Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Occupy Movement versus Tea Party - How Do They Compare?

I don't recall the Tea Party ever turning out these kind of numbers of people, and certainly not for s:uch a prolonged period of time.


From MSNBC.com:

'Occupy Wall Street' more popular than Tea Party

NEW YORK -- This Saturday marks one month since Occupy Wall Street protesters set-up camp at Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan. Since then the demonstrations have spread to dozens of cities across the country. This weekend, a global day of protests is planned, and organizers say they expect events to be held in more than 800 cities in 71 countries.
Clearly, the movement appears to be growing. Now we have some new information about how the rest of the country views what’s happening in Zuccotti Park and beyond.
From an NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll released Wednesday:
  • 37% of the country tends to support the movement; 18% oppose; 25% have no opinion. That’s more than those who say they support the Tea Party -- just 26% say they support it, while 64% say they do not.
  • The movement is most popular in the Northeast, where people tend to support it 48%-15%. It is least popular in the South where 30% support, 22% oppose.
  • Perhaps counter-intuitively, the movement has its highest support among the highest income earners, (those making more than $75,000 year): 40% support, 24% oppose. Among the poorest, however, it is also popular (less than 30K year): 35% support, 11% oppose.
  • Among ethnic groups, the protests are popular among African-Americans, 41% support, 7% oppose; among Hispanics 35% support, 15 oppose; among Whites 37% support, 18% oppose.
  • Among political parties, unsurprisingly, the movement is most popular among Democrats (56%-6%), and least popular among Republicans, where a plurality do not support 17%-34%. Independents support 34%-17%.
Since the demonstrations started there have also been nagging questions about what protesters believe in, and what they want. Early last week New York Magazine conducted an informal survey of 100 protesters at Zuccotti Park to gauge their views on everything from President Obama to capitalism. A few snippets are below.
What do you think of Obama?
  • I believed in him, and he let me down: 40
  • He’s doing great: 1
  • I never believed in him: 27
  • He’s doing the best he can: 22
Did you vote in the 2010 midterm elections?
  • Yes: 39
  • No: 55
  • No, but only because I wasn’t 18:
Rank yourself on the following Scale of Liberalism:
  • Not liberal at all: 6
  • Liberal but fairly mainstream (i.e., Barack Obama): 3
  • Strongly liberal (i.e., Paul Krugman): 12
  • Fed up with Democrats, believe country needs overhaul (i.e., Ralph Nader): 41
  • Convinced the U.S. government is no better than, say, Al Qaeda (i.e., Noam Chomsky): 34
*** UPDATE *** We checked to see how the supporters and opponents of Occupy Wall Street broke down in their approval or disapproval of President Obama.
Those who tend to support the protesters, said they approved of the president's job 61%-35%.
Those who tend to oppose the protesters, did not approve of the president's job by an 11%-88%
Those with no opinion were 42%-49%.
The margin of error on this question is +/-3.55%.

7 comments:

  1. Occupiers = dirty law-breakers
    Tea Partiers = clean law-abiders

    That is really all the comparison that is needed.

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  2. Tea Partiers = low information racist old white people out of touch with the 21st century

    Yup, that's much closer.

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  3. What's pretty hilarious coming from morons like RedAsstec is "dirty law breakers".

    The OWS protesters are not carrying guns or threatening to overthrow, by force of arms, a government they disagree with.

    If they were doing exactly the same protest, in front of the WH, except that they were carrying their favored penis substitute, people like Redass would be cheering them on.

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  4. "The OWS protesters are not carrying guns or threatening to overthrow, by force of arms, a government they disagree with."

    Yeah. But they are breaking the law and being dealt with justly.

    I look at it this way: Who would I rather have protesting in my front yard? A bunch of law-breaking littering occupiers who don't know when to go home or a bunch of clean, peaceful Tea Partiers with guns who peacefully at the end of the day?

    I choose the latter.

    The Tea Party may be a bunch of low information racist old white people out of touch with the 21st century, but at least they know how to clean up after themselves without the government have to come in and force basic sanitation upon them.

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  5. Ah, RedAz, just as you were in error about the neo-nazis in Arizona at the Occupy protest, you are in error about the sanitation and cleanliness of the Occupy protesters.
    You DID see the info on Ready and his neo-nazi buddies attending multiple tea party rallies, with guns, where they were NOT asked to leave? I'm guessing they fit right in.
    But they WERE confronted and asked to take their guns and go away by the Occupy protesters.
    You missed Laci and I checking on the false story, for example, with the Brooklyn PD, regarding the supposed protester relieving himself on a cop car. Doesn't appear that actually happened; it's been pretty thoroughly debunked.
    Likewise, there have been organized clean up of the Occupy sites, including the use of donated cleaning products. The exception no doubt is where the authorities made a mess with one of their raids.
    Good thing you came back here, so we can continue to correct allll those right wing inaccuracies that typify your comments.

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  6. The Tea Party may be a bunch of low information racist old white people out of touch with the 21st century, but at least they know how to clean up after themselves without the government have to come in and force basic sanitation upon them.

    November 24, 2011 10:44 PM

    It's good to know that low information racism is okay with you as long as they are good at cleaning up after themselves; so were the nazis under Adolf Hitler.

    Gunz and low information racism ARE sort of a natural pairing for the whine dinner.

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  7. "It's good to know that low information racism is okay with you as long as they are good at cleaning up after themselves; so were the nazis under Adolf Hitler."

    Of course the Nazis would clean up after themselves. They were the original tree hugging socialists.

    ReplyDelete