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Saturday, August 28, 2010

87,000 does not an American majority make
Posted by Jill | 9:57 PM
The media have really enjoyed painting the Tea Party movement as some kind of national, majority sea change in attitude, a revoluationary force bound and determined to change our government. Of course as lazy as the media has become, if a few thousand people stood on a street corner screaming that the second coming of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is nigh, Chuck Todd would talk about how the President ignores the FSM-ers at his peril.

So this giant groundswell took to the Mall in Washington DC today -- all 87,000-ish of them.

The population of the United States is 310,110,640. About 228,000,000 of these are adults. Of those, 87,000 showed up to demonstrate their support for Glenn Beck today. That is 4/100 of one percent of the American adult population, or about the attendance at two Mets games at Citi Field, if the Mets were playing something resembling credible baseball.

So can we please stop talking about these people as if they represent some huge sea change in American attitudes, and leave them to their 'zines and e-mail spam where they belong?

(LGF has photos.)

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4 Comments:
Blogger Unknown said...
87,000 will be less than probably 100 hundred college football games this fall
8/28/10, 10:08 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...
Sure, why nut.
8/28/10, 11:12 PM  
Blogger Nan said...
The media loves a freak show, and that's what the tea party movement provides.

I didn't watch much of the Beck rally, but from what I did see, it was a comparatively thin crowd considering all the advance hype.
8/29/10, 7:39 AM  
Blogger Unknown said...
So if Glenn Beck gets fewer than 150 million people to show up on the mall, then it proves the Tea Party movement is a minority?

Not sure about your logic, but I agree with the conclusion. It *is* a minority. But minorities can be very influential in elections. The real test will be in November.

Unlike some, I'm not counting any GOP chickens yet. The Dems still have a huge money advantage, and the Republican GOTV machine is in shambles.
8/29/10, 7:47 AM  
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