What motivates the Tea Party? What kind of people are attracted to their policies?
I’m not a paid researcher, so I can’t answer these question. So the best I can do is look at the stars signs of the Tea Party Caucus. This is a congressional grouping, that has sixty-four members, sixty from the House of Representatives, four from the Senate. When looking at my results, you should bear in mind two things. Firstly, the defining point about this group might be that they are a sample of successful politicians and their political opinions might be irrelevant. Secondly, it’s a bit of fun.
Nonetheless, this group of sixty-four lawmakers is holding the United States, and indeed the Republican Party, to ransom. By sticking to their guns they are risking a default of the country’s debt repayments, as well as national and perhaps global chaos. What star signs would, and would not, take this risk?
Here is my star sign analysis of the sixty-four members:
Aries 6
Taurus 3
Gemini 10
Cancer 8
Leo 2
Virgo 7
Libra 8
Scorpio 3
Sagittarius 4
Capricorn 7
Aquarius 3
Pisces 3
So, with a total of 64, the average number of Tea Party Caucus members per sign is 5.33.
There are three signs that really stand out, with totals way above average. Gemini, Cancer and Libra, with Gemini having ten members, and Cancer and Libra eight each.
The sign Gemini likes playing games, and often lives in its head, in a world of intellectual abstraction. So some of the ten Gemini members might regard the whole debt ceiling crisis as an amusing distraction, and they might not understand the real-life consequences of what’s going on. In fact, they might not be whole-heartedly and emotionally committed to the Tea Party cause, but it probably seemed like a fun thing to get involved with at the time.
In the case of the eight Librans, one has to remember that Libra is a sign that enjoys networking, and will often make a hard calculation about where its best interests lie. The Tea Party is flavour of the day, or at least it was a year to two ago, and for the moment it makes sense to be involved with it. Yet as every successful Libran knows, one has to keep one’s ear to the ground, because circumstances can rapidly change.
By contrast, the eight Cancerians are deadly serious. They are acting out of pure principle, and I think most of them would take the view that if the nation defaults on its debt, and the markets go into free fall, that’s simply the price to pay.
For example, Phil Gingrey, Cancerian congressman and Caucus member, said the following about this evening’s vote in the House of Representatives, on his own party’s plan to raise the debt ceiling:
We will never get a balanced budget amendment unless we take advantage of this chokepoint… I’m going to stand strong on this… I’m going to vote no.
At the other end of the spectrum, one has to ask why only two Leos, three Taureans, three Scorpios and three Aquarians are members of the Tea Party Caucus. In astrology Taurus, Leo, Scorpio and Aquarius are known as the ‘fixed’ signs. Statistically we would expect 21.33 members to be fixed signs, but in practice there are only eleven.
The fixed signs don’t like change, and once they’ve made up their mind about something they tend to stick with it. They probably regard the Tea Party as a temporary phenomena, and even if they’re politically ambitious they might take the view that by showing support for the Tea Party they would be damaging their long-term prospects. And for a fixed sign, it’s the long-term that matters.
So, what is the point of my survey, aside from light entertainment? Well, if I was advising Barack Obama or John Boehner, as they try to cobble together an agreement on the debt ceiling, I would suggest that they focus their attentions on the Gemini and Libra members of the Tea Party Caucus. These two signs, and in particular Gemini, are unlikely to be a hundred percent committed to the cause, and with the right arguments (for the Geminis), and the right threats (for the Librans), they can be made to see sense.
Copyright © 2011 Archie Dunlop
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Love it…love it!
Spot-on, I believe…we’re dealing with silly air-signs in it for the PARTY of it all! They haven’t a clue…the T-Party is created/funded/orchestrated by a bunch of rich folks hoping to eventually ‘throw the baby (Hard fought benefits that built the Middle-Class) out with the bathwater’. Little do the T-Party know they are being totally manipulated and controlled by this evil cabal! These folks badly need to see the light and join the rest of us working to save what’s left of America!