According to high profile banking analyst Meredith Whitney, Tea Party members are primarily “freaked out white men” who pose the greatest political threat to Democrats in 2012.
While discussing the Standard & Poor’s downgrade of U.S. debt, Whitney said the dissenters represent the type of problems that have led to the current predicament in Washington.
“Call it Tea Party, whatever you will, the fringe element is as I characterize (as) freaked-out white men who are unemployed and have been unemployed for three years and they’re scared to death,” she said. “Three to four million of them are about to roll off unemployment benefits in the next three to four months. This is only going to get worse.”
Whitney forewarns that Democrats looking to stay in the White House and regain full control of Congress will need to take note.
“For this reason you have to deal with the structural issues,” Whitney said. “If you are a Machiavellian Democrat you want to deal with this issue and defuse the Tea Party as fast as you possibly can because this poses the biggest threat to their re-election in 2012.”
Ms. Whitney states that extending unemployment benefits anymore than they have been is not the answer.
“You feel better about yourself when you’re working. Kids feel better about their parents when they’re working. Having a job is more than having a paycheck,” Whitney said. “To push for the extension of unemployment benefits is going to and should unleash absolute backlash against this administration because that’s a horrendous idea.”
Gawker reports Santelli’s reply:
Would-be pretender to the Tea Party throne Rick Santelli took to the airwaves to trash another monarch today on CNBC: King George III, who he brought back from the dead to compare to a banking analyst that dismissed the Tea Party as “freaked out white men who are unemployed.” Railing about the importance of the Founding Fathers, he left analyst Meredith Whitney asking herself, “What have I done to you?”
One thing is certain, with the poll taken last year, concluding that only 1% of Tea Partiers are African American and given their unhidden anger, the lady has a point. They’ve been angry since the moment Barack Obama was sworn in.
Image: Tea Party activists
