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This chapter explores the forces shaping the contemporary welfare backlash that led to the passage of 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) and continues to shape Congressional debates about its reauthorization. It argues that attacks on welfare mothers resonated strongly with the public, especially white voters, because they appealed to antitax sentiments, racial resentments, traditional “family values,” and rising expectations that poor mothers work. Proposals to deny benefits to legal immigrants passed, despite the fact that most Americans opposed them. Appealing to nativist sentiments, anti-immigrant groups and right-wing think tanks urged Congress to adopt these policies. A coalition of Christian Right groups and right-wing think tanks championed “pro-family” and “pro-church” welfare policies in the 1990s. They wielded considerable influence over the contents of PRWORA. Right-wing Republicans sought more far-reaching reforms than other politicians were willing to support, stalling the passage of welfare reform for several years.

This chapter focuses on three phases in the intricate and unfolding relationship between the GOP and the Tea Party. It starts with the role of the Tea Party in the 2010 elections. It then examines the ways in which elite and grassroots Tea Party forces have prodded newly empowered GOP officeholders. Next, it weighs prospects for the Tea Party to help and hurt Republicans in the run-up to 2012.

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.

This introductory chapter begins by tracing the modern-day Tea Party's rise to prominence. It then sets out the book's purpose, which is to address questions such as: What is the Tea Party, taken as a whole? How did it revitalize and remake right-wing conservatism which resulted in the 2010 elections? And what are the consequences for the Republican Party and for American democracy of the Tea Party? Also, what are the chances that governments at all levels will be able to tackle the pressing challenges of the twenty-first century? Grassroots activists, roving billionaire advocates, and right-wing media purveyors—these three forces, together—create the Tea Party and give it the ongoing clout to buffet and redirect the Republican Party and influence broader debates in American democracy. The book explores each force and shows how they work together.

This chapter discusses how the structure and dynamics of US communications media provided Tea Party organizers with the publicity and access needed to flourish and have a major impact on governance. The challenge of spreading and germinating the Tea Party idea was surmounted with impressive ease because a major sector of the US media today is openly partisan—including Fox News Channel, the right-wing “blogosphere,” and a nationwide network of rightwing talk radio programs. The conservative media reaches into the homes of many Americans, buffets as well as boosts the Republican Party, and has considerable ability to set the agenda of issues that other media outlets also take up. The conservative media quickly joined and helped to orchestrate the Tea Party, breaking down the barriers between media and movement that have usually been so challenging for protesters to navigate.

This chapter considers the overall implications of the Tea Party phenomenon. It asks how might elite and grassroots Tea Party forces figure in the election of 2012. It then reflects on the paradoxes of the democratic citizenship exemplified by grassroots Tea Partiers, and concludes with an assessment of the overall impact of the Tea Party on American politics.

This chapter focuses on the people who have found the Tea Party idea compelling. It locates Tea Party people in US society, showing that they are overwhelmingly older white citizens, relatively well educated, and economically comfortable compared to Americans in general. Almost all are Republicans or conservatives to the right of the GOP. The chapter draws on national social surveys to give a broad and representative overview of Tea Party sympathizers and active supporters. Observations of and things heard from regular Tea Party participants are also used to bring to life key points about their life circumstances and outlooks.

This chapter examines the political beliefs of Tea Party members. These include their determination to restore twenty-first century US government to the Constitutional principles articulated by the eighteenth-century Founding Fathers; their opposition to taxes, big government, handouts to business, and expensive social programs, and intrusive regulation; the people they see as freeloaders who receive government benefits unfairly; and their fear of the Obama presidency.