Comments on: Corporate Media Hype Tea Partiers Way beyond their Actual Significance

By: Katie Allen

Katie Allen — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 02:02:39 +0000

I'm sorry but did everyone complaining about the comparisons completely miss the fact that he said 12% support tea partiers. And for reference, the socialism poll comes from a poll where they asked people which system they thought was better socialism or capitalism. 20% said socialism, 27% said they didn't know and the rest said capitalim. While 20% is low, it's still pretty high in red scare USA. And I think it's pretty obvious that socialism would have a lot more support here just like it does in Europe if it hadn't been fore the Cold War and the political manipulation that went on during that time.

By: Kei

Kei — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 20:26:05 +0000

I know its already been mentioned but people don't split 50/50 like this.. where are the others. Incomplete data means incomplete analysis.
Furthermore, what do they mean by favouring Socialism.. Social Security is a socialist like endeavour. If President Obama had proposed it, they would simply call him a socialist(or communist). To say they favour socialism probably means that they favour certain social programs.. in which case on overwhelming percentage of the population(much more then 20%) would favour "Socialism" because they want to get their Social Security.

By: Brendan

Brendan — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 15:47:30 +0000

I believe your manipulation of this data to prove your point is prohibited as torture under the Geneva Convention.

How else could you take one poll that says 20% of Americans "favor" socialism, compare it to another that indicates 11% are "involved" in the tea parties, and conclude there are "twice as many socialists"? There is no way one-fifth of the country self-identifies as socialists, politically speaking.

If 11% of the country became actively involved in a socialist movement overnight, it wouldn't be ignored by the media. As it stands, despite the fact that many tenets of classic socialist doctrine have been codified in U.S. law for more than 60 years now, socialism as a political force has been relegated squarely on the fringe by the establishment center-left party in the United States, whereas the GOP has done a great deal to cultivate the tea party movement.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 05:33:04 +0000

Interesting that my socialist sentiments are shared by 20% of my fellow Americans. How would I have ever known?

Thanks Juan.

By: dbehrman@fuse.net

dbehrman@fuse.net — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 16:22:28 +0000

There is a difference between "favoring" and "being a member of". It's quite easy to say you favor something. I wonder what the numbers/graphs would look like if we were to ask how many people favored most if not all of the tea party's tenets? or how many people were actual members of a socialist party?

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 15:50:07 +0000

Yeah – I think your data really validates what happened in the Massachusetts senate race. NOT!

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 15:41:59 +0000

"Dr. Cole, the big issue for Tea Partiers is not right vs. left. Its whether the Republic can survive the 'Unitary' Presidency and the abdication of Congress. We no longer have co-equal branches, or checks and balances."
Has "anonymous" read the papers lately? A minority of 40 or 41 Senators has been able to hold up health care reform, climate change legislation, any number of appointees, etc., etc., etc. Personally I think that if the President and a majority of Congress are in favor of something, they generally should be able to get it passed. If there is an absence of checks and balances, it is in a minority in one house of Congress being able to stop legislation.

By: A Man

A Man — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 15:02:34 +0000

"Your pie graphs are deceptive."

No they are not. The purpose of the article is to compare tea party vs socialists. No mention of them compared to the rest of the political environment. I'm sure if you did that you would have to include counts of how many times "republican" or "democrat" were mentioned and it would really dilute the article. Obviously there is a biased towards tea party and against socialism. Mostly for reasons listed in the other, well reasoned comments.

"There's got to be something fishy about any poll that suggests that 20% of people favor socialism"

Why does there HAVE to be something fishy? Because you do not agree? If you have a different poll you could reference please post. Just stating that you have lots of far left friends who do not agree puts you smack into the middle of most of America. (see above why the previous whiner wanted that other 69% included) You probably avoid socialists because you are biased against them. I could easily say that there are no tea party supporters because personally I have never met one, but that would be ignorant of me to dismiss a poll that tells me they are 11% of the population just because I live in an area that does not support it.