87,000 does not an American majority make

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.)