in the facts. They’re voting completely on what they see and hear on Fox News and afternoon talk radio, and that’s enough for them.
Gergen: The great unwashed are uneducated, so therefore their views are really beneath serious conversation?
Taibbi: I’m not saying they’re beneath serious conversation. I’m saying that these people vote without acting on the evidence.
Gergen: I find it stunning that the conversation has taken this turn. I disagree with the Tea Party on a number of issues, but it misreads who they are to dismiss them as some kind of uneducated know-nothings who have somehow seized power in the American electorate. It is elitist to its core. We would all be better off if we spent more time listening to each other rather than simply writing them off.
Hart: I agree. The point here is that the Obama administration would be at their own peril to somehow misread this as a fringe, unacceptable group of people. This is a huge portion of the electorate, and they represent a core within the Republican Party.
Hahahaha! Village chieftain David fucking Gergen calling anyone elitist just tickles my funny bone!
Oddly enough, I do think both Taibbi and Gergen make a point. A lot of the people who self-identify as teabaggers are people who smell something rotten in Washingon, they just haven’t located the source of the smell. So they swallow whatever the Beckster tells them, because what the hell, they’re too tired to actually think it through to the more logical conclusions: Namely, that big business runs this country.
that’s awesome. Shorter Gergen: “we must respect the views of people who have no connection to reality.” I want to meet that motherfucker, maybe on a long plane ride, so i can insist the sky is plaid the whole time. When he tells me to stop, I’ll tell him to stop being an elitist.
Gergen doesn’t respect teabagger’s views any more than he respects ours. He does know, however, that there’s votes to be mined in that hole of humanity, and where there’s votes, there’s power.
Gergen does respect power.
Chomsky pointed out: the teapartiers have legitimate grievances. That they’re coming up with the wrong solutions to the right problems is OUR fault, not theirs. These are the people who have been wiped out by corporatism run amok — they’re the steelworkers who lost jobs in the 80s, the autoworkers who lost jobs in the 90s, the small business retail and call center and small manufacturers who lost in the 00s and the 10s. Of course they listen to Fox. Who else is talking to them and giving them a reason why they’ve lost so much? The left claims to, but if the buyer’s not buying maybe the problem is in the way the “product” is being sold.