More hated than "Mooslums"

Well this op-ed doesn't tell us anything that the hippies haven't been saying practically since day one, but this new follow-up study once again proves the DFHs were right. The Tea Party is just another name for the same old bigoted theocrats that have ruled the GOP base for decades. They're not and never were, "nonpartisan political neophytes" suddenly sprung up from the grass roots to protest taxes, deficits or any other discernable issue.

So what do Tea Partiers have in common? They are overwhelmingly white, but even compared to other white Republicans, they had a low regard for immigrants and blacks long before Barack Obama was president, and they still do. [...]

Next to being a Republican, the strongest predictor of being a Tea Party supporter today was a desire, back in 2006, to see religion play a prominent role in politics. And Tea Partiers continue to hold these views: they seek “deeply religious” elected officials, approve of religious leaders’ engaging in politics and want religion brought into political debates. The Tea Party’s generals may say their overriding concern is a smaller government, but not their rank and file, who are more concerned about putting God in government.

But this is new:

Of course, politicians of all stripes are not faring well among the public these days. But in data we have recently collected, the Tea Party ranks lower than any of the 23 other groups we asked about — lower than both Republicans and Democrats. It is even less popular than much maligned groups like “atheists” and “Muslims.” Interestingly, one group that approaches it in unpopularity is the Christian Right.

I guess in a way we have the media's long enduring obsession with these fringe extremists to thank for their fall into disfavor. Without it, most of the electorate would never have figured out who they really are and what they really want -- namely a "Christian" nation, ruled by the laws of their God, but only as they interpret them. Not necessarily as they were written.