NPR teaparty and younger voters.

Folks following politics might find the following audio of interest.

If the GOP, tea party and anyone else makes inroads with younger voters; they could win many an election in several key states.

Historically, younger voters generally stay out of politics; but they are credited with putting Obama over the top in several swing-states in the 2008 election.

Alas, the tea baggers seem to have read "True Believer" by Eric Hoffer (1951). Short book and one I recommend folks whom follow politics read.

From wiki: "Hoffer argues that mass movements such as fascism and communism spread by promising a glorious future. To be successful, these mass movements need the adherents to be willing to sacrifice themselves and others for the future goals. To do so, mass movements need to devalue both the past and the present. Mass movements appeal to frustrated people who are dissatisfied with their current state, but are capable of a strong belief in the future. As well, mass movements appeal to people who want to escape a flawed self by creating an imaginary self and joining a collective whole. Some categories of people who may be attracted to mass movements include poor people, misfits, and people who feel thwarted in their endeavors. Hoffer quotes extensively from leaders of the Nazi and communist parties in the early part of the 20th Century, to demonstrate, among other things, that they were competing for adherents from the same pool of people predisposed to support mass movements. Despite the two parties' fierce antagonism, they were more likely to gain recruits from their opposing party than from moderates with no affiliation to either.

The book also explores the behavior of mass movements once they become established (or leave the "active phase"). With their collapse of a communal framework people can no longer defeat the feelings of insecurity and uncertainty by belonging to a compact whole. If the isolated individual lacks vast opportunities for personal advancement, development of talents, and action (such as those found on a frontier), he will seek substitutes. These substitutes would be pride instead of self-confidence, memberships in a collective whole like a mass movement, absolute certainty instead of understanding.

Hoffer does not take an exclusively negative view of "true believers" and the mass movements they begin. Examples he gives of positive true believers are Abraham Lincoln and Gandhi." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_True_Believer




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quotes from Hoffer:

A dissenting minority feels free only when it can impose its will on the majority: what it abominates most is the dissent of the

An empty head is not really empty; it is stuffed with rubbish. Hence the difficulty of forcing anything into an empty head.

Charlatanism of some degree is indispensable to effective leadership.

Propaganda does not deceive people; it merely helps them to deceive themselves.

The misery of a child is interesting to a mother, the misery of a young man is interesting to a young woman, the misery of an old man is interesting to nobody.

When cowardice is made respectable, its followers are without number both from among the weak and the strong; it easily becomes a fashion.


Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a God, but never without belief in a devil