Theda Skocpol and Vanessa Williamson
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- February 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780199832637
- eISBN:
- 9780190252601
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199832637.003.0004
- Subject:
- Political Science, American Politics
This chapter provides an overview of the organizations and networks that make up the Tea Party, drawing on publicly available evidence, in-depth personal interviews, and local observations. It starts ...
More
This chapter provides an overview of the organizations and networks that make up the Tea Party, drawing on publicly available evidence, in-depth personal interviews, and local observations. It starts with the efforts of the grassroots organizers who moved during 2009 and 2010 from sparking rallies to creating regularly meeting Tea Party groups across the country. It then looks in greater detail at the Tea Party-linked national organizations that operate with backing from right-wing billionaires and other wealthy people. These top-down organizations not only created or directly control the Tea Party, but are also effectively leveraging grassroots activism to gain new advantages in durable crusades to remake the Republican Party and shift legislative agendas at all levels of US government.Less
This chapter provides an overview of the organizations and networks that make up the Tea Party, drawing on publicly available evidence, in-depth personal interviews, and local observations. It starts with the efforts of the grassroots organizers who moved during 2009 and 2010 from sparking rallies to creating regularly meeting Tea Party groups across the country. It then looks in greater detail at the Tea Party-linked national organizations that operate with backing from right-wing billionaires and other wealthy people. These top-down organizations not only created or directly control the Tea Party, but are also effectively leveraging grassroots activism to gain new advantages in durable crusades to remake the Republican Party and shift legislative agendas at all levels of US government.
Theda Skocpol and Vanessa Williamson
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- February 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780199832637
- eISBN:
- 9780190252601
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199832637.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, American Politics
On February 19, 2009, CNBC commentator Rick Santelli delivered a dramatic rant against Obama administration programs to shore up the plunging housing market. Invoking the Founding Fathers and ...
More
On February 19, 2009, CNBC commentator Rick Santelli delivered a dramatic rant against Obama administration programs to shore up the plunging housing market. Invoking the Founding Fathers and ridiculing “losers” who could not pay their mortgages, Santelli called for “Tea Party” protests. Over the next two years, conservative activists took to the streets and airways, built hundreds of local Tea Party groups, and weighed in with votes and money to help right-wing Republicans win electoral victories in 2010. This book provides a portrait of the Tea Party. What it finds is sometimes surprising. Drawing on grassroots interviews and visits to local meetings in several regions, it finds that older, middle-class Tea Partiers mostly approve of Social Security, Medicare, and generous benefits for military veterans. Their opposition to “big government” entails reluctance to pay taxes to help people viewed as undeserving “freeloaders,” including immigrants, lower income earners, and the young. At the national level, Tea Party elites and funders leverage grassroots energy to further longstanding goals, such as tax cuts for the wealthy, deregulation of business, and privatization of the very same Social Security and Medicare programs on which many grassroots Tea Partiers depend. Elites and grassroots are nevertheless united in hatred of Barack Obama and determination to push the Republican Party sharply to the right.Less
On February 19, 2009, CNBC commentator Rick Santelli delivered a dramatic rant against Obama administration programs to shore up the plunging housing market. Invoking the Founding Fathers and ridiculing “losers” who could not pay their mortgages, Santelli called for “Tea Party” protests. Over the next two years, conservative activists took to the streets and airways, built hundreds of local Tea Party groups, and weighed in with votes and money to help right-wing Republicans win electoral victories in 2010. This book provides a portrait of the Tea Party. What it finds is sometimes surprising. Drawing on grassroots interviews and visits to local meetings in several regions, it finds that older, middle-class Tea Partiers mostly approve of Social Security, Medicare, and generous benefits for military veterans. Their opposition to “big government” entails reluctance to pay taxes to help people viewed as undeserving “freeloaders,” including immigrants, lower income earners, and the young. At the national level, Tea Party elites and funders leverage grassroots energy to further longstanding goals, such as tax cuts for the wealthy, deregulation of business, and privatization of the very same Social Security and Medicare programs on which many grassroots Tea Partiers depend. Elites and grassroots are nevertheless united in hatred of Barack Obama and determination to push the Republican Party sharply to the right.
