Study Reveals Tea Party Priorities

In September 2009, I published "The Joker," highlighting concerns that at least some members of the Tea Party were tapping into a long history of racist iconography--one that can easily be explained away in a manner that may convince those unfamiliar with the history of minstrel shows and Vaudeville. Professor Susurro has a more extensive compilation of Tea Party images highlighting racism and threats of violence at Like a Whisper.

I referenced some arguments with Tea Partiers concerning the size of the crowd at their largest rally. It was later reported that they used historic photos of an entirely different event to contest the somewhat more accurate counts of observers from the mainstream media. See the PolitiFact story.

Earlier this week, The Blue State Post mentioned some research by David E. Campbell and Robert D. Putnam that allegedly demonstrates,

...priority #1 is not small government with these people! So what do (rank and file) Tea Partiers have in common (from 2006 through today):

They’re white and
have a low regard for immigrants and blacks (*ahem* racist?!)
are disproportionately social conservatives
have a desire to see religion play a prominent role in politics
seek deeply religious elected officials
approve of religious leaders engaging in politics
want religion brought into political debates

Read the whole article at:

Study shows that Tea Party members are vastly Caucasian and have low regard for 'immigrants and blacks'


Update: 26 August 2011

Several people noted that this article and others like it fail to disclose critical questions regarding research methodology. On the Facebook Wall for American Grace (the book), Adam Blum asked, "How did you decide on choosing the 3100 people you called and interviewed? Was it random? If so did you use a computer or just call by address?" I commented that I, too, would like such answers. This morning, the author(s) of American Grace posted, "we've posted some information on our blog and on our website."

They give this link: http://americangrace.org/research.html

John Adams and the Holy Ghost

This morning I was browsing at American Creation, a high quality history blog. I read and watched videos in an old post by Lindsey Shuman, "David Barton: Liar" (March 2009). It has been one of their most popular posts.

In the videos Chris Rodda, author of Liars for Jesus: The Religious Right's Alternate Version of American History (2006), discusses some of her problems with Barton. She presented him with a copy of her book at one of his lectures. A few months later, according to Rodda, he mentioned the episode on his radio show, but fabricated a conversation that did not occur. She discusses his claim, plays a video of the conversation to support her version of the event, and then discusses his creative misreading of a letter that John Adams wrote to Benjamin Rush in 1809--part of his lecture that night. Barton owns the original letter and has posted a photo of the letter with a modernized transcription on his WallBuilders website.

In May this year, Barton appeared on The Daily Show where he was confronted regarding his reading of the letter. Warren Throckmorton's post lays out the context that Barton ignores (because it reveals how wrong he is concerning Adams' meaning). In the blog entry, "David Barton and John Adams--The Holy Ghost Letter”, Throckmorton offers some choice links to others who have refuted some of Barton's claims.

After a quick run through several blog entries, I went to the Online Library of Liberty to search the ten volume The Works of John Adams at Online Library of Liberty. I sought the Holy Ghost in this voluminous work, finding a mere six entries. One seems in the spirit of what Rodda, Throckmorton, and others are saying regarding Adams' presentation of views that he held in contempt: a letter to F.A. Vanderkemp, 13 July 1815. The key paragraph states:

So far he's posing a simple question about the basis of authority. As a descendant of Puritans and a devout Christian, we might expect that he sees authority as emanating from God.

My friend, again! the question before mankind is,—how shall I state it? It is, whether authority is from nature and reason, or from miraculous revelation; from the revelation from God, by the human understanding, or from the revelation to Moses and to Constantine, and the Council of Nice. Whether it resides in men or in offices.

But as he elaborates, he almost seems to be mocking the belief that somehow the Holy Spirit anoints political leaders.

Whether offices, spiritual and temporal, are instituted by men, or whether they are self-created and instituted themselves. Whether they were or were not brought down from Heaven in a phial of holy oil, sent by the Holy Ghost, by an angel incarnated in a dove, to anoint the head of Clovis, a more cruel tyrant than Frederic or Napoleon. Are the original principles of authority in human nature, or in stars, garters, crosses, golden fleeces, crowns, sceptres, and thrones? These profound and important questions have been agitated and discussed, before that vast democratical congregation, mankind, for more than five hundred years. How many crusades, how many Hussite wars, how many powder plots, St. Bartholomew’s days, Irish massacres, Albigensian massacres, and battles of Marengo have intervened! Sub judice lis est. Will Zinzendorf, Swedenborg, Whitefield, or Wesley prevail? Or will St. Ignatius Loyola inquisitionize and jesuitize them all? Alas, poor human nature! Thou art responsible to thy Maker and to thyself for an impartial verdict and judgment.
Adams to Vanderkemp, Accessed from http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/2127/193560/3102804 on 2011-06-11

Adams writes of holy oil direct from the Holy Ghost being used to anoint the heads of kings, even evil kings. But to say that he believes such stories strikes me as a stretch. That humans are responsible to their Creator for their actions, does seem to be something he believes. Even so, it is possible to misunderstand Adams without reference to his other writings.