Who supports the Tea Party? Baby Boomers, that's who.

I've been thinking about this shutdown and the craziness of the Tea Party. It seems to me to be a direct consequence of the continuing irrelevance of old white men in this country. Republicans are by and large an old party now. Their target demo is now white males in their 60's.

What allows the House to be so different than the majority of the electorate is the much lower turnout in midterm elections. The Tea Party won in 2010 because all the idealists who supported Obama in 2008 largely stayed home. You know who came out for the vote? Religious nutjobs and the Tea Partiers. It was the far Right that was able to marshal Boomers, racists, and evangelicals to create an unholy voting bloc bent on reclaiming the country and stamping out godlessness and women's rights.

What makes the Republicans so brash in their views is that they are beholden to no one. The gerrymandered districts a lot of the House Republicans come from are so red that nothing (except a challenge from someone even farther on the Right) can unseat most of these people. So why does Ted Cruz need to listen to anyone when he knows he'll be in Congress unless we are hit by the Apocalypse? Even big business doesn't matter because they don't need to spend all that much to win their seats again.

To tie all these points together, Boomers support the Republicans because they have no fear of any long term consequences. As long as Medicare, Medicaid and Tricare function satisfactorily, Boomers are fine. It's the selfish Boomer mentality that says "Cut benefits for everyone else as long as I'm not affected that much." So what if the debt ceiling is breached? Most of the Boomers will be dead soon enough. They don't have to deal with any of the fallout. Allowing these people to have a say in national affairs is like letting a roommate who's moving out pick out the new living room set.