By now, it's common knowledge that older people make up a large portion of the so-called tea party movement. My colleague Andy Kroll confirmed this once again in his report on the recent Faith and Freedom Coalition confab here in Washington, where he described "the right's geriatric game plan" for the midterm elections. Pundits have trotted out various theories to explain the oldsters' taste for tea (they're scared; they're racists; they're just plain dumb). Whatever the reason, I think it must involve some instinct toward masochism or martyrdom. How else to explain why these old folks would support politicians who want to dismantle the very social programs upon which their comfort—and possibly their very lives—depend? It looks to me like the aging right-wingers have been convinced to drink the Kool-Aid, and they're sipping their way toward a mass suicide that will make Jim Jones's endeavor seem like a drop in the bucket.
I know—you think these are the ravings of yet another demented geezer. But take a look at what the members of Congress aligned with the tea party have to say about Social Security and Medicare, which alone are responsible for lifting millions of seniors out of abject, body-and-soul-destroying poverty. Referring to these old-age entitlements as a loathesome form of "welfare,'' Minnesota's Michele Bachmann says that once the tea partiers gain power, they can get rid of Social Security in one long weekend. No need for the niceties of Alan Simpson's entitlement-cutting Cat Food Commission; Bachmann wants to simply kill this New Deal relic once and for all. .........(more)
The complete piece is at:
http://motherjones.com/mojo/2010/09/tea-party-gets-old-people-drink-kool-aid
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