The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism: on Principles & Values
Barack Obama:
Suspected by opponents of being Muslim, Communist, & Nazi
Nowhere are Tea Party fears more profoundly symbolized than in the presidency of Barack Hussein Obama. The policies and person of the 44th President were the subject of immense suspicion at every Tea Party event or interview we attended.
Several interviewees dated their concerns about the country and national politics to Obama's election or the 2008 campaign.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.
Source: The Remaking of Republican Conservatism, p. 77-79
Jan 2, 2012
Christine O`Donnell:
Social issues activist prior to Senate run
Christine O'Donnell, a 41-year-old Tea Party-backed upstart had surged from far behind to win the Delaware GOP Senate nomination. O'Donnell was a little-known social issues activist, a woman of questionable career achievements and dubious
personal finances, who had roundly lost both elections she had previously contested. But in the final weeks before the September 14 primary, she was the beneficiary of high-profile endorsements.
Source: The Remaking of Republican Conservatism, p.163-164
Jan 2, 2012
Christine O`Donnell:
Raised $7.5M in Senate race, 90% from outside of Delaware
For the November election, O'Donnell greatly outraised her Democratic opponent Chris Coons. To be sure, Coons did very well, raising over $3.8 million, about half from in-state sources and the rest from national Democrats thrilled at
their chance to hold the former Biden seat. But O'Donnell hauled in an amazing $7.5 million, 90% from national conservatives and other interests outside Delaware.
Similarly, while O'Donnell only sporadically campaigned on the ground in Delaware, she was a sensation in the national media.
In due course, the Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism would conclude that O'Donnell got more media coverage during 2010 than any other figure except President Obama.
Source: The Remaking of Republican Conservatism, p.165
Jan 2, 2012
Christine O`Donnell:
Advised new Tea Party members against Congressional perks
Before the 112th Congress could even officially convene, many Republicans were "oriented." Right after the November election, Dick Armey convened a Tea Party retreat to instruct incoming GOP House members on how to stay true to their small-government
principles and avoid being co-opted by current GOP House members steeped in the ways of Washington DC. The threats stressed by elite ideologues were the perils of doing business as usual through compromises with Democrats. "Don't be dazzled by plum
committee assignments and other enticements from Republican leaders," or tempted by special spending targeted on local districts. In effect, Armey appointed himself the shadow Speaker of the House for 2011; he told rank-and-file GOP legislators to refuse
exactly the sort of cooperation with Republican Congressional leaders that Armey himself had routinely orchestrated back in the 1990s, when as GOP House Majority leader he put together complex deals involving perks and targeted spending.
Source: The Remaking of Republican Conservatism, p.173-174
Jan 2, 2012
Dick Armey:
OpEd: Elite leader of Tea Party, not grassroots leader
Many supporters proclaim the Tea Party to be purely a grassroots rebellion. This view captures only a small part of the truth. The "mass movement" portrayed overlooks the fact that the Tea Party, understood in its entirety, includes media hosts and
wealthy political action committees, plus national advocacy groups and self-proclaimed spokespersons--elites that wield many millions of dollars in political contributions and appear all over the media claiming to speak for grassroots activists who
certainly have not elected them, and to whom they are not accountable. What kind of mass rebellion is funded by corporate billionaires, like the Koch brothers, led by over-the-hill former GOP kingpins like Dick Armey, and ceaselessly promoted by
millionaire media celebrities like Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity? The opposite illusion is also there among those who proclaim the Tea Party to be nothing more than an "astroturf" phenomenon.
Source: The Remaking of Republican Conservatism, p. 11
Jan 2, 2012
Donald Trump:
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
Harry Reid:
Tea Party will disappear as soon as the economy gets better
Where is the Tea Party headed? The question was posed to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, when he appeared on the NBC program "Meet the Press" on January 9, 2011.
Just a couple of months earlier, Reid had surmounted a well-funded and nationally touted challenge by GOP senate candidate Sharron Angle. "She was Tea Party backed, a Tea Party candidate," observed the
NBC host David Gregory. "Do she and others, as part of this Tea Party, represent a lasting force in American politics?"
Reid was characteristically blunt in response. "The Tea Party will disappear as soon as the economy gets better," he declared. "And the economy's getting better all the time."
Source: The Remaking of Republican Conservatism, p.189
Jan 2, 2012
Michele Bachmann:
2011: First Tea Party response to State of the Union
On January 25th, 2011, following the President's State of the Union address and the traditional response from the opposing party, President Obama duly delivered his address, and the officially designated GOP spokesman, Representative Paul Ryan of
Wisconsin, delivered his party's rebuttal. But then CNN teamed up with Tea Party Express to broadcast yet another response to the President--by Michelle Bachman, Republican from Minnesota and the self-appointed chair of the House Tea Party Caucus!
CNN's broadcast could give a casual viewer the false impression that the Tea Party was something apart from both major parties; consequently, in the aftermath, the network drew criticism from the right and the left for airing what was essentially a 2nd
GOP response to Obama. But CNN defended its choice, claiming that the Tea Party "has become a major force in American politics." This did not explain, however, why one GOP politician was an appropriate mouthpiece for the entire complex phenomenon.
Source: The Remaking of Republican Conservatism, p.150
Jan 2, 2012
Rush Limbaugh:
80% of listeners identify themselves as conservatives
Conservative news reaches millions of Americans every day. All in all, a quarter of Americans report regularly watching Fox News. As for radio, Rush Limbaugh, and fellow conservatives radio hosts Sean Hannity, Michael Savage, Glenn Beck, and
Laura Ingraham, each reach tens of millions of radio listeners across the country.Viewers and listeners respond to the partisan slant Fox and other conservative outlets present.
More than half of Fox news watchers identify as politically conservative, with higher levels of conservatism among viewers of Fox News' top programs. Fully 80% of Rush Limbaugh listeners identify themselves as conservatives, compared to 35% of Americans
as a whole. Demographics track what one would expect from the partisan skew. The average age of a Fox News Channel viewer is over 65 years, while conservative talk radio listeners average 67 years of age. Less than 2% of Fox viewers are African-American.
Source: The Remaking of Republican Conservatism, p.125
Jan 2, 2012
Tea Party:
Tea Party includes some astroturf and some grassroots
Many supporters proclaim the Tea Party to be purely a grassroots rebellion, a "mass movement of 'regular' Americans with real concerns about losing the right to live their lives as they choose." This view captures only a small part of the truth, ignoring
the fact that Tea Party participants are in many respects even more ideologically extreme than other very conservative Republicans. Similarly, the "mass movement" portrayed overlooks the fact that the Tea Party, understood in its entirety, includes media
hosts and wealthy political action committees, plus national advocacy groups and self-proclaimed spokespersons--elites that wield many millions of dollars in political contributions and appear all over the media claiming to speak for grassroots activists
who certainly have not elected them, and to whom they are not accountable. The opposite illusion is also there among those who proclaim the Tea Party to be nothing more than an "astroturf" phenomenon.
Source: The Remaking of Republican Conservatism, p. 11
Jan 2, 2012
Tea Party:
About 160,000 active participants in Tea Party movement
Our nationwide survey of local Tea Parties turned up about 1000 groups spread across all 50 states, including about 800 groups that appeared to be active in the spring and early summer of 2011.
Some local Tea Parties are very large, with online membership lists of 1000 people or more. But most local Tea Parties have much smaller contact lists, and the typical meeting has a few dozen people in attendance.
Overall, a generous assumption is that approximately 800 active local Tea Parties have, on overage, 200 members apiece--that is, people who sign up to be regularly notified and attend gatherings at least occasionally.
That multiplies out to 160,000 very active grassroots participants in Tea Parties across the US.
Source: The Remaking of Republican Conservatism, p. 22
Jan 2, 2012
Tea Party:
Tea Party Demographics: Mostly middle-aged and beyond
Although not every active Tea Partier is a senior citizen, most are middle-aged and beyond--a key social characteristic. Probably the age profile of the Tea Party nudges younger in urban areas, especially in locales where libertarian college students may
turn up. But at the Tea Party meetings we attended in rural and suburban venues, graying hair topped almost every head.Despite occasional efforts at intergenerational outreach, Tea Partiers do not seem anguished about their upward-tilted profile.
The paucity of younger participants is usually taken in stride. Tea Partiers are "older and wiser," one member in Arizona told us. Similarly, a
Virginia Tea Party member explained that older Americans are more attuned to Tea Party priorities. "28-year-olds are not paying the bills" and so they are not as attracted to the Tea Party as people over 50, who worry about fiscal matters.
Source: The Remaking of Republican Conservatism, p. 24-25
Jan 2, 2012
Tea Party:
Tea Party includes both moral conservatives & libertarians
We've seen a number of traits that mostly unite engaged Tea Party supporters, including race, age, socioeconomic class, and, above all, very conservative political views. There is, however, one major dimension along which Tea Party activists show
diversity. Some Tea Partiers are social conservatives focused on moral and cultural issues ranging from pro-life concerns to worries about the impact of recent immigrants on the cultural coherence of American life, while others are much more
secular-minded libertarians, who stress individual choice on cultural matters and want the Tea Party as a whole to give absolute priority to fiscal issues.
When it comes to hammering out shared positions or setting priorities for local Tea Party activity, there can be significant friction between these two clusters, particularly about religion and the role of government in enforcing moral standards.
Source: The Remaking of Republican Conservatism, p. 35-36
Jan 2, 2012
Tea Party:
Borrow Alinsky's community organizing methods from the left
Some of the civic organizers we met were very savvy indeed about what it takes to get people involved and committed to a shared cause. [One organizer] worried that Tea Party meetings might become too focused on outside lecturers. He did not want people
to be mere "spectators" and urged his group to set aside time for discussion and decisions about joint endeavors. A Tea Party organizer like him could sit down and have a very fruitful conversation about community organizing with the best leftists
organizers we know. Indeed, some Tea Party members are explicit about borrowing from the left. A number of our interviewees cited the work of Saul Alinsky, the famed community organizer and author of "Rules for Radicals." Other Tea Party organizers
arrive at the same sorts of insights based on lifetimes of civic experience and their own instincts about what it takes to build a vibrant local Tea Party.
Source: The Remaking of Republican Conservatism, p. 41-42
Jan 2, 2012
Tea Party:
Defining book: The Five Thousand Year Leap
"The 5000 Year Leap" is a book popular with many Tea Partiers for its elucidation of ties between the Bible and the Constitution. Written in 1981 by ultra-right ideologue Cleon Skousen, this book explains the US Constitution and the founding of the US in
Biblical terms. All but forgotten for many years, the book found new life after Glenn Beck dubbed it "divinely inspired." One Arizonan Tea Party regular calls the book "one of our Bibles." Tea Party websites often refer to the books' conclusions in their
discussion of America's religious heritage. In South Carolina, the Greenville Tea Party's website claims that the Founding Fathers used "28 fundamental beliefs to create a society based on morality, faith, and ethics," and that "more progress was
achieved in the last 200 years than in the previous 5,000 years of every civilization combined"--2 claims drawn directly from Skousen's book. For these Tea Party members, Skousen provides proof that America is a "Republic with Christian-Judeo influences.
Source: The Remaking of Republican Conservatism, p. 51-52
Jan 2, 2012
Tea Party:
Obama is subject of immense suspicion of illegitimacy
The policies and person of Barack Hussein Obama were the subject of immense suspicion at every Tea Party event or interview we attended. It is no coincidence that Tea Party activism began within weeks of President Obama's inauguration.
Several interviewees dated their concerns about the country and national politics to Obama's election or the 2008 campaign. Others told us, quite credibly, about long-simmering worries, and insisted that the Tea Party is not just or only about opposition
to 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. 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.
Source: The Remaking of Republican Conservatism, p. 77-79
Jan 2, 2012
Tea Party:
Separate Tea Party from GOP response to State of the Union
On January 25th, 2011, following the President's State of the Union address and the traditional response from the opposing party, President Obama duly delivered his address, and the officially designated GOP spokesman, Representative Paul Ryan of
Wisconsin, delivered his party's rebuttal. But then CNN teamed up with Tea Party Express to broadcast yet another response to the President--by Michelle Bachman, Republican from Minnesota and the self-appointed chair of the House Tea Party Caucus!
CNN's broadcast could give a casual viewer the false impression that the Tea Party was something apart from both major parties; consequently, in the aftermath, the network drew criticism from the right and the left for airing what was essentially a 2nd
GOP response to Obama. But CNN defended its choice, claiming that the Tea Party "has become a major force in American politics." This did not explain, however, why one GOP politician was an appropriate mouthpiece for the entire complex phenomenon.
Source: The Remaking of Republican Conservatism, p.150
Jan 2, 2012
Page last updated: Feb 21, 2019