The Crowbar

A continuing series covering snarky, condescending and inappropriate liberal response to the Tea Party Movement. Snark I | Snark II

David Neiwert closes his eyes and flails his arms while running at the Tea Party movement, calling it “populist.” Well, duh, of course it’s populist. Neiwert thinks, however, that right-wing populism “in the process of taking the reins of the leaderless conservative movement,” calling it “sucker populism” as though left-wing populism is somehow less impetuous. I would guess that right-wing populism has approximately the same hold over conservatives as left-wing populism has over Obama’s liberal establishment. If you want to really understand populism go here.

Neiwert prattles on until he gets to this juicy part:

It is, in essence, predicated on the psychology of celebrity-worship: convincing working-class schlubs that they too can someday become rich and famous too — because when they do, would they want to be taxed heavily? It’s all about dangling that lottery carrot out there for the poor stiffs who were never any good at math to begin with.

My, my, isn’t that interesting? Neiwert looks down his fancy-pants liberal nose at “working-class schlubs” who have no chance whatsoever to “become rich and famous.” Those “poor stiffs” who aren’t “any good at math to begin with.” How… condescending. 

Neiwert inadvertently reveals the crux of modern liberalism: that we poor “schlubs” need the the know-it-all liberals to rescue us from ourselves.

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Thers at Firedoglake snarks directly at Tea Party protesters saying, “Hey, Tea-Baggers — you’re not the majority; hell, you’re not even normal” 

Thers is referring to the “Slient Majority No More,” saying there is NO WAY the Tea Party’s anti tax, anti-spending message could be representative of a majority of Americans:

There are no poll data whatsoever to support the idea that Americans are Fed Up when it comes to taxes.

 Uhhh. Yes there is. Great job on the fact checking, there Thers.  

The Gallup Poll Thers, the Washington Post and rest of the Liberalati are touting shows that:

48% of Americans saying the amount of federal income taxes they pay is “about right,” with 46% saying “too high”

That’s with a ±3% margin of error, of course.

But wait – this survey includes ALL Americans. I wonder, just wonder what the numbers would look like if you asked only those who actually pay income taxes? Hmmmm…

Thers goes on to snark at Tea Party protesters some more:

The Grandma-haired Byron York went to one of these small-town tea-bags, like I did, though, as he says, “organizers posted a note on their website asking that everyone “Please DO NOT personally attack the President or any member of Congress by name” — as it was a classic conservative Republican, limited-government, anti-spending talkfest.” Well, when you’re told top-down what the message is, it cleans up real good, I guess. But everywhere else, Glenn Beck won, it was all very wingnutty sloganeering, and well, good luck building a winning electoral coalition on that, Republicans.

So it’s bad to encourage civility and respect when protesting???? I think Thers is upset at being denied the opportunity to snark at protesters who may have otherwise been disrespectful. 

So, I guess it’s abnormal a) to be upset at wasteful government spending and over-taxation b) to believe that most people don’t like wasteful government spending and over-taxation c) to protest about it  and d) to be respectful while protesting.

Who wudda thunk?