Barack Obama in The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism

On Principles & Values: Suspected by opponents of being Muslim, Communist, & Nazi

The freewheeling anti-Obama paranoia expressed at the Tea Party rallies has been widely reported. Obama is perceived by many Tea Partiers as a foreigner, an invader pretending to be an American, a 5th columnist. Obama's past as a community organizer is taken as evidence that he works on behalf of the undeserving poor and wishes to mobilize government resources on their behalf. His academic achievements and social ties put him in league with the country's intellectual elite, whose disdain feels very real to many Americans, and whose cosmopolitan leanings seem unpatriotic.