The Tea Party and the remaking of Republican conservatism

258 Pages·2016·1.19 MB·English

by  Theda Skocpol

Th e Tea Party
and the Remaking
of Republican Conservatism
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The Tea Party
and the Remaking
of Republican Conservatism

THEDA SKOCPOL AND

VANESSA WILLIAMSON

1
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Copyright © 2012 Th eda Skocpol and Vanessa Williamson
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Skocpol, Th eda.
Th e Tea Party and the remaking of Republican conservatism / Th eda Skocpol
and Vanessa Williamson.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-19-983263-7 (hardback : alk. paper)
1. Tea Party movement. 2. Conservatism—United States. I. Williamson, Vanessa. II. Title.
JK2391.T43S56 2012
320.520973—dc23 2011038685
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
Contents

Preface and Acknowledgments ix
Introduction : “I Want My Country Back!” 3
1. Behind the Costumes and Signs:
Who Are the Tea Partiers? 19
2. What They Believe: Ideas and Passions 45
3. Mobilized Grassroots and Roving Billionaires:
The Panoply of Tea Party Organizations 83
4. Getting the Word Out: The Media as Cheerleader
and Megaphone 121
5. How the Tea Party Boosts the GOP
and Prods It Rightward 155
6. The Tea Party and American Democracy 189
Notes 207
Index 237
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List of Figures

Figure 3.1 L ocal Tea Party Groups in the United States. 91
Figure 4.1 T ea Party Coverage by CNN and Fox News,
February to May 2009. 1 32
Figure 4.2 T ea Party Coverage by CNN in 2009 and 2010. 141
Figure 4.3 S urvey Questions and Levels of Tea Party
Support. 145
Figure 5.1 P artisan Shifts in the House of
Representatives from 2010 to 2011. 169
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Preface and
Acknowledgments
Surprise and curiosity prompted us to do research on the Tea Party.
Most scholarship on U.S. politics addresses established aca-
demic questions, pulls concepts and hypotheses off the library
shelf, and chews over computerized datasets. But when the Tea
Party burst on the scene starting in 2009, it challenged assump-
tions about how U.S. politics would play out following the big
Democratic victories in the 2008 elections. No canned datasets
would be of much use to track an emergent set of protests; and the
Tea Party as a whole could not be plopped into available conceptu-
alizations about third parties, social movements, or popular pro-
tests during sharp economic downturns. Perfect! Many in academia
turn away if something doesn’t fi t. But we were fascinated and in-
tensely curious about this puzzling outburst. We wanted to get off
our duff s, fi gure it out—and tell others what we found.
In 2009 and early 2010, Th eda was doing research on the
Obama presidency and the politics of health reform when the sur-
prise victory of Republican Scott Brown in the Massachusetts spe-
cial election put a spotlight on Tea Party activists and funders. In
fact, the Tea Partiers were out there on the Massachusetts road-
ways, dressed in costumes and waving their signs. Clearly, the Tea
Party was becoming a force in electoral politics, countering if not
upending the policy agendas of the Obama administration. But