>From what I saw, they were a diverse group - some were hillbillies or blue
collar workers other were professionals or white collar workers, some were
older other were younger, some were X-tian - or rather church goers rather
than religious types as they often talked about their church social affairs
and never about faith - other were not (or perhaps indifferent.) What they
had in common, however, was US-centrism (or militant patriotism) and
visceral hatred of anything that smacked of intellectualism, high culture
and big city life (anti-intellectualism.) Most of their conversations that
I heard centered on how wicked the "liberal elites" were rather than what
they themselves stood for. The latter seemed to be tacitly taken for
granted and reaffirmed with occasional catch phrases like "I am just a
little guy trying to make a living" or 'I am just an ordinary guy I do not
know those big words."
It appears that for these people the main worldview distinction is between the familar and the "gemuetlich" of which they are a part, and the unfamiliar and threatening represented by the periphery of their social circle (big cities, liberal elites, ethnic minorities, etc.) Although these sentiments are manipulated by demagogues, I did not perceive these people as inherently dangerous to someone like myself who represented everything their loathed (an educated left wing foreigner from a big city.) These folk appeared to be mostly barking and little if any biting - and in so doing they appeared to fight smoke-and-mirror demons created for them by politicians, clergy and other demagogues rather than attacking real persons.
So if that observation is indicative, asking about the "teabagger movement" is asking leading questions that assume a certain "essentialism" (pardon this dreadful pomo jargon) of that movement, where there is none. What there is is a bunch of not very sophisticated and insular people scared shitless by demagogues and launching verbal attacks on the perceived demons that are supposed to menace their way of life.
I do not mean to belittle this - after all such folks tend to be the cannon fodder for fascist movements. However, for them to become such fodder, there would need to be a well organized fascist movement - but none is in sight in the US today. All there is is a lot of smoke but no fire.
Wojtek
On Tue, May 18, 2010 at 5:27 PM, Michael Smith <mjs at smithbowen.net> wrote:
>
> There's been a lot of head-scratching on the
> left about the teabagger folks. I'm curious: does
> anybody on this list actually *know* anyone who's
> involved in this fad?
>
> Is it just the old John Birch/Joe Pyne
> thing, or is there anything new about it?
>
> --
>
> Michael Smith
> mjs at smithbowen.net
> http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org
> http://fakesprogress.blogspot.com
>
> "I am in favor of leaving people alone,
> no matter how imperfect their polity may
> seem." -- Stephen Maturin, MD
> ___________________________________
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>