David Brooks' column today sort of pulls together a couple of yesterday's posts.
While Brooks is no fan of the Tea Party Movement, he believes that those ideas could dominate the next decade. It taps into American populist tendencies and has a great deal of passion, which sucks in supporters. Brooks points to public opinion polls that show that the public is supportive of the tea party movement.
According to the NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, 41 percent of Americans have a positive view of the tea party movement. Only 35 percent of Americans have a positive view of the Democrats and only 28 percent have a positive view of the Republican Party.
I'm a little skeptical of those findings. Do average Americans really know what the tea party people believe? I don't. It's really just some half baked conspiracy theories about professors and rich people trying to cloud their minds and take their money and their guns. It's crazy stuff. It's Glenn Beck.
Why is this crazy stuff getting free reign on cable television? I'm used to crazy stuff on the Internet, but I can't believe the new depths of FOX News. Beck makes Hannity look like a wise sage.
As I said in the comment section of the Beck post, Beck is excused by people who should know better on the grounds that he is entertainment/politics in the vein of Jon Stewart. His exaggerations are excused and slanders overlooked, because he isn't supposed to be real news. He is comedian news, they tell me.
He is asshole news, if you ask me.
But Beck is part of the lunatic fringe, as Brooks calls them, who have been stirring up the tea party movement. They've been dipping the tea bags. Letting the kettle whistle. [stop it, laura.]
Brooks seems to think that this movement has legs and could be a major force in the Republican party. I'm not sure about that. But they must be watched.