I think I've figured out why the non-wealthy would support teabagger policies/goals.

[arbusto_baboso]

If you talk to 'baggers, you'll notice something about them right away: they like to have someone to blame for society's ills, and it usually involves groups of people getting something the 'baggers don't feel those people deserve.

When you couple this with the religious sensibilities of most 'baggers, the picture comes into focus even more.

Teabaggers want to punish people for "immorality". This is refelected in their desire to dismantle the safety nets, because in 'baggers minds, the poor have some moral deficiency (laziness, greed, different skin color or ethnicity - YES, that last IS a moral issue in their twisted "minds") which makes them poor. Similarly, their stand on abortion and choice is far less about actual life (they'd be anti-war and anti-death penalty if it were really about life), than it is about the desire to punish a sexually "immoral" woman.

You can go issue by issue, and it's all about the desire to punish "wrongdoers".

[Drale]

1. The reason right wingers support the rich

is because they truly believe they will one day be rich and they treat them the way they want to be treated when they are rich.

[crikkett]

24. Even as they putt around in their Medicaid Scooters because they only have a couple years to live

Rolling Stone published a great story about the teabaggers in Kentucky. Gotta find link

[TheWraith]

2. Yep. It's the same reason poor whites supported slavery.

Even though they'd never own slaves, it made them feel better about their own status to have someone beneath them.

[butterfly77]

22. That is why they need people like..

Allen west,Clarence thomas,Michael steele,etc to make it seem convincing..

[maxsolomon]

25. Bob Dylan's "Only a Pawn in their Game" is appropos:

A South politician preaches to the poor white man
"You got more than blacks, don't complain
You're better than them, you been born with white skin" they explain
And the Negro's name
Is used it is plain
For the politician's gain
As he rises to fame
And the poor white remains
On the caboose of the train
But it ain't him to blame
He's only a pawn in their game.

The deputy sheriffs, the soldiers, the governors get paid
And the marshals and cops get the same
But the poor white man's used in the hands of them all like a tool
He's taught in his school
From the start by the rule
That the laws are with him
To protect his white skin
To keep up his hate
So he never thinks straight
'Bout the shape that he's in
But it ain't him to blame
He's only a pawn in their game.

From the powerty shacks, he looks from the cracks to the tracks
And the hoof beats pound in his brain
And he's taught how to walk in a pack
Shoot in the back
With his fist in a clinch
To hang and to lynch
To hide 'neath the hood
To kill with no pain
Like a dog on a chain
He ain't got no name
But it ain't him to blame
He's only a pawn in their game.

[Deep13]

3. If this were the 1930s, they would be blaming the Jews. nt

[WinkyDink]

20. I don't think you want to delve too far on DU.....

[HereSince1628]

4. Acceptance of economic and social inequities is basic conservative

behavior...


http://faculty.virginia.edu/haidtlab/jost.glaser.political-conservatism-as-motivated-social-cog.pdf

[calimary]

5. God they LOVE blaming people! Anyone remember bill frist, after that tsunami in the Indian

Ocean over that one Christmas holiday during the bush2 era, when frist was Senate Majority Leader? That tsunami came and washed tens of thousands of people away and the coastline and the resort area and it was horrible. And frist goes over there to inspect the damage and when some reporters asked him what he thought, all he could do was whine - "there's NO ONE to BLAME!!!!"

Those assholes always have to have somebody to blame. You know them - the "Personal Responsibility" bunch.

:puke:

[TwilightGardener]

6. There is something to this. In child development, there's a theory of

stages of moral development (Kohlberg) that sort of describes where most teabaggers and Republican voters are, compared to Democrats and progressives, IMO:

StagesKohlberg's six stages can be more generally grouped into three levels of two stages each: pre-conventional, conventional and post-conventional.<7><8><9> Following Piaget's constructivist requirements for a stage model, as described in his theory of cognitive development, it is extremely rare to regress in stages—to lose the use of higher stage abilities.<13><14> Stages cannot be skipped; each provides a new and necessary perspective, more comprehensive and differentiated than its predecessors but integrated with them.<13><14>

Level 1 (Pre-Conventional)
1. Obedience and punishment orientation
(How can I avoid punishment?)
2. Self-interest orientation
(What's in it for me?)
(Paying for a benefit)

Level 2 (Conventional)
3. Interpersonal accord and conformity
(Social norms)
(The good boy/good girl attitude)
4. Authority and social-order maintaining orientation
(Law and order morality)

Level 3 (Post-Conventional)
5. Social contract orientation
6. Universal ethical principles

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kohlberg%27s_stages_of_moral_development


I think most people who identify as Republicans are stuck somewhere in level 1 and 2. In short, they never fully developed, morally.

[nobodyspecial]

7. Libertarians are definitely stuck in Level 1

2. Self-interest orientation
(What's in it for me?)

And I would say anyone who is deeply religious is Level 2.

Thanks for bringing this up.

[TwilightGardener]

9. Yep, that's where I would put them too.

[saras]

17. The deeply religious people I know, I'd say were all Level 6's, but they're liberal activists...

http://www.lindasongs.com/">Like this.

But then I worked hard to get to hang out with the people I do. I don't do teabaggers, religious or otherwise.

I suppose, looking back, that maybe I should have valued health insurance more.

[arbusto_baboso]

8. Interesting stuff.

And you corrected the bit I was going to point out, too.

Yeah, those stages may be the ticket. Seems plausible.

[patrice]

15. Kohlberg parallels Piaget's seminal work on Cognitive Development. Kohlberg was

considered kind of radical when he first came on the scene, because he says morality is a faculty of one's ability to understand the world, i.e. NOT "God" given.

[patrice]

14. BIG factor this. I've talked to someone on FB who says the Rx for this problem is STORIES.

PhD Psychology consultant was telling me that explaining is beyond lots of people and that is better to tell the story, preferably from your own experience, that illustrates what they don't understand.

[TwilightGardener]

23. I'll bet that's true.

[Nickster]

10. You've essentially described the theory that George Lakoff has for how Conservatives think

His book Moral Politics is very good. See Below for a synopsis.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_Politics

[hifiguy]

11. They are classic authoritarian personality types

which makes them dangerous, especially when roused by crackpot demagogues.

[patrice]

16. Locus of control is external. Hence, Rick Perry's "Make Us Great Again"

and how Ron Reagan "GAVE us back our pride as Americans."

Externalized control is what makes Holocausts and other horrors possible.

[valerief]

12. It's simpler than that. They do what the teevee tells them. They believe what the teevee tells them.

They don't know how to think.

[patrice]

13. Agreed! + They are afraid they will lose their jobs in America's "at will" employment

environment if they don't obey TPB.

People DO lose their employment for what they think or believe or respond to sexually.

The "non-wealthy" are AFRAID & misguided.

[pitohui]

18. yeah maybe but to me it's obvious that it's all about racism

the immorality bit comes in because they think "those kind" are more immoral than "our kind"

when their son gets on drugs, it's a terrible tragedy and a genetic mix-up and god's way of bringing them to the church...when the black woman's child gets on drugs, it's proof somehow that "they" are inferior

i've seen it too often over the decades, you are not going to convince me there is anything good or moral about these racist pigs, sorry

they will say "praise god" as they rip you off and rob you blind, since they are forgiven, they figure that they don't have to follow the same rules of honesty as the rest of us

[MrMickeysMom]

19. Or.....

They could just have atrophied brains...
Some of them are so dumb and powerless with NO COPING SKILLS, they have no ability to critically think when faced with something that competes with dick-head television shows on the boob tube.

[Shandris]

21. I was brought up to stop at the end of Level 1 (Number 2)

Eventually I got around to learning Level 3 (Numbers 5 and 6) on my own, but I totally missed Level 2 (Numbers 3 and 4). What does that make me?

I guess a good, strong liberal who is capable (when necessary) of meeting the 'baggers on their own turf and prevailing. Although, I really hate to do that, takes about a week to wash the smell off. :P

[socialindependocrat]

26. They want to legislate morality.

Mystery loves company?

Maybe they won't go unless everyone else goes with them. Armageddon!!!

They want everyone to oppose abortion.

They want everyone to go to church

Years ago in the Utne Reader there was an article about how in the U.S. people wanted to legislate morality, whereas, in Amsterdam they let people choose their own moral limits and they dealt with the fallout afterwards.

It seemed to me like they can't stand limiting themselves to the lives of the morally upright as long as someone else is out there having "FUN", or essentially living outside their moral values. everyone has to conform. these are the people we tried to get away from in England. Our forefathers came to the U.S. to get some breathing room and after everything was safe and cozy "the rule makers" snuck in across the border. Now they are growing like a mold on our favorite cheese! We're looking at moving to N.H. to see if we can "live free". I want to have a log cain with a long . driveway and signs that say "KEEP OUT - PRIVATE PROPERTY". I like people, I just don't like people who don't respect the right of others to choose their own path to happiness!

Conservatives IMHO:

They only like people who go to their church

They stick together like glue on issues of government.

There seems to be a pattern here!!!!

If we don't support their philosophy then no one gets their way!!

Seems rather Republican - bring the world to an end and blame it on the SINNERS!!!!

Why don't they just go away and leave us alone?

We have flawed immigration policies.

If you want to make more restrictive laws - go back to Europe!!!!

Please, leave us (the U.S.) alone.

We used to be freedom-loving people!!!!!


You can't even fish in the ocean without paying for a permit
Even when it's the commercial fishermen who are overfishing.
Makes stupid sense - doesn't it????

[Kat45]

27. Many of the rich have the moral deficiency of greed/

Why don't they want to punish them?