Notes on the Tea Party Movement-3/5

                                                  October 6, 2010

                                                  Michael Molenda

                                                  Bloomington, Indiana, USA

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3. Many political observers and pundits have been trying to determine what the Tea Party movement represents.  Because there is no central organization or national spokesman for the movement, there is no authoritative answer to this question.  But certain themes have emerged with some consistency:

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a.     Echoes of the traditional opposition to strong centralized government:  this theme emerged in the days of the founding of the United States in the conflict between the Federalists vs. Democratic-Republicans; since the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt the Republican Party has voiced this theme (although it has not noticeably reduced the size of national government when in power).  Tea Party enthusiasts overlap with Libertarians on this issue.   

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b .Echoes of the traditional opposition to federal taxes:  again, this theme is deeply embedded in early American colonial life and has been a prominent policy of conservative and right-wing politicians ever since.  On the other hand, the Tea Party activists also oppose deficit spending and government debt.  They want to see taxes reduced, but they oppose government borrowing, hence, government activities must be reduced or eliminated.  On this issue they overlap with Libertarians.

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c.     Echoes of traditional nativist sentiments: anxiety about immigrants has deep historical roots in America, but became politically important in the early 1800s with the arrival of immigrants from Europe who did not fit the white Anglo-Saxon Protestant norm.  Nativist anxiety later shifted to Asians, Catholics, and Jews; more recently it has focused on Hispanic immigrants.  In 2010 the Tea Party movement is fomenting fear of Muslims and links President Obama to the Muslim “threat.” 

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d .Echoes of traditional nationalistic sentiments:  Observers going back to Alex de Tocqueville, 1835, have noted a chauvinistic, messianic tendency of Americans to believe that America is unique and exceptional.  This view is seldom questioned by any political party or mass media voice, but it is embraced more vocally by conservatives.  It frequently takes the form of demands for “strong national defense” and “fighting the terrorists” at the expense of all other values.

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e. Echoes of traditional religious sentiments:  American history is marked by the periodic resurgence of fundamentalist Christian activism.  Although religious issues are not prominent in the agenda of the Tea Party movement, a good deal of the emotional appeal of its political representatives comes from opposition to abortion, gay marriage, and secularization of government.

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f. Perhaps most importantly, the Tea Party movement embraces the rhetoric of populism, an ideology that claims that “ordinary people” are being deprived of their rights, their prosperity, and their voice by “elites” and “people who are not like us.”  Populists, therefore, present themselves as ordinary people; as Christine O’Donnell, candidate for Senates says in her recent TV commercial: “I’m not a witch.  I'm nothing you've heard. I'm you.”  The “dangerous others” often are people with advanced education, urban sophistication, and/or minority ethnic background.  For evangelical Christians in the Tea Party movement, the “dangerous others” are secularists.  These feelings are captured in the concept of a “culture war,” a notion promoted especially in books and Fox News broadcasts by commentators such as Bill O’Reilly, Glenn Beck, and Ann Coulter.