Kranky has a point about middle class and upper income minorities. They are rarely separated out in polling, but their views might align closer to the small-government conservative opinion on fiscal issues. Again, I think the Asian community probably more than the black community, and the sub-groups within the fake hispanic grouping, such as Cuban-Americans, might show a lot more support for conservative issues. Even among Mexican-Americans, the MA middle class is more aligned with small-government conservatism than the poorer Mexican-Americans (they are the minority group I have the most exposure to, having lived in towns with large Hispanic populations for most of my life).

the ideology of the Tea Party is inherently pro white, pro rural, pro small government, and pro states rights- all notions that have historically been at odds with non-white communities in American history.

Well, lower income and urban ones.

For, me, it’s not that Olberman is wrong per se. It’s that he’s trying to marginalize a relevant political movement by using the usual progressive invitations to dismiss it. That it’s insufficiently diverse, insufficiently colored, insufficiently feminist, insufficiently this, that, and the other.

The problem with this critique, and the reason that it won’t stick is that government overspending has reached a height were it can no longer be safely viewed as an issue of gender, class, or race. We’re all in the same sinking boat full of IOUs. Concern about our individual ability to finance a bigger, more involved federal government with big new programs has spread. Most folks are willing to concede that there’s some risk there.

This concern won’t go away because progressives say that there’s nothing to see, just move along, it’s those same old stupid grumpy white rural conservatives that we already no we should ignore.

As a 40-something American, I know that the generation that came after me is even better than my generation at looking past misleading stereotypes. And good on them. Just as they reject things like suspicion of homosexuality in greater numbers, they reject the simplistic progressive litany about evil corporations and ingrained racism and sexism and classism. They see both sides of the story in a way that tired aging progressive douches like Olberman dont get, and can’t get.

I congratulate them for that.

That would mean there’s probably more married women than single women, more white men in total, more Asians as a percentage of their population than Hispanics of their population.

TerenceC – while you’re right about minorities in general, there are voting trends. And people often vote against self-interest when an overriding issue is at stake. The black community reliably votes for Democratic national candidates in numbers far exceeding any other group (94+% in the most recent national elections). Even the people I know who are very conservative on social issues vote Democratic, and not because they fear white GOP racism, but because they are loyal to a political party they feel has given their community the best shot at the American dream. Its more loyalty based than self-interest based in many cases.

A good political message would garner a following of the representative population existing in the US. Every black or hispanic person I know is an independent thinker and not prone to emotional reactions from every half-assed organization that claims to represent “real americans”. Tea Baggers say they aren’t R’s or D’s, although the R’s try and claim them – they don’t seem to agree. The D’s don’t understand them since every disaffected population in the past has traditionally fallen into their tent – where else are they supposed to go, right?

There is a slow but strong current materializing throughout the voting population of our country that we are all getting F’d by our politics. The Tea Baggers are only the first of many organizations that will target and exploit that belief. Just remember, with any political movement / organization please keep your eye’s on the organ grinder – not the monkeys.

The moron Olbermann thinks either the Tea Party is racist because it doesn’t force blacks to join, or that blacks are racist because they won’t join whitey, or that we should ignore the Tea Partiers because of … what?

Some minority groups are probably represented in higher numbers. Cuban-Americans tend to be more conservative, and Asians, long on the wrong side of affirmative action with preferences stacked against them, are also more likely to be in the conservative or libertarian camp.

The title of the post lends some idea as to what is in the post, and I called this one “Selective Editing” on purpose. Olbermann is either a victim of his network’s own selective editing of video feeds, or of not paying attention and “missing” the minorities that are present at most of the rallies. Or he was grasping to find the “outrage” that night and chose a bad topic to hype.

The video by Randy Haddock, the video I call “carefully edited”, is from national feeds and selects only black, hispanic and asian tea partiers to show “people of color” really exist in these meetings. And you’re right, selective editing like that can indeed paint the wrong picture; you could come to the conclusion that all of the Tea Parties have a lot of blacks and hispanics in them. Just like you would think that there are a lot of signs comparing Obama to Hitler, etc. at the Tea Parties (hint: there aren’t. The Democrat LaRouche’s people are the ones with the Hitler signs.)

But in your attempt to debunk him, you posted a video that either features a single black person speaking to who knows who, or a single black person in a crowd of many white people.

Olbermann is a boob, but your response is like saying global warming isn’t happening because it snowed a lot on the east coast.