Donald Trump in The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism

On Principles & Values: Stoked Tea Party suspicions about Obama's legitimacy

The freewheeling anti-Obama paranoia expressed at the Tea Party rallies has been widely reported. Various articles have quoted Tea Party members saying that Obama is a secret Muslim, a foreigner, a Socialist, a Communist, a Nazi--or maybe all of the above! Obama the un-American is the overarching theme. Stoked by demagogues like Donald Trump, the claim about President Obama's otherness and illegitimacy reached its apogee in "Birtherist" claims that Obama was not really born in the US. In our interviews, the tone was of course more measured than in public rallies, but we heard variations of all the possible epithets for Obama.

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.

Source: The Remaking of Republican Conservatism, p. 78-79 Jan 2, 2012

The above quotations are from The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism, by Theda Skocpol and Vanessa Williams. Click here for other excerpts from The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism, by Theda Skocpol and Vanessa Williams. Click here for other excerpts by Donald Trump. Click here for a profile of Donald Trump.
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