Tea Party: Just a Christian Sock Puppet? New Pew Report Reveals Truth

Would you be surprised to learn that the Tea Party isn't actually a good cross section of America? That in fact they're mostly a sock puppet for Evangelical Christian politicians?

The Tea Party likes to pretend that it's a grass roots salt-of-the-earth organization made up of average Americans who are sick of big government and taxes. They want to pretend that they represent black, white and brown, male and female, young and old.

But the facts are otherwise. The Tea Party is actually a stronghold of white Evangelical Christianity.

A fascinating new Pew Forum report has just come out that details the demographics of the Tea Party. Among its findings:

• White Evangelicals are five-to-one in support of the Tea Party
• Black Protestants are five-to-one against the Tea Party

That is a striking contrast. But other ethnic/religious groups also show a disdain for Tea Party politics:

• Jews are three-to-one against the Tea Party
• Atheist/Agnostic are five-to-one against the Tea Party
• Undeclared are two-to-one against the Tea Party
• Catholics are roughly evenly split
• White "mainline" (Protestant) are roughly evenly split

In other words, the only religious/ethnic group in the whole country that strongly identifies itself with Tea Party politics is white Evangelical Christians. That's hardly what I'd call a grass-roots movement!

I was actually quite pleased to hear this. The Tea Party thinks it's a growing movement that will take over America. But in reality they're just another facade for the evangelical Christian right. They have no appeal to mainstream America. It's trying to portray itself as a dynamic political movement, but in reality the Tea Party is slowly sliding into obscurity.

Bye bye Tea Party!

(H/T to Lady Freethought for the article.)