by Chad Campbell, senior producer
The Tea Party gets mentioned a lot on this program, mostly during Bob’s Friday chats with Washington Post columnist David Broder. Now we bring you some background on the movement with New York Times correspondent Kate Zernike. She’s been reporting on the Tea Party almost since it began and she’s written a book called Boiling Mad: Inside Tea Party America. Zernike interviews the Seattle teacher who held the first proto Tea Party protest and writes about how the movement got going thanks to young, tech saavy libertarians but how it’s mostly populated by older Americans afraid of change. She says that contradiction is what leads to protest signs like “keep your government hands off my Medicare.” Click here to learn more about the book and to read an exceprt from Boiling Mad.
You and Ms. Zernike stated that middle-class voters are going against their own interests in supporting the Tea Party movement. Not so: both the young and the old know that the economy does best with as little as possible national government control of the economy. Both young professionals and retirees recognize that a dramatic expansion of the national government into education is not good for America. Both groups are made up of those who would rather manage their own retirement savings rather than rely on the government to use an income re-distribution scheme (Social Security is not a pension system) for a secure retirement. Many retirees, especially those from better than average income segments of the general population, have more faith in themselves and see most government programs as necessary only for those who cannot take care of themselves. And, even if the many members of the middle-class who support the Tea Party were in fact working against their own interests for the better interests of the whole nation, would that not deserve our admiration not bewildered questioning?