“I meet a lot of tea partiers as I go around the country, and they are amazing people,” said the ex-adviser to former President George W. Bush in an interview with Der Spiegel.
But structurally, Rove said the tea party has little in common with the Reagan Revolution that has powered the conservative movement for decades.
“It was also a well-organized, coherent, ideologically motivated and conservative revolution,” Rove said of the Reagan Revolution. “If you look underneath the surface of the tea party movement, on the other hand, you will find that it is not sophisticated.
“It’s not like these people have read the economist Friedrich August von Hayek,” Rove added. “Rather, these are people who are deeply concerned about what they see happening to their country, particularly when it comes to spending, deficits, debt and health care.”
Karl, there's a nation that needs building. Head east until you get to Iraq. Read Hayek to those folks.And as to reading: try reading the country's balance sheet--compare, e.g., before/after your boss' "Bail Out The Banks" move.
Then just STFU.
HT: Zippers
Holy Cow! I agree with Karl Rove? This has always been my impression of the T-party; anti-intellectual bunch who take as gospel Fox News and conservative blogs. Peg scientists and academics as elitists and journalists as socialists fomenting govt overthrow. Take Beck as law, and refuse to listen to reason, no matter how convincing. Dig in, dig in, dig in...then dig in some more.
ReplyDeleteI don't think I have ever heard a T-partier concede a point, or say "gee, I never thought of it that way" or "gosh, I was wrong!"
1) You ought to look into selling straw-men; you build them easily and quickly.
ReplyDelete2) You don't get around much, either.
Funny, I've never heard a liberal concede a point either.
ReplyDeletebtw - even the NYT had to give up the "they are all ignorant hicks" schtick when their own poll found that Tea Party supporters were better educated than the public.
1. Rove should STFU, regardless.
ReplyDelete2. The Tea Party "organization" is deliberately "different", as I understand it.
3. I am personally acquainted with a passel of Tea Party folks who are pretty damn smart, well-educated, concerned people, who have a very different point of view from the doctinaire liberals of Madison. That does not make them uneducated or stupid. It means they have a different point of view.
4. These selfsame Tea Party folks I know are quite willing to engage in back-and-forth with me, and, yes, I have heard more than one of them say "never thought of it that way".
Tim, are you telling me that there are more than 5 Conservatives in the Madistan area?
ReplyDeleteThat's all I've been able to find...