‘The Silent Majority Speaks’
The Tea Party Insurgency and its Influence on the Republican Party
Master Thesis for American Studies (UvA)
By Marijn Freud (5650933)
Supervised by Dr. E. F. van de Bilt
June 29, 2012
Final draft
Introduction
p. 3
The Grand Old Party: Ideological Evolutions and Minority Factions
p. 7
How the Tea Party is influencing the Republican Public Political
Policy
p. 30
The Tea Party’s Ideology and its Influence on the GOP
p. 55
The Influence of the Tea Party Movement on the Republican Party
p. 82
Bibliography
p. 89
2
Introduction
“It’s time for another Tea Party. What we are doing in this country will make Thomas
Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin roll over in their graves. We’re thinking of having a
Chicago Tea Party in July, all you capitalists. I’m organizing.” 1
In 2009 the economic reporter for CNBC, Rick Santelli, stated this in his spontaneous
rant on the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade about the government’s issued
bailouts. Probably also to his own surprise, this rant actually was the spark that
created the Tea Party Movement. It caused the local action committees and angry
conservatives to convert their anger into action. Individual protest movements
organized and thus the Tea Party was born. This is the short story of the Tea Party
Movement’s founding, at least, according to the movement. The organization tries to
portray itself as an uprising of normal Americans who simply want their country back.
Government spending and the government’s interference in the economy have spun
out of control. The activists claim that this directly threatens their livelihood and their
individual liberty. But are the movement and its ideology as straightforward as first
meets the eye? When observed from up close the organizational structure and the
ideological framework of the movement become much more complicated. Where are
all these large Washingtonian ‘Tea Party’ organizations with their large budgets
suddenly coming from? And why do the spokespersons of these organizations seem to
look familiar? What kind of movement is trying to reform the Republican Party?
Organizations like FreedomWorks and the Tea Party Express are older conservative
Political Action Committees and lobbyist organizations that have simply relabelled
themselves to make use of the grassroots support of the Tea Party. Conservative
billionaires like the Koch brothers, who have been serving as conservative sponsors
for a long time, are happy to pump large sums of money into this grassroots
movement. Dick Armey, the chairman of FreedomWorks who likes to speak on behalf
of the Tea Party, also has a familiar face. He is not an unknown fed-up American: he
is the former Majority Leader of the Republicans in the House of Representatives.
These people cannot have the same needs and interests as the civil activists that
1
Santelli, R. Squawk Box, CNBC, February 2009
3
constitute the movement’s grassroots support. The ideology of the movement is
simple when it comes to abstract ideological and economic concepts. Ideals like
individual liberty, economic freedom, and a small government, are easy to put on a
rally sign but hard to translate into realistic policies. And interestingly enough,
policies that impose these ideals are potentially harmful for the older white Americans
who make up the largest support base of the movement. When it comes to real
policies, or issues that are not directly economic, the movement’s ideology becomes
fragmented and ambiguous.
Although the movement’s ideology and organizational structure are vague the Tea
Party has very ambitious plans with its political vehicle, the Republican Party. Despite
its name, the Tea Party is not planning to start a third party. They want to turn the
Republican Party into a truly conservative organization again. The GOP has
supposedly strayed from its conservative principles and has to be steered back to its
true ideological foundation. The Tea Party wants to secure the ideological purity of
the GOP. Most Tea Partiers are, or at least vote, Republican. The Tea Party
constitutes about 60% of the Republican support base, so the movement is a force to
be reckoned with for the GOP. 2
How is the Tea Party trying to reform the Republican Party, and how does the GOP
react to this insurgency within their ranks? This thesis will try to formulate an answer
to these pressing questions on the basis of available primary sources, in combination
with other existing studies and media sources. The extensive attention of the media
for the Tea Party, and the misconceptions about the movement that have been spread
by conservative, mainstream, and liberal media make these issues important to
investigate. The Republican Party is one of the two parties that dominate American
politics. If one of these parties is possibly undergoing a transformation, it is important
to monitor the change and the effects on American politics as a whole. The history of
the Republican Party is characterized by the rise and disappearance of various factions
representing different voices and visions. It is interesting for the party’s historical
narrative to see whether the Tea Party fits into this factional history. The Tea Party
will become a chapter in the Republicans’ history. The way the GOP dealt with
2
USA Today/Gallup April 20-23 2011 as retrieved on April 17 2012 from
http://www.gallup.com/poll/147308/Negative-Views-Tea-Party-Rise-New-High.aspx
4
insurgent factions in the party in the past can potentially be very telling about the way
the party will deal with the Tea Party Movement.
In the first chapter the factional history of the Republican Party will be
discussed in combination with the short history and the organizational structure of the
Tea Party. The historical discussion will be based mainly on the seminal book Grand
Old Party: A History of the Republicans, written by Lewis L. Gould. For the
examination of the Tea Party’s history and organizational structure the recent study by
Theda Skocpol and Vanessa Williamson proved to be very useful. This book, The Tea
Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism, came out at the beginning of
this year and can be considered the most balanced and elaborate study into the Tea
Party yet. Therefore the information listed in this book provided very useful
background information to the different chapters of this thesis. The Tea Party
Movement has a lot of self-appointed spokespersons who publish books describing
their view on the movement. Dick Armey’s and Matt Kibbe’s Give us Liberty: a Tea
Party Manifesto and John O’Hara’s A new American Tea Party: The
Counterrevolution against Bailouts, Handouts, reckless Spending, and more Taxes
can be seen as primary sources of information about the movement, and are used
throughout this study to add first-hand information to the analysis of the movement’s
ideology and its demands and protest techniques.
The following chapters will analyze the way the movement is trying to
influence the Republican Party. To be precise, the chapters discuss the influence of
the Tea Party on the GOP’s public policy and its ideology. The effect of the Tea Party
on the public policy of the Republicans will be investigated with an analysis of
newspaper articles from the New York Times and The Washington Post. These
articles are a very clear registration of the reaction of the Republicans to the Tea Party
challenge, and an analysis therefore is very informative about the situation inside the
Republican establishment. The influence of the Tea Party Movement on the
Republican ideology will be investigated by a comparison of three very interesting
first-hand sources that deal with the Tea Party’s ideology. Despite its fragmented
organizational structure the Tea Party has released two important joint policy
statements, the Contract from America and the Declaration of Tea Party
Independence. These documents are the only primary sources available that describe a
shared ideological framework of the movement and have been demonstrably approved
by a large number of different Tea Party factions. These documents have never been
5
analyzed in combination with the first-hand registration of the Republican answer to
these statements that is available, namely the Pledge to America. The GOP released
this document before the congressional elections of 2010 to appease the Tea Party
supporters. This comparison allows me to distil an overarching Tea Party ideology
and to describe the Republican reaction on the basis of first-hand information. The
combination of these analyses will be used to answer the questions posed above.
The book of Skocpol and Williamson is mainly based on extensive interviews with
grassroots activists. It describes the fragmentation and diversity within the movement
very well. But here the influence of the movement on the Republican Party is more
deeply investigated. The extraction of some broadly supported generalizations about
the ideology and policy of the Tea Party is necessary in order to establish this
influence. Whether individual interviews with different activists are the most effective
way to find shared policy and ideological stances of the Tea Party is debatable. In my
view the analysis done here, of documents that share a broad base of support among
Tea Party supporters, is more effective to gain an overall insight on how the
Republican Party is influenced by this movement. When you know what influence the
movement has, it is possible to make some predictions about the future of the
movement and the future of American politics in general.
6
The Grand Old Party: Ideological Evolutions and Minority Factions
To know which influence the Tea Party Movement (TPM) has on the nature and the
functioning of the Republican Party, a concise recapitulation of the party’s past is
necessary. Because the history of the Republican Party is long and eventful the focus
of this recapitulation will be on the elements that are relevant to this study. So the
general history will be discussed very broadly, and more in-depth research will focus
on issues that can help us understand the way the TPM influences the Republican
Party. Concepts and philosophies that constitute the framework of the party and the
evolvement of its ideological base throughout its history will be discussed. This is
necessary in order to see how the TPM fits into the Republican tradition. A main
focus of this investigation will also be how the Republican Party has dealt with
minority factions in its ranks in the past. This information is essential for establishing
how the Republican Party is likely to react to the existence of the TPM. Did the
factions shift the ideological base of the Republicans and how did the party deal with
internal disagreements? These are questions that will be dealt with below.
Much information in this recapitulation will be based on the work of Lewis L.
Gould. His book Grand Old Party, a History of the Republicans is considered to be
the current seminal work about the history of Republican Party. Before his retirement,
Gould was a Eugene C. Barker Centennial Professor in American History at the
University of Texas at Austin. Gould received his M.A and PhD. from Yale
University. He is a specialist in political history and has written several well-received
books about, for instance, the Gilded Age and President Lyndon B. Johnson. At this
moment Gould’s Grand Old Party is the most recent study that tries to capture the
‘whole’ history of the Republican Party. A review published in Foreign Affairs
qualifies the study as following: “This is a well-written, fast-paced, sensible,
illuminating, and coherent account of the Republican Party that helps readers
understand the passions behind the partisan battles that have done so much to shape
U.S. history.” 3 Other books that have tried to describe the history of the Republican
Party date from more than forty years back. Gould himself is not a Republican but is
widely praised for his non-partisan approach in his work on the Republican Party.
3
Mead, W. Party of the People: A History of the Democrats; Grand Old Party: A History of the
Republicans. Foreign Affairs May/June 2004 as retrieved from
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/59786/walter-russell-mead/party-of-the-people-a-history-of-thedemocrats-grand-old-party-a on November 9th 2011
7
This book will be the main source of information for this chapter. Gould’s study ends
with an examination of the first years of the Bush administration. My research can be
seen as an addition to his study, because it tries to examine recent developments
concerning the GOP and the emergence of a new faction within their ranks.
The two-party System in the United States has been in place long before the founding
of the Republican Party. Before the Republican Party became the main opponent of
the Democratic Party, the Whig Party was considered the main opponent of the
Democrats.
After electoral successes in the 1830s and 1840s the Whigs found
themselves internally divided over the institution of slavery. The northern and
southern wings quarreled about the issue. Whereas northern Whigs wanted to prevent
the expansion of the ‘peculiar institution’ to newly admitted states in the Union, many
southern Whigs were slave owners themselves and disagreed. Many prominent party
officials, including a young Abraham Lincoln, left the party over this issue. This
eventually caused the party to collapse and dissolve. The enactment of the KansasNebraska Act in 1854 led to a shift in the political order of the United States. Gould
states that: “ On January 4, 1854, American Politics took a dramatic turn that
eradicated the Whig Party, split the Democrats, and enabled the Republicans to come
into being.” 4 The Kansas-Nebraska Act repealed the Missouri Compromise of 1820
and the Compromise of 1850 which only allowed states south of the 36°30′ north
parallel to be slave states. The Kansas-Nebraska Act allowed settlers in the newly
admitted states of the Union to decide whether their territory would be slave territory.
They were allowed to vote on the issue, which consolidated the doctrine of ‘popular
sovereignty’ in the development of the institution of slavery. This Act was originally
designed to overcome the disagreement over the subject of slavery, which began to
cause a partisan deadlock in politics as well as in the American society more
generally. The Democratic Presidential candidate Douglas, who introduced the
legislation, saw the act as a way to please the south without compromising the
opinions of northern abolitionists too much. He saw the northern climate as ill-suited
for slavery and expected that natural conditions would prevent a large expansion of
the slave territory. Douglas didn’t expect the firestorm of protests that ignited in the
north because of this Act during 1854. By the time the Kansas-Nebraska Act was
4
Gould, L. (2003) Grand Old Party: a History of the Republicans. New York: Random House p. 12
8
enacted, protest meetings and political turmoil were plentiful in the north. In
Michigan and Wisconsin the protesting citizens began to form a new political party.
Disgruntled Democrats and Whigs began to work with members of the Free-Soil
Party and promised to found a new ‘Republican’ Party if the Kansas-Nebraska was
enacted.
This was the first use of the name Republican for a political party. The second
meeting of this faction on March 20, 1854, is often referred to as the foundation of the
Republican Party. The use of the word Republican was preferred because it bore
resemblance to both the original political organization of Thomas Jefferson in the
1790s, the Democratic-Republican Party, as well as the historical tradition of
‘republicanism’ that dates back to the Italian Renaissance and the English revolution.
In this tradition republicans were seen as public-minded citizens who were politically
active to protect civic virtue and the collective welfare. The early ideological
framework of the party embodied elements of the Whig Party and of the factions that
merged within the new party. The party was anti-slavery and against polygamy and
incorporated the slogan: “Free Speech, Free Press, Free Men, Free Labor, Free
Territory and Fremont.” 5 John C. Fremont was the first Presidential candidate for the
Republicans. Gould says that “ Their platform was explicit about their efforts to curb
slavery. The delegates denied the right of Congress to sanction slavery in the
territories. Instead, it was the ‘imperative duty’ of Congress to prohibit in the
territories those twin relics of barbarism – Polygamy and Slavery. The Mormons in
Utah practiced multiple marriages to the dismay of Republicans.” 6
The wish to contain slavery in the south and to eradicate the institution from
the American territories did not mean that the early Republicans saw blacks and
whites as equals. “Republicans still contended that blacks should not be allowed to
vote or hold office, but in the existence of other political and legal rights they should
be treated as all other citizens were. Such a stance might seem modest in light of the
more enlightened racial views of the twenty-first century, but in the context of the
mid-nineteenth century it represented a significant change in the nation’s practices.” 7
In the mid-1850s nativist sentiments were overtly present in the American society,
and these feelings were reinforced by the large influx of immigrants into America.
5
Gould, L. (2003) Grand Old Party: a History of the Republicans. New York: Random House p. 18
Gould, L. (2003) Grand Old Party: a History of the Republicans. New York: Random House p. 18
7
Gould, L. (2003) Grand Old Party: a History of the Republicans. New York: Random House p. 22
6
9
Especially the large wave of poor Irish and German immigrants worried Americans
because they were overwhelmingly Roman Catholic and did not assimilate. This
fueled conspiracy theories in the primarily Protestant society. Rumors about Catholic
efforts to convert American Protestants were rampant, and industrial workers feared
that they would loose their jobs to the cheap workforce of immigrants that streamed
into the country.
Especially the Irish immigrants were very keen to separate
themselves from other poor minorities that were considered inferior, particularly from
African-Americans. They feared that the end of slavery would cause a large influx of
black immigrants to the industrial north, and that the cheap workforce of freed blacks
would put them out of work. Therefore the Democratic Party had a large base of
support among the Irish immigrants, because they were seen as advocates for the
southern slave owners and the peculiar institution.
The Republican Party had to compete with the Know Nothing’s for votes and
support. This faction, which renamed itself the American Party in 1855, was most
known for its nativist attitude. The movement was opposed to mass immigration and
was fiercely anti-Catholic. The Know Nothings were convinced that the large influx
of Catholic immigrants, namely the German and Irish, were sent by the pope to
convert Protestants and to fight the spread of liberty, democracy and material
prosperity. They also opposed the spread of slavery. They believed in the Slave Power
conspiracy, which said that southern slaveholders worked together with their northern
supporters to expand the territory for legal slaveholding. The Know Nothings had a
large base of support in northeastern states such as Massachusetts and New York and
had some electoral successes, but the faction had a short life span. It was founded in
1843 in New York, but by the election of 1860 the organization could not be
considered a national party anymore. Many of their supporters moved over to the
newly founded Republican Party.
Another short-lived political party that merged with the Republican Party was
the Free Soil Party, which was operational between 1848 and 1854. It was a singleissue party that sought to contain the expansion of slavery over the newly added
territories. The support base was made up of disgruntled members of both the Whig
and the Democratic Party who wanted to stop the spread of the institution of slavery
on American soil. They argued that the system of free men living on free soil would
be more profitable morally as well as economically than the system of human
bondage. In 1854 most of the supporters of the Free Soil Party became sympathizers
10
of the Republican Party. The base of support of the Republican Party was almost
entirely situated in the north, and virtually non-existent in the South. The description
of the factions that merged into the newly founded Republican Party illustrates how
the party was founded by the support of different minority factions within
conventional parties like the Whigs and the Democrats, but also with the support of
more radical groups like the Free Soil Party. The supporters of the new party differed
in their opinions about big issues in the United States like economic policies and state
rights, but were united in their opposition to the spread of slavery. So from its
founding onwards the Republicans had to make compromises between different points
of view to keep their support base together. After some electoral successes in the
northern states, the party’s first big success came in 1860 when their Presidential
candidate, Abraham Lincoln, was elected President of the United States.
The ideological framework of the Republican Party in the 19th century differed greatly
from the range of thought they are known for today. In his book, Party Ideologies in
America 1828-1996, political scientist John Gerring argues that much of the Whigs’
trademarks were adopted by the Republicans. He states that “ a fairly consistent view
of the political world was carried over from the party of Clay to the party of Lincoln
to the party of Calvin Coolidge, the last bearer of American Whiggism.” 8 Throughout
the book he refers to the nineteenth-century Republican Party as the Whig-Republican
Party. Gerring summarizes the early political ideology of the Republican Party by the
appellation national. “Republicans embraced laborers as well as capitalists within a
broader framework valorizing work and social harmony. They were mercantilists,
believing that the state had a particularly important role to play in ensuring economic
development. They were statists, believing in strong government and the dignity of
government service, and believing that good government occurred when the voice of
the masses was properly channeled through institutions, rather than directly
expressed. They were a party of order, inveighing against the dangers of unrestrained
individualism, violence, and parochialism. They were Yankee Protestants, believing
that human beings had a responsibility to reform themselves and to reform society.
They were, finally, Nationalists, believers in the preeminence of American interests
8
Gerring, J. (1998) Party Ideologies in America 1828-1996. New York: Cambridge University Press
p. 57
11
and American ideals.” 9 These were concepts that all the different factions within the
party could somewhat agree on. The following of these beliefs motivated the
Republicans to disapprove of the expansion of slavery; they were convinced that the
institution of slavery harmed the nation economically, and their focus on federal
powers and their broad interpretation of the constitution convinced them that this
issue should be regulated with federal legislation instead of giving states the right to
formulate their own policy. These believes also justified the actions that the
Republicans undertook to keep the Union together, namely participating in the Civil
War to keep the Union together by force. Their mercantilist believes inspired their
support for protective tariffs and protectionism.
A political party is often a merger of different ideological factions; a
consensus between these factions about important issues and concepts makes a
unified organization possible. The need for unifying in one big organization stems
from the fact that large organizations usually have more tools to increase and retain
political power and thus more influence on policymaking. Throughout history many
factions joined and left the Republican Party. As is described above, the Republican
Party was founded as a result of the decision of different movements to cooperate on
the basis of a consensus on the subject of slavery. Here there is not enough room for a
discussion of all these different factions. So the discussion will be limited to a
historical description of (minority) factions that shifted the ideological framework of
the Republican Party radically, or were exceptionally visible and influential within the
party. The presence of different factions changes along with the ideological shifts that
occur over time within the Republican Party.
Historically there has always been tension within the GOP between conservative and
more liberal forces. The first time this becomes clear is with the emergence of the
Radical Republicans. This faction surfaced during the 1860s and was present until
World War Two. During the Civil War the Republican Party was united against the
Democrats but internally divided over the future of black Americans. Conservatives
wanted to win the war but were not prepared to fight for the African-American cause
afterwards. A faction which became known as ‘the Radicals’ wanted to expand the
rights of freed slaves and black Americans and put the South under a strict policy of
9
Gerring, J. (1998) Party Ideologies in America 1828-1996. New York: Cambridge University Press p.
57
12
supervision and emancipation. Between these opposing forces formed a moderate
middle field, which wanted to liberate the slaves but not go out of their way to
emancipate them. President Lincoln acted as a moderator between these factions and
tried to convey a unified stance to the general public. The Radicals were strong as a
faction but lacked power to convince their fellow congressmen. Prominent leaders of
this movement were Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts and House Member
Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania. The motivation and the actual achievements of
these Republicans and their supporters are still under debate. Especially Democratic
opponents often described the faction as militant, but this characterization seems to be
overstated when it came to their actual influence on Republican policies. The failure
of Reconstruction and the racial segregation that followed suggest that their influence
was not that strong. Gould states that “In a time such as the 1860s when racism
dominated the United States, the Radicals seemed at least a ‘vanguard’ for a more just
and equitable nation. Yet the Radicals did not always embody modern ideals, and
their performance often fell short of their proclaimed goals. Historians suggest that
the Radicals had not been militant enough. Instead of seeking social change in race
relations with vigor, they had settled for half a loaf. As a result, when Reconstruction
faltered and the white south regained control of the blacks in the 1870s, segregation
closed in and the Radical program became a dead letter.” 10 Until the end of World
War Two the view of Radicals as militant proponents of racial egalitarianism and
enemies of the South persisted. The faction was rehabilitated after 1945, when the
civil rights movement gained momentum and more emancipating legislation was
enacted. It is always questioned whether Lincoln felt close to the Radicals, and if he
would have sympathized with their ideology after the Civil War. But his assassination
in 1865 prevents us from knowing what he would have done in terms of black
emancipation. The Radicals didn’t influence the ideological framework of the
Republican Party as much as later factions did, but they were present for a long time.
But it is interesting to see how much their position differs with the ideology of the
modern Republican Party, which doesn’t support federal interference for the sake of
racial emancipation and was not a big champion of the civil rights movement. The
modern Republican Party is not likely to harbor a faction like the Radicals. Their
existence within the party came forth out of the opposition against slavery and they
10
Gould, L. (2003) Grand Old Party: a History of the Republicans. New York: Random House p. 35
13
dissolved when the party became more conservative and the old ideological beliefs
faded from the party’s electoral platform.
A faction that came up in the 1870s had more influence on the Republican Party and
the way the modern American political system is designed. The Liberal Republican
Alliance was founded within the ranks of the Republican as well as the Democratic
Party. Today the Republican Party would never want to be associated with the word
liberal. During the Ulysses S. Grant Presidency, however, opposition emerged in
several states to the Republican Reconstruction policies that dubbed itself the Liberal
Republican Alliance. These Liberals were willing to cooperate with Democrats to
achieve their goals. Liberal meant something different in the America of the 19th
century than it does today. Liberals detested the expansion of the size of the federal
government, were opposed to the Reconstruction policies and were against a
protective tariff. The Liberals managed to influence the Republican policies, and
shifted the course of the party away from the Reconstruction policies. Liberals wanted
to rehabilitate the south and fight the growth of the federal bureaucracy and the
distribution of patronage jobs under political supporters. With every Presidential
election the federal bureaucracy changed according to the political color of
Washington. The political atmosphere seemed to be consumed with corruption during
the Gilded Age. The winning party awarded loyal supporters with jobs in the federal
bureaucracy, which made it a partisan and political institution. Liberals wanted to
fight this practice by instituting a permanent and non-political bureaucracy, which
would not change with every election. The will to make the bureaucracy non-partisan
was partly motivated by racial beliefs. The Liberals feared the involvement of blacks
in politics and the large groups of immigrant voters in the big cities. A constant and
apolitical bureaucracy would prevent these groups from becoming influential over the
implementation of Republican policies. Gould argues that “Liberals led the way
toward the Republican abandonment of civil rights in the South and eventually pulled
the rest of the party along with them.” 11 They made both the GOP and American
politics more professional. Many Liberal Republicans defected to the Democratic
Party over time, but their influence on the Party’s practices towards patronage and
partisanship was profound.
11
Gould, L. (2003) Grand Old Party: a History of the Republicans. New York: Random House p. 62
14
The emergence of Progressives within the Republican Party changed the electoral
platform and the party’s demographics permanently. This faction has had much to do
with the GOP’s shift towards the conservative ideology the party supports now.
Progressivism was a movement that came up in the last decades of the 19th century
and was originally not connected to the established parties. It was a reformist
movement that saw how modernization changed the social order in the American
society. Industrialization and technological advancements changed American
industries and the introduction of mass production drove many people to the city and
into unskilled factory jobs. Protective legislation and social insurance were not yet
established, which left workers powerless. Mass lay-offs and wage cuts characterized
the working life of a laborer, and left him or her insecure and vulnerable. Banks and
large corporations ruled America’s economy and their power was not limited by
governmental policies. The Progressives recognized these changes and the negative
side-effects on lower class wageworkers. They saw how machine politics and
business interests corrupted American politics, and strived to purify politics of
corruption. They wanted to educate the lower working class and give workers more
means of protection against the will of powerful capitalists. They were proponents of
women’s suffrage and general education. The imposition of an income tax and the
institution of the prohibition are largely credited to the efforts of Progressives.
Progressives felt that education, science and governmental interference could cure the
ills in society. They believed that governmental intervention in social and economic
affairs was necessary, and that the government should regulate business practices. The
Progressives were a powerful movement with prominent figures in the Republican as
well as the Democratic Party.
One of the most famous Progressives is Theodore Roosevelt. This Republican
became President in 1901, and was seen as a representative of Progressive causes. He
was suspicious of large corporations, and tried to limit their power while he was in
office. Gould summarizes his stance in his book. “He had little interest in the
protective tariff and was not a fan of businessmen or the process by which they made
their money. Instead, as a member of the New York aristocracy, he saw his duty as
representing the American people in their adjustment to the promises and perils of
15
industrial growth.” 12 The GOP at that time already had close ties to the corporate
world, so elements within the party were not pleased with Roosevelt’s efforts to
control big business. Roosevelt was seen as an advocate of the Progressive cause and
a leader for the Progressives within the Republican Party. “The Progressive creed that
Republican reformers espoused did not attack capitalism as the mainstay of the
American economy. Instead, they wanted their party to do more to challenge the
power of corporations. That would make tariff rates less onerous for consumers and
reduce railroad rates. Once the proper balance had been restored, then the role of the
government could be pared back.” 13 Some Progressives found that Roosevelt was to
willing to compromise with more moderate Republicans, while conservatives grew
increasingly concerned by Roosevelt’s reformist disposition. Gould describes the
situation within the party during the Roosevelt Presidency as internally divided. “The
Progressive Republicans were vocal and articulate; they attracted a good deal of press
attention. Yet outside their regional base, they remained a minority among
Republicans. While the party’s rank and file admired Roosevelt’s vote-getting appeal
and tolerated the Progressive ideas he championed, there was a growing unease
among the conservatives, strong in the older states of the Middle West such as Ohio
and Indiana, about the direction of their party. What were the implications of
increasing the power of the government and limiting the economic freedom of
corporations, asked such standpatters as Joseph G. Cannon, Nelson Aldrich, and
Joseph B. Foraker. The emergence of regulation as a critical forced Republicans to
reappraise their party’s priority. Perhaps Democrats should not be the only champions
of states’ rights and local power.” 14
After two terms Roosevelt kept his promise to only run for two terms and left
the White House. His successor William Howard Taft initially was endorsed by
Roosevelt in 1908, but the two became increasingly estranged as the election neared.
Roosevelt thought that Taft would continue his Progressive agenda once in office. But
over time as Taft got elected, it became apparent that Taft was more inclined to make
concessions to the conservative forces in the party and did not make extensive efforts
to keep Roosevelt’s policies in place. Stephen Rosenstone, a political scientist from
the University of Minnesota, and his two colleagues describe the growing animosity
12
Gould, L. (2003) Grand Old Party: a History of the Republicans. New York: Random House p. 139
Gould, L. (2003) Grand Old Party: a History of the Republicans. New York: Random House p.161
14
Gould, L. (2003) Grand Old Party: a History of the Republicans. New York: Random House p.161162
13
16
as following: “Roosevelt left office in 1909 confident that his hand-picked successor,
William Howard Taft, would continue down this progressive path. But Taft
disappointed progressives soon after his inauguration when he acquiesced to Senate
protectionist demands for higher tariffs. His proposal to rescind railroad anti-trust
laws and to seek railroad assistance in drafting new rules also raised the progressives’
ire. The President and conservative congressional leaders, tiring of progressive
complaints, ‘agreed that the measure should be passed (...) and that anyone who
opposed it should be treated as an enemy of the party.” 15 While the relationship
between the two men slowly deteriorated, the animosity between the Progressives and
the conservatives in the party grew. Eventually the two sides were unable to cooperate
or compromise, which made the Republicans easy prey for the Democrats in the
following congressional election. The unity within the party was severely damaged,
and by the Presidential election of 1912 virtually non-existent. Roosevelt decided to
return to politics and again run for President, while Taft sought reelection. The
explosive atmosphere came to a breaking point at the Republican convention of 1912,
a seminal event in the history of the GOP. Roosevelt felt increasingly disconnected
with his party and made plans to found a third party if he did not receive the
Presidential candidate nomination at the convention. Gould states that “Roosevelt’s
loyalty to the Republicans had now frayed to such an extent that only a nomination to
lead the party could keep him in the fold.” 16 The convention was characterized by
bitter conflict. Taft was selected as Presidential candidate and Roosevelt left the party.
Together with the Progressive Republicans he founded the Progressive Party, with a
strong reformist agenda. This made the GOP make a turn towards conservatism. Taft
lost the election and the Democrat Woodrow Wilson became President, serving two
terms. Gould argues that “In these eight years, the Republicans turned away from the
moderate Progressive reform impulses of Theodore Roosevelt and emerged as the
conservative party it would remain for the rest of the twentieth century.” 17
The Progressive Party was not very successful in winning elections and had a
relatively small base of support. In 1916 most Progressive Party members, including
Roosevelt, rejoined the Republican Party. Many Progressive Republicans, however,
started to warm up to the Democratic platform, they defected to the Democratic Party
15
Rosenstone, S., Behr, R., Lazarus, E. (1984) Third Parties in America: Citizen Response to Major
Party Failure. New Jersey: Princeton University Press p. 82
16
Gould, L. (2003) Grand Old Party: a History of the Republicans. New York: Random House p. 188
17
Gould, L. (2003) Grand Old Party: a History of the Republicans. New York: Random House p. 195
17
during the New Deal years. The defection of the Progressive faction out of the GOP
permanently changed the party’s ideological believes. State rights and a small and less
intrusive government became the philosophy. These shifts made the emergence of a
figure like Ronald Reagan and eventually the founding of TPM possible. The TaftRoosevelt split set the party on a course towards the modern conservatism that is the
Republican Party’s current forte. Disagreements within the party after this shift were
mainly concerned with the level of conservatism the party should endorse, so
emerging factions were either more or less conservative than the party’s mainstream
believes, but never again left-wing or radically reformist.
The Presidential candidacy of Barry Goldwater in 1964 signified that there was a
growing platform of stark conservatism in the Republican Party. He did not win the
election but did make an effort to make a “conservative party even more
conservative.” 18 In his ghostwritten book The Conscience of a Conservative (1961) he
outlined the conservative stance in the 1960s. The rise of the conservative wing within
the party signified the end of the ongoing change in the demographic structure of the
Republican support base. The power base now had flowed from the northeast to the
south and the west. Most African-American voters had defected to the Democratic
Party.
Where the GOP used to be the party that could count on support among
African-Americans, most African-Americans defected to the Democratic Party during
the New Deal era. The Democratic government policies that benefited their position
in society and the moral support for civil rights by prominent figures like Eleanor
Roosevelt convinced them that the Democratic Party’s policies would benefit them
more. Most African-Americans had voted Republican since they gained the right to
vote because of the anti-slavery tradition upon which the party was founded and the
respect that they had for the Republican Abraham Lincoln. The Republican Party,
however, had moved to the right after the Progressive era, and was no longer the party
that supported African-American issues. With the rise of the southern faction in the
Republican Party, namely of southern Democrats who found that the Democratic
Party was no longer supportive of their issues and moved over to the GOP, the
African-Americans felt increasingly uneasy in the GOP.
18
Roosevelt’s programs
Gould, L. (2003) Grand Old Party: a History of the Republicans. New York: Random House p. 346
18
improved the situation of African-Americans and therefore the majority of AfricanAmericans switched over to the Democratic Party. During the administrations of
Truman, Kennedy and Johnson more African-Americans switched over to the
Democrats. Especially the Civil Rights Act of 1964 made the remaining AfricanAmerican Republicans Democrats. Now only a very small portion of the GOP
constituency is African-American.
Southern Whites now constituted the largest Republican support base.
Although Goldwater did not become President he did influence the course of the
Republican Party profoundly. Gould describes that “The move to the right begun in
1912 and accelerated thereafter had not dispensed with all the moderate or even
liberal elements from the party. After 1964, however, the ideological center of gravity
of the party moved ever rightwards as Republicans explored the legacy of Barry
Goldwater and his loyal legions.” 19 Goldwater essentially paved the way for
conservative champions like Ronald Reagan, who entered politics with his famous
endorsement speech for Barry Goldwater.
Reagan’s surfacing and career in GOP politics have profoundly changed the
Republican Party. He was the first elected champion of one of the most influential
factions to ever emerge within the ranks of the Republican Party’s conservative wing.
This faction managed to make its beliefs part of mainstream Republicanism. Reagan
became governor of California in 1966. Reagan had been a Democrat and a supporter
of the New Deal but started to endorse Republican officials in the 1950s and
eventually switched to the Republicans in 1962. He grew increasingly conservative in
his support of business and his opposition to increasing taxes. He was an advocate for
a smaller government and wanted to end governmental interference in the country’s
economy. Reagan’s Presidency changed American politics as well as the Republican
image and conduct. He was elected in 1981 and served for two terms. Reagan became
the personification of conservatism without complications. Gould states that “The last
transcendent Republican figure was, of course Reagan, who put forth a conservatism
with a smiling face that asked little of his fellow citizens. Reduce taxes, spend more
on defense, oppose Communism, and all would come out right in the end.” 20 Reagan
believed in a small and non-intrusive form of government. He tried to implement the
19
20
Gould, L. (2003) Grand Old Party: a History of the Republicans. New York: Random House p. 353
Gould, L. (2003) Grand Old Party: a History of the Republicans. New York: Random House p. 492
19
policy of supply-side economics, or what the critics called trickle-down economics.
This policy, eventually dubbed Reaganomics, was based on the premise that reduction
in government spending and regulation of the economy are the only solutions to
economic problems. In his book, Reaganomics: An Insider’s account of the Policies
and the People, the economist William A. Niskanen, who can also be seen as one of
the architects of ‘Reaganomics,’ gives a short description of the economic theory.
“The general direction was to diminish the role of the federal government in the
American economy – reduce the growth of spending, reduce tax rates, reduce
regulation, and reduce the growth of the money supply.”
21
This policy would reduce
the need for income with the federal government, and the need for people to rely on
government regulation. Another assumption with this theory was that the poor would
not suffer from the decrease in government assistance because of an overall increase
of the economy. This policy can be seen as a failure, because the revenue increase
failed to occur because of huge increases in the defense budget and less economic
growth because of an unstable world market. The effect was that the federal deficit
grew explosively and that future generations would have to make up for this.
Reagan’s charm and talent for public speaking made the public receptive to his
policies, which in hindsight mostly consisted of rhetoric instead of constructive
reform. He made conservatism look easy and effortless and made people believe that
there were no negative consequences to his policy. This eventually turned out to be
make-believe, but the message resonated with a large audience. In his book, The
Eighties: America in the Age of Reagan, historian John Ehrman describes the change
that Reagan’s Presidency made to American Politics in the 1980s. “At the start of the
1980s, conservatism had been the home of the political outsiders. At the end of the
decade it dominated American politics and set the country’s agenda, while liberalism
searched for a way to confront it effectively.” 22 The Republican Party was now the
bulwark of conservatism, and dominated the political scene until the 1990s. A strong
faction within the party had now seized the reigns and became part of the party’s
mainstream. Reagan was the first Republican who explicitly sought support among
evangelical voters, and enjoyed a broad base of religious support. Duane Oldfield, a
political science professor at Knox College in Illinois, argues that “Given the
21
Niskanen, W. (1988) Reaganomics: An Insider’s Account of the Policies and the People. New York:
Oxford University Press p. 4
22
Ehrman, J. (2005) The Eighties: America in the Age of Reagan. New Haven: Yale University Press p.
205
20
unpromising nature of Democratic and third party options, the Christian Right was
naturally ‘pushed’ toward an alliance with the Republicans. More than ‘push’ was
involved however. As the Christian Right emerged onto the national political scene,
the Republican Party was making active efforts to court it. The party was producing
platforms that gave more and more prominence to the social issues dear to the heart of
conservative evangelicals. Furthermore, the Republican National Committee and GOP
standard-bearer Ronald Reagan were actively wooing evangelical leaders.” 23 The
involvement of the conservative religious voters shifted the party’s course in moral
and ethical questions. Family values became the touchstone for social policies.
The emergence of the evangelical wing and its strong presence in the Republican
Party started under Reagan. Its founding is usually traced back to Jerry Falwell’s
founding of the ‘Moral Majority in 1979. This organization’s motive was to lobby for
Christian-evangelical morals in government policies. The religious right was
comprised mainly of strict Protestant and Catholic voters, but also was supported by
some orthodox Jews and Muslims. This evangelical faction gained a lot of influence
over the Republican policies when it came to issues in which ethical and moral values
played key parts. “While economics secured many votes and led interest groups into
the GOP coalition, the party’s stance on social issues attracted countless others.
Antiabortion forces saw the Republicans endorse their goals in the 1980s and 1990s to
the extent that supporters of abortion were an endangered minority within the party.
Other goals that Christian voters sought from Republicans included an amendment on
prayer in public schools and restrictions on the rights of homosexuals. The gay
members of the GOP, organized in groups such as the Log Cabin Society, found its
economic thought appealing but often were at odds with the leadership about the antihomosexual tenor of the religious right. For Christian conservatives, any economic
goals proved secondary to the use of government power to achieve social change.” 24
Gould sees the Clinton Presidency as a catalyst in the Christian wing’s power and
partisan politics. During this administration people like Newt Gingrich and Rush
Limbaugh gained momentum and sought support for their ultra-conservative opinions.
United in opposition to Clinton’s Democratic ‘permissive’ policies, the Christian
23
Oldfield, D.(1996) The Right and the Righteous: the Christian Right Confronts the Republican Party.
Lanham: Rowan & Littlefield Publishers p. 115-116
24
Gould, L. (2003) Grand Old Party: a History of the Republicans. New York: Random House p. 457
21
wing grew strong and even more conservative. The faction became visible in
discussions about abortion, scientific progress and gay rights during the Presidency of
George W. Bush. Bush had close ties to this evangelical wing, being a ‘born again’
Christian himself, and tried to implement their stances into policy during his terms in
office. He tried to put a halt to stem cell research, because it required the use of
unborn embryos, and declared himself pro-life in the debate about abortion. Under the
Bush Presidency, the government’s opposition to same-sex marriage infringed gay
rights and teaching creationism along with evolution in public schools became a
political subject. By the appointment of two conservative judges for the Supreme
Court, John Roberts and Samuel Alito, Bush secured a majority of conservative
judges in the court. The Republicans now added moral and social conservatism to the
economic conservatism, since long present in the Republican’s ideology.
All the factions described above contributed to the evolution of the Republican Party
to its present form. The Radicals presented an entirely different view on racial
emancipation than later factions in the GOP did, and were essentially precursors of
the civil rights movement. This faction’s ideology held a strong connection to the
early Republican body of thought, and carried it out a lot longer than their party did.
Liberals did not affect the Republican ideological framework greatly but
professionalized its public practices. The Progressives were responsible for the party’s
largest shift in ideology. Their presence and eventual split from the GOP steered the
party’s course towards its contemporary conservatism. The party’s ideology shifted
from advocating a strong federal government to supporting states rights and economic
freedom. The GOP shook off its Progressive image and turned more and more
conservative during the 20th century. With the emergence of Reagan as a Republican
leader this conservatism was finally institutionalized as the party’s mainstream
ideology. He presented a simple and clear-cut form of conservatism that seemed to
cause no negative side-effects to the country’s economy and its people. The
evangelical Christians became more visible as a faction after the Reagan years, and
gained power during the Clinton administration. They accepted the economic policies
of the party but found the opposition to abortion, gay marriage, and ‘unethical’ forms
of scientific research much more important. The evangelicals found their advocate in
George W. Bush, who tried to implement a more moral form of conservatism in the
Republican policies. During the Bush years the Republican ideological platform of
22
economic conservatism was complemented by moral and ethical conservatism. Both
the economic and the moral conservatism are present in an extreme fashion in the
TPM. It thus seems that earlier factions served as a build-up for the emergence of this
movement. The neo-conservative faction led by Reagan and the evangelicals made it
possible for a faction as the TPM to emerge within the Republican Party. They made
the Republican platform a fertile breeding ground for ultra conservative schools of
thought.
The current two-party system has been in place for a long time. Both the
Democratic Party and the GOP have a firm grip on American politics, and are not
likely to vanish any time soon. It is in the interest of the dominant parties to co-opt
and integrate new factions as quickly as possible. It is unlikely that third party would
achieve a large victory in federal elections, but the conventional parties can loose
important votes, and sometimes elections, to minor parties that compete in the
elections but cannot win a majority. Ralph Nader was accused of spoiling the
Democratic victory in 2000, and Ross Perrot’s party has been accused of spoiling
multiple Republican victories in the 1990s.
The TPM is the newest faction that has emerged within the ranks of the Republican
Party. The TPM is gaining strength and support and is therefore able to influence the
policy of the Republican Party. The TPM is a movement and not a political party. An
overwhelming majority of the supporters of the movement votes Republican but the
TPM is not an official wing of the Republican Party. The movement is a separate
entity but a force to be reckoned with for the Republicans. Because most Tea Partiers
vote Republican, they have a substantial amount of power over the Republican agenda
and are an important voting bloc within the party. Some Republicans who are
currently serving terms in office or who are running for state and federal elections are
outspoken supporters of the TPM.
One of the most prominent figures in the movement is Sarah Palin. The former
Republican Governor of Alaska has put herself forward as one of the most dedicated
TPM supporters. She speaks at rallies, and before withdrawing from the Presidential
elections on October 5 2011, she was expected to run for President as a Republican
Tea Party candidate. Some of the current candidates for the Republican Presidential
elections are also endorsing the TPM message. Ron Paul, Rick Santorum, Rick Perry
and Newt Gingrich have all tried to appeal to the TPM issues in their campaigns.
23
These candidates are all conservative but even the more liberal candidate Mitt Romney
tries to portray himself as a true conservative to gain support from the Tea Partiers.
Former candidates Michelle Bachmann and Herman Cain are also self-declared Tea
Partiers. The issue of conservatism, who is the true conservative and therefore the
right person to become President, dominated the election campaigns for the 2012
Republican Primaries. This is because the candidates recognize the supporters of the
TPM as an important and powerful base of support and actively try to woo the Tea
Partiers into voting for them. TPM supporters are a large and powerful faction within
the Republican Party and their vote can therefore be deciding in who becomes the
2012 Republican candidate.
According to a poll conducted by CNN and ORC International 49 percent of
the Republicans, and independents leaning towards the Republican Party, consider
themselves active members or supporters of the TPM. 25 A poll conducted in 2010 by
the New York Times and CBS News shows that “The 18 percent of Americans who
identify themselves as Tea Party supporters tend to be Republican, white, male,
married and older than 45.” 26 The same poll also showed that a typical supporter of the
TPM is wealthier than the average American and also more educated. The poll also
signified that a Tea Partier is more conservative than an average Republican, and that
a Tea Partier is inclined to call himself ‘very conservative’ and to describe President
Obama as ‘very liberal’. Interesting is also that “while most Republicans say they are
“dissatisfied” with Washington, Tea Party supporters are more likely to classify
themselves as “angry.” 27 So within in the movement there is a strong anti-Washington
sentiment present and a large distrust towards professional politicians. It is an old
American tradition to be suspicious of politicians who have made a career out of
politics. This suspicion is part of the earlier mentioned ideology of republicanism,
which has support in America since the colonial period. This tradition promotes civic
virtue
and
opposes
tyranny,
corruption,
and
hereditary
political
powers.
Republicanism also prescribes the need to uphold and defend the Constitution and
‘unalienable rights’ at all times. George Washington, in the light of this tradition, is
25
New CNN Poll: GOP divided over Tea Party movement, published on September 15 2011, on the
CNN website. As retrieved on January 17 2011 from:
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2011/09/15/new-cnn-poll-gop-divided-over-tea-party-movement/
26
Zernike, K., Thee-Brenan, M. (2010, April 14) Poll Finds Tea Party Backers Wealthier and More
Educated. The New York Times
27
Zernike, K., Thee-Brenan, M. (2010, April 14) Poll Finds Tea Party Backers Wealthier and More
Educated. The New York Times
24
seen as the ideal politician and a true republican because of his desire to return to his
farm in Virginia after his duties in Washington. He felt he had a duty to serve his
country in office but saw the life of a farmer as ideal and returned to his estate
immediately after he had fulfilled his duty.
The TPM ideology bears some elements of this old tradition of republicanism.
The TPM opposes the size and the influence of the American government and many
members even see the present government as a tyrant that ignores the ‘silent majority’
as they dub themselves. The TPM claims that the role of the government is to defend
and uphold the Constitution. The movement supports a very narrow and originalist
reading of the Constitution, and considers governmental interference in corporate and
personal affairs unconstitutional. The Tea Party’s core framework can be summarized
as libertarian. The basic TPM framework seems simple: smaller government, lower
taxation and more civil liberty. These ideals are similar to the basic ideological
framework of the Republicans, but the TPM argues that the established political
parties have abandoned these believes and have spun out of control over the last
decades. The expansion of the federal government and its deficit are seen as negative
by-effects of an uncontrollable federal government. The movement has an aversion of
political parties in general. In their book Give Us Liberty: a Tea Party Manifesto Dick
Armey, former House Majority Leader for the Republicans, and Matt Kibbe, currently
the President of the FreedomWorks organization, 28 describe political parties as
“empty vessels, adrift on tides that can shift with the winds of political opinion,” and
that political parties are solely used to get candidates elected. 29 So the supporters of
the TPM feel betrayed by the conventional political parties, and especially by the
Republican Party. Naturally the TPM has problems with the Democrats and their
policies but it is also highly critical of the Republican Party. The TPM dislikes the
explosive growth of the federal government under the reign of George W. Bush, and
28
Dick Armey was House Majority Leader for the Republicans from 1995 until 2003, and served in the
House of Representatives from 1985 untill 2003. He was co writer of the Contract with America. This
is a conservative outline of the Republican ideological framework that was written during the Clinton
Presidency as a promise to change the country if the Republicans would win the congressional
elections of 1994 for the first time in forty years. This document now represents the Republican
mainstream ideology. Armey is now the chairman of the FreedomWorks Organization. FreedomWorks
is a conservative grassroots organization that promotes lower taxation, less government and more
freedom. This organization supports the TPM. Matt Kibbe is the organization’s President. Prior to this
function he served as director of the Federal Budget Policy for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and
aide and chief of staff for Rep. Congressman Dan Miller.
29
Armey, D., Kibbe, M. (2010) Give us Liberty: a Tea Party Manifesto. New York: Harper Collins
Publishers p. 122
25
enormous increase in government expenditure that caused the huge federal deficit.
Armey and Kibbe argue the following: “To fit their inaccurate narrative of the Tea
Party Movement as sore-loser partisans opposed to President Obama’s agenda, many
in the media suggest the Democrats’ stimulus bill was the spark that lit this grass fire
of protests. They’re wrong. The government expansion during President George W.
Bush’s reign provided the fuel. And it was his Wall Street bailout that ignited the
firestorm we see today.” 30 The government policies to overcome the negative effects
of the fiscal crisis that started in 2007 sparked quite a bit of anger among different
conservative factions around the United States. In order to stop banks and industries
from collapsing the government invested huge sums of federal money in failing
industries to prevent bankruptcy and public panic. The Emergency Economic
Stabilization Act of 2008, commonly known as the Wall Street bailout, was proposed
and enacted during the Bush administration. 31 Other bailouts for the Detroit
automotive industry and insurance companies followed. These subsidies, in
combination with the largest expansion of the federal government since the Franklin
D. Roosevelt administration and the large sums of money that were pumped into the
‘war on terrorism’, increased the federal deficit to an all-time high. 32 The efforts made
by the Obama administration to soften the effect of the crisis on the economy and
civilians enraged the conservative citizens even more. In 2009 some of these
conservatives decided to organize themselves and founded several local protest
groups that rallied against the governments spending plans. These groups, however,
operated locally and didn’t interact much.
On
February
18,
2009,
Obama
announced the enactment of the Homeowners Affordability and Stability Plan to help
homeowners in trouble. 33 On February 19th CNBC presenter Rick Santelli went on air
with his rant about the administration’s plan to help out these troubled homeowners.
He stated that the government ‘promoted bad behaviour’ and proposed a ‘Chicago
Tea Party’ to protest against the government stimulus plan. He called on all capitalists
to attend this Tea Party. 34 This rant inspired several Tea Party websites within twelve
30
Armey, D., Kibbe, M. (2010) Give us Liberty: a Tea Party Manifesto. New York: Harper Collins
Publishers p. 37
31
This act authorized the government to give failing banks capital injections and to purchase falling
assets for the worth of 700 billion dollar.
32
Ward, J. (2008, October 19) Big Government gets Bigger. The Wall Street Journal
33
This program was designed to keep approximately nine million homeowners from having to
foreclose their house, and supplemented 200 billion dollar extra to programs to refinance mortgages.
34
Santelli, R. Squawk Box, CNBC, February 19 2009
26
hours and stimulated cooperation between different local protest groups that already
existed. This united protest movement started to call itself the Tea Party Movement.
The Tea Party now still consists of different autonomous local and national chapters
and there is no central leader or chairman.
Its supporters see the fact that the movement has no central power base or
leader as a great good. Armey and Kibbe argue that “when you have principles to
guide your activism, you don’t need an organizational hierarchy.” 35 Their dislike of
large organizations like the government and the Washington bureaucracy inspire these
beliefs. Because they feel sold out by the Republican Party with the bailouts, they
now distrust this organization. The movement is often described as a populist
grassroots organization. It is relatively powerful because of the attention of the media
and support from prominent political figures. Although the actual political power of
this organization is under debate, the media still give the TPM a huge amount of
coverage.
The movement has been accused of astroturfing. This is a technique or
phenomenon that makes civil protests seem like grassroots protests while they are
actually organized by actors who need the suggestion of civil support for their policies
or corporations. The movement is said to be financed and organized by corporate
organizations that are worried about the progressive legislation the Obama
administration is trying to enact. Certain factions within the TPM can certainly be
accused of using the grassroots’ support for their own (long-standing) agenda.
Freedom Works, Fox News, the Koch brothers and older libertarian lobbyist
organizations use the suggestion of grassroots support for the advancement of their
own policies. And sometimes the realization of these policies, like the withdrawal of
Medicare, would even hurt the grassroots’ base of the TPM. According to Theda
Skocpol, a Harvard Professor, and Vanessa Williamson, a PhD candidate in
Government and Social Policy at Harvard, in their book The Tea Party and the
Remaking
of
Republican
Conservatism,
“Billionaire-funded
political
action
committees and long-time free-market advocacy organizations are certainly doing all
they can to leverage and benefit from Tea Party activism. But they did not create all
that activism in the first place, nor do they entirely control the popular
35
Armey, D., Kibbe, M. (2010) Give us Liberty: a Tea Party Manifesto. New York: Harper Collins
Publishers p. 65
27
effervescence.” 36 So while the movement is used as Astroturf, there is also a very
large genuine grassroots faction that initially inspired the uprising of the TPM.
The Tea Party has also been accused of racism. The movement was allegedly
founded out of fear for a black President. Racist signs are persistently present at
rallies, in spite of the efforts of the organizers to ban these signs and other racist
comments. Chapters of the Tea Party are fiercely opposed to (illegal) immigration,
and sometimes lapse into racist rhetoric. African-Americans and other minorities
make up a very small portion of the Tea Party constituency. The racist allegations
against the TPM are discussed more elaborately in the chapter about the movement’s
ideology.
The name of the TPM was inspired by the Santelli rant, but also refers to the
Boston Tea Party and the American Revolution that followed.
The TPM states
current America and its policies have strayed away from their original beliefs and the
ideas of the ‘Founding Fathers’ that are expressed in the American Constitution. In his
book A new American Tea Party, prominent Tea Partier and conservative publicist,
John M. O’Hara describes the dilution of old American principles with naval
metaphors.
“Ours is a nation unmoored from history. Conservatism, the most
responsible for maintaining that link, has fallen politically inert. (...) While the
Founding Fathers made an effort to give limited government command of the ship,
every passing day brings with it another attempt at mutiny. The entire point of the
American Revolution was the preservation of individual liberty against an
overbearing state. Today, this view is treated as an anachronism.” 37
The Gadsden flag is one of the most prominent Tea Party symbols. This
historic flag with the curled rattlesnake, and the line ‘don’t tread on me’ depicted on
it, stems from the Revolutionary era and was first carried into battle by the United
States Marine Corps during the American Revolutionary war. This flag symbolized
the unity of the colonies in their resistance against the English oppression. The flag is
a symbol for the fight against oppression. This flag is carried at Tea Party Rallies
because the movement sees it as a symbol of revolution, or as the TPM calls it
counterrevolution, and as a message that the government should not ‘tread’ on civil
and individual liberties. Tea Party Patriots for instance are fighting the reforms in
36
Skocpol, T. , Williamson, V. (2012) The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism.
New York: Oxford University Press p. 12
37
O’Hara, J. (2010) A new American Tea Party: The Counterrevolution against Bailouts, Handouts,
reckless Spending, and more Taxes. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. p. 21-22
28
healthcare the Obama administration has made; they dubbed the reforms ObamaCare
and see it as a breach of the individual liberty of Americans. Every American should
be able to choose his or her own medical assistance and insurance. On the Tea Party
Patriots website, which is one of the most prominent websites of the TPM, this
conviction is explained as following: “we believe Americans should have more, not
less, control over their health – more liberty over our life. That is why we oppose the
federal takeover of healthcare, against the will of the people, commonly referred to as
‘ObamaCare.’” 38
Soon after the Santelli rant, on February 27 2010, the first local ‘Tea Parties’
were held in different towns across the United States. There have also been a few
national protests in Washington. One of the largest national protests organized was
the Taxpayers’ March on Washington held on September 12, 2009. This march was
repeated the following year. These protests were organized by, among others, the
FreedomWorks Organization, the Tea Party Patriots and the 9/12 project (this group
was created by TV and radio presenter Glenn Beck). These organizations are the most
prominent organizations that are part of the TPM. Other major Tea Party events were
the election of several Tea Party backed candidates in the Congressional elections of
2010. For the United States House of Representatives 39 of the 129 Tea Party linked
candidates were elected, and in the Senate 5 of the nine Tea Party candidates won
their election.
The real power of the TPM is yet to be established. One way to see how much
political influence the movement really has is to see how their existence and ideology
influence the Republican Party and its proceedings. This question will be discussed in
the following chapters.
38
Quote as retrieved from https://www.teapartypatriots.org/resources/ on January 17 2012
29
How the Tea Party is influencing the Republican Public Political
Policy
“Call it a civil war, an insurrection or merely an insurgency. By any measure, the
establishment leadership of the Republican Party has lost control and is now being
pulled along toward an unpredictable future.” 39
Since its inception the TPM has been a rewarding subject for the media. Nonetheless,
the amount of interest by the media shortly after the origin of the TPM was somewhat
misleading. Due to a lack of knowledge about the movement and misinterpretation of
statistics, the possible effects of the TPM on the GOP and American politics were
overestimated. The attention of conservative news outlets like Fox News could be
anticipated. But the wide spread attention given by more ‘liberal’ oriented media like
CNN and the New York Times has been more surprising. According to Skocpol and
Williamson it was to be expected that conservative media would be ‘cheerleaders’ of
the Tea Party. But the huge amount of attention given by more mainstream and liberal
media in America was probably responsible for the misconceptions that existed
among the general public. “ For much of 2010, polls and media interpretations fudged
the limited scope and the deeply conservative nature of the Tea Party, making it seem
more broadly popular and centrist than it really was.” 40 The coverage during the
build-up of the movement suggested that the TPM was just an insignificant assembly
of right wing conservatives. But as the movement gained clout during 2010 the tone
of the media coverage shifted. “Overall, between mid-2009 and mid-2010, the
pendulum of media coverage of the Tea Party swung from comic derision to solemn
portentousness. No longer (mistakenly) portrayed as a trivial collection of crackpots,
the Tea Party came during much of 2010 to be (misleadingly) portrayed as a
formidable, independent political movement that threatened to overthrow the twoparty system.” 41 These overstated assumptions were uttered en masse by the
mainstream media and might have influenced the 2010-midterm elections, where the
39
Balz, D. (2010 September 15) Republicans ride the Tea Party tiger. The Washington Post
Skocpol, T., Williamson, V. (2012) The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism.
New York: Oxford University Press p. 143
41
Skocpol, T., Williamson, V. (2012) The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism.
New York: Oxford University Press p. 148
40
30
GOP regained its majority in the House of Representatives and picked up six
previously Democratic seats in the Senate. In order to prevent misconceptions from
influencing important events in the future, it is important to establish the real
influence of the Tea Party. This can be done by examining how the movement affects
the policy and ideology of its platform, the Republican Party. Answers to these
questions can help determine how powerful the TPM really is and to predict what
future the movement might have in American politics.
The influence of the TPM on the Republican Party can be measured on a wide
array of subjects. Because of the limited scope of this thesis a selection is necessary in
the subjects eligible for evaluation. In this chapter a closer look will be paid to the
way the Tea Party influences the Republican Party’s public political policy. Here
public political policy means the way the Republican Party makes political decisions
that are visible for the public. So essentially how the GOP presents itself to the public.
This has to do with the political strategies during campaign season and voting
behaviour during the terms in office. The Tea Party’s influence on the Republican
ideology will be discussed later. This chapter will concentrate on the party politics of
the GOP. This is probably the most direct and visible channel of influence the TPM
has, because it is widely discussed in the media and less subtle than, for instance,
ideological shifts caused by pressure from the TPM. These shifts usually occur behind
closed doors and can become indirectly apparent in discussions and voting records in
Congress and campaign rhetoric.
In the short history of the TPM one event can be used as a clear-cut case study
for the potential influence of the TPM, the mid-term Congressional elections of 2010.
This is the first and, at this time, the only election during which the movement was
active. It is also the only event that has ended. So it is very well suited for a
measurement of the power of the Tea Party at that point in time. We will evaluate the
results, the ways the TPM was trying to influence the outcome of the election, and
how the Republican Party dealt with the demands and actions of the TPM. Another
interesting aspect that will be researched is how elected Republicans are pressured by
the TPM once they are in office, and how this affects their behaviour. The second
event that will be discussed here is currently developing. The Republican primaries
for the 2012 Presidential elections are now finishing. The Republican 2012 primary
season will be also examined for possible Tea Party related developments, as far is
possible at this stage in the elections.
31
The outcome of the 2010-midterm elections can be described as a landslide victory
for the Republicans. They won back their majority in the House of Representatives,
shifting the balance from 256-178 in favour of the Democrats to 242-193 with a
Republican majority. Although they did not regain their majority in the Senate, they
gained six seats and extended their powerbase significantly. The power balance now
is 53-47 in favour of the Democrats. The Republicans also won big in gubernatorial
and local elections. These results could not have been predicted in 2008, when
Democrats enjoyed huge victories during the Presidential and the Congressional
elections. After the disappointing Presidency of George W. Bush, and the
unsuccessful candidacy of John McCain, the party seemed to be lost. During his
campaign McCain tried to portray himself as a moderate Republican because Bush’s
terms in office had seemingly ruined the prospects for conservative policies. But the
anger about the bailouts, and the financial injections made by the government into
failing companies to keep the economy afloat during the financial crisis, revived fiscal
conservatism among many Americans and so the TPM was born. The birth and
presence of the TPM seems to have influenced the 2010 elections in a very positive
way for the Republicans. Skocpol and Williamson also stress this in their book.
“Indeed, a great many of the victorious GOP candidates of 2010 openly identify with
the Tea Party and enjoy the support of activists and plutocratic funders associated
with the cause.” 42 The media also sketched this effect, but an actual analysis of
available statistics by scholars from the Bingham Young University mentioned below
downplays the effect of the Tea Party on the 2010 elections. Skocpol and Williamson
are giving the Tea Party more credit than they deserve in this respect. The birth of the
TPM is thoroughly discussed in the previous chapter, the next chapter will discuss the
movement’s ideology.
The term Tea Party Movement is confusing because the TPM is not one cohesive
organization, as is sometimes suggested in media coverage. TPM is a generic term for
the local chapters and national organizations that came into being out of protest
against the fiscal policy of the government. But the movement is neither unified nor
uniform in its beliefs, it is actually quite diverse. Different factions within the
42
Skocpol, T., Williamson, V. (2012) The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism.
New York: Oxford University Press p. 4
32
movement have different interests and concerns. These interests conflict on some
subjects and cause discrepancies in what different members of the movement think
about the role and the purpose of the TPM in American politics. Skocpol and
Williamson argue that the TPM is a merger of three distinct factions, who each
influence the movement in different ways. “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.” 43 With the roving billionaire
advocates Skocpol and Williamson mean the national, mainly Washington based,
advocacy organizations and their right wing billionaire sponsors. Examples of these
organizations are Dick Armey’s Freedom Works, the Tea Party Express and
Americans for Prosperity. Both FreedomWorks and Americans for Prosperity are long
existing ultra-rightwing free market advocacy groups that have simply relabelled
themselves as Tea Party organizations. “A small set of nationally operating
Republican elites, many of whom have been promoting a low-tax, anti-regulation
agenda since the 1970s, have played a key role in local and regional Tea Party efforts.
These elites have long since developed a policymaking infrastructure in Washington,
but had previously achieved only limited success in directly connecting themselves to
an activist grassroots base.” 44 The local grassroots organizations give these
organizations the appearance of having a large popular backing. Now these
organisations, with key figures like Dick Armey, are acting as spokespersons for the
movement. But these organizations and figures are not elected or democratically
accountable to their supposed grassroots support. So their comments are not inspired
by the likes of the grassroots members who founded the movement. These
organizations use the grassroots activists for the realisation of their own goals. This
technique is called astroturfing. The realisation of these goals might actually hurt the
grassroots activists. Tax cuts and changes in the Medicare program, for example,
affect the majority of the grassroots activists directly because they are, as the
demographics of the movement suggest, the beneficiaries of these programs. As
Skocpol and Williamson suggest, “Free-market organizations supported by
billionaires find it easy to urge grassroots people and GOP officials to take rigid
43
Skocpol, T., Williamson, V. (2012) The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism.
New York: Oxford University Press p. 13
44
Coggin, J. , Skocpol, T. , Williamson, V. (2011) The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican
Conservatism. PS: Perspectives on Politics (2011), vol. 9, no. 1: p. 25-43
33
stands. After all, these groups and their wealthy backers are not democratically
accountable. Nor are they responsible for actually governing.” 45 They use the
grassroots activists, but also sponsor events, coordinate national protests, and supply
lecturers to talk at local Tea Party meetings.
The Tea Party protests are, and were from the beginning on, blessed by a
disproportional amount of media attention. Fox News and conservative commentators
such as Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh act as cheerleaders for the movement and
covered TPM events even when they were still small and insignificant. They gave the
movement an air of momentum and importance that it did not posses at the beginning.
The media attention worked as a self-fulfilling prophecy. The movement started to
grow in numbers, as well as in their influential capacity. The attention of the
conservative media was to be expected, but the mainstream media soon jumped on the
Tea Party bandwagon as well and even covered rallies attended by only a handful of
protestors. The sums of money pumped into the movement by the national
organizations, in combination with the media attention provided by the conservative
news outlets, have greatly contributed to the movement’s clout. The factions that
constitute the movement use different kinds of techniques to influence the
Republicans. Where grassroots people usually resort to ‘town hall meetings’ and local
protests, the national organizations prefer and orchestrate large national rallies and
marches on Washington. This factionalism within the movement is important to take
into account when analyzing the elections in which the Tea Party has been, or is
currently, active.
The 2010-midterm Congressional elections supply the first moments where the actual
strength and influence of the Tea Party can be measured. Many in the media attributed
the Republican victory to the Tea Party and her grassroots activism. The day after the
election the New York Times stated that: “The Tea Party victories by Rand Paul of
Kentucky and Marco Rubio of Florida underscored the extent to which Republicans
and Democrats alike may have underestimated the power of the Tea Party, a looselyaffiliated, at times ill-defined, coalition of grassroots libertarians and disaffected
Republicans.” 46 A day later the Washington Post reported that “As politicians and
45
Skocpol, T., Williamson, V. (2012) The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism.
New York: Oxford University Press p. 110
46
Cooper, M. (2010, November 3) Victories Suggest Wider Appeal of Tea Party. The New York Times
34
commentators debate the meaning of Tuesday's elections, one thing is clear:
conservatives are back.” And that it could have been predicted because “early
evidence of high interest among the conservative grassroots surfaced last year in the
town halls held during debates over the federal healthcare law. Those events
encouraged the burgeoning Tea Party Movement, with conservatives crowding the
meetings to argue against the legislation, which eventually passed.” 47 A study
conducted by Bingham Young University, however, downplays the effect of the TPM
on the 2010 midterm-election. “The models show that Tea Party endorsements
generally had little statistically discernible effect on Republican vote share in the
general election.” 48 In the general elections the Tea Party stamp did not necessarily
help candidates to get elected. According to this research, Tea Party endorsements in
the Republican primaries did have a positive effect on the outcome of the elections for
the Tea Party backed candidates. “In the 2010 Republican primaries, either bearing a
Tea Party stamp of approval or showing a willingness to affiliate with Tea Party
principles clearly improved a candidate’s electoral prospects.” 49. So the Tea Party did
have an influence, but this influence was not as profound as Skocpol and Williamson
and others are suggesting.
There are a lot of factors that influence the outcome of midterm-elections.
These factors probably have more influence than an emerging political movement.
Usually the party of the incumbent President looses during midterm-elections.
Midterm-elections have lower voter turnouts than general elections. Highly motivated
voters are more likely to cast their vote in midterm-elections, and make up a large
portion of the population that casts its vote. A motivating factor that drives people to
the polling station is dissatisfaction with the policy of the incumbent President.
Opponents of the government are usually more politically active than supporters who
already have their candidate in office. Taking these phenomena into account, the
Democrats loss in 2010 was to be expected. Another factor that probably had an
influence on the result of the midterm-election was the demographical composition of
the people who voted. Statistically the people who turn up for a midterm-election are
47
Thompson, K. (2010, November 4) Polls find a surge in conservative voters. The Washington Post
Karpowitz, C. , Quin Monson, J. , Patterson, K. , Pope, J. (2011) Tea Time in America? The Impact
of the Tea Party Movement on the 2010 Midterm Elections. PS: Political Science & Politics (2011),
vol. 44, no.2: p. 303-309
49
Karpowitz, C. , Quin Monson, J. , Patterson, K. , Pope, J. (2011) Tea Time in America? The Impact
of the Tea Party Movement on the 2010 Midterm Elections. PS: Political Science & Politics (2011),
vol. 44 no. 2: p. 303-309
48
35
older and economically better off than their fellow Americans. They are also
overwhelmingly white. The demographical composition of the voters during the 2010
election is similar to the demographical composition of the support base of the TPM.
Skocpol and Williamson assessed that “ GOP constituencies, including independents
who swung toward the Republicans in 2010, were angry and afraid more than
disappointed, and they went to the polls to ‘throw the bastards out’. It might be a
coincidence that Tea Party supporters overlap with the older, white, middle class
Republicans who turned out enthusiastically and disproportionately in 2010, but
probably not. Older white Americans were, all along, the ones least happy about
Obama’s presence in the White House. Some small fraction of them organized the
hundreds of Tea Party groups that met and protested across the country during 2009
and 2010. But that Tea Party minority surely had an effect far disproportionate to
simple numbers.” 50
So in hindsight the 2010 midterm-elections were won by the Republicans not
the Tea Party, the efforts of the TPM had some influence on the results but this
influence should not be overestimated. They did not have a great numeral effect on
the outcome of the election. An effect that the TPM did have on the election was that
they were able to determine the election’s main topics and the light in which they
were discussed, but this did not necessarily translated into polling success. This effect
was largely caused by the disproportionate amount of attention for the movement in
the media. Tea Party news dominated the news-coverage, and its candidates
dominated the GOP primary season. The TPM did not have a very big influence on
the outcome of the 2010 general election, but the movement did manage to leave her
mark on the 2010 Republican primaries.
So how did the TPM manage to create this effect on the 2010 Republican primaries?
First it is handy to establish what role the TPM sees for themselves during elections,
and the goals they were trying to achieve 2010. The Tea Party and its support system,
the rich financial backers and the conservative media, are not trying to create a
powerful third party to overturn the current political order. This would probably
benefit the Democrats and would cost the GOP electoral success. They want to prod
50
Skocpol, T., Williamson, V. (2012) The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism.
New York: Oxford University Press p. 161-162
36
the Republican Party rightward, and re-inject the conservative ideology into policies
that have supposedly faded from the party’s agenda. The TPM grassroots movement
sees itself as a ‘political guard’ of the GOP’s political conduct. The movement wanted
their conservative candidates to get elected. This was their main objective during
2010’s elections. They also tried to push more moderate Republicans into a more
conservative direction by threatening to replace them by a more ‘appropriate’
candidate. Incumbents or more moderate Republicans did not want to be challenged
by Tea Party candidates in their primaries and adopted a more conservative rhetoric to
keep local Tea Partiers satisfied.
The most apparent mean the movement used to try to influence of the
elections of 2010 was the challenging of incumbent Republicans in the Republican
primaries by putting forward more conservative Tea Party backed candidates, who
also ran on an Republican ticket. This was done in several states and challenged the
Republican establishment directly and openly. These techniques compromised the
electoral success of the GOP, because the new controversial candidates replaced
popular incumbent Republicans who had a good chance at winning the elections. In
many cases, the Tea Party candidates were to conservative to be a realistic candidate
for the general elections. These replacements lost the general elections against
Democrats, and thereby reduced the margin of the Republican victory. Running
against incumbent or popular Republicans was done in several state primaries.
This technique gives researchers the opportunity to see how the Republican
establishment reacts to a direct challenge by the TPM. Tea Partiers challenged
Republicans in the primaries of Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, Florida,
Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, New Jersey, New York, Nevada, South Carolina, South
Dakota, Texas and Utah. Not all candidates managed to win the general elections but,
with exception of Alaska, they drove out GOP candidates supported by the
Republican establishment.
A primary where a TPM candidate ran against a prominent Republican was
the primary in Delaware. The Senatorial election in the state of Delaware makes a
great case study for this thesis because the primary received a lot of media coverage
and was used as an example of the TPM’s popularity. Here the reaction of the
Republican establishment will be evaluated by researching the media coverage of this
event. This research will clarify how Republicans react when they are cornered by the
TPM.
37
In Delaware’s Republican primary, the Republicans establishment’s candidate was
Michael (Mike) Newbold Castle. As former Governor and Representative in the
House, with a long and balanced track record, he seemed to have a good chance to
beat Chris Coons, the Democratic candidate, in the general election. The Senatorial
election in 2010 was a special election for the seat that Joe Biden vacated when he
became Vice-President. As a moderate Republican with establishment support, Castle
had a good chance on electoral victory in the blue state of Delaware. In his book, Rule
and Ruin: The Downfall of Moderation and the Destruction of the Republican Party,
from Eisenhower to the Tea Party, historian Geoffrey Kabaservice states the
following. “Despite his moderation, the conservative Republican leadership supported
Castle’s 2010 election bid, and indeed needed his victory if the party was to retake the
Senate.” 51 With the Obama registration at a low approval rate there was a good
opportunity for the Republicans to step in and to convince the independents. In
October 2009 he announced his candidacy.
But there was another GOP candidate. Christine O’Donnell also planned to
run for election in 2010. Her two previous attempts to win the seat had failed. In the
previous election for that seat Joe Biden had beaten her with 65 % of the popular
votes. She also competed in the Senatorial election of 2006, but lost that election as
well. After her loss in 2008 she implied that she would run again in 2010. She
officially announced her candidacy on February 12 in 2009. When Castle announced
his candidacy she reconfirmed her candidacy, indicating that she would run against
Castle even though the Republican establishment backed him. From the beginning on,
she explicitly positioned herself as a Tea Party candidate. O’Donnell’s background
was somewhat shady. She worked as a communication adviser for the GOP and the
private sector, and founded small advocacy groups that addressed pro-life stances and
other religious issues. She sued one of her former employers on an account of sexual
discrimination. O’Donnell also stumbled on financial issues in 2008, when her house
was almost foreclosed. With no relevant political experience, and the legal problems
in her past, she did not seem a suitable candidate to send into the general election.
Despite criticism of GOP heavyweights like Karl Rove she persisted. With the help of
endorsements by Jim DeMint and Sarah Palin, and financial support of the Tea Party
Express, O’Donnell unexpectedly surged in the polls in the weeks prior to the
51
Kabaservice, G. (2012) Rule and Ruin: The Downfall of Moderation and the Destruction of the
Republican Party, from Eisenhower to the Tea Party. New York: Oxford University Press p. 389-390
38
Republican primary. She eventually beat Castle by margin of 53 % to 47 %. But in the
general election Chris Coons won by a margin of 16 %. It is suggested that this has
cost the GOP a majority in the Senate because Castle would have been able to beat
Coons. Castle and the GOP establishment were shocked by their loss, and had not
seen it coming.
In the media there was a lot of attention for the Senatorial election in Delaware and
for O’Donnell’s campaign. According to a study of the Pew Project for Excellence in
Journalism, O’Donnell was the second most mentioned figure in the media in 2010,
and was only surpassed by the attention paid to President Obama.
52
Because the Tea
Party Movement is a relatively new phenomenon in American politics, most scientific
studies are still going and early studies seem to be plain wrong in their conclusions.
Apart from the few books mentioned in this thesis there is not a whole lot of robust
scientific information available for this research. The Tea Party is, however, a very
popular subject in the American media. The media coverage is a fruitful source of
information about the Tea Party and its very useful for this scientific study.
In the country’s quality newspapers the primary of Delaware was extensively
covered. The reactions of influential Republicans recorded in these articles, along
with the coverage of the events that occurred during and after the primary, are all
indications of how the Republican Party reacts when it is directly challenged by the
Tea Party. The New York Times and The Washington Post both devoted many of
their newspaper pages to the events that occurred shortly after O’Donnell beat Castle.
In this research these two newspapers will be used to record the reactions and events
that surrounded the Republican Party in those days. These newspapers seem to be the
least biased media sources available. Both newspapers are known for their thorough
and objective style of reporting, although right-wing conservatives and Tea Partiers
often describe the papers as liberally biased. The Washington Post, however, has
moved to the right in the last decade, and the newspaper can now be considered
centrist with Democratic as well as Republican contributors. The New York Times is
known as a Democratic bulwark but still makes an effort to keep their reports of
political issues unbiased. Right-wing sources like Fox News and the Washington
52
Figures can be found on the website of the Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism.
http://www.journalism.org/numbers_report/midterms’_media_mainstays
Retrieved on 22-03-2010
39
Times are too biased to be useful for evaluation in this thesis, because there is a
plausible chance that they would withhold damaging information about Tea Party
candidates in order to preserve their chances during the general elections. This bias
would compromise this research and directly affect the results, because the subject of
this research is an uncomfortable issue for Republicans.
The outcome of the GOP primary in Delaware became nationwide news. After the
election on September 14 2010, Delaware became the prime example of the Tea
Party’s power and how the establishment of the GOP was losing its influence. Castle
was the prototype of an establishment Republican, and one of the longest serving
congressmen in Washington. In LexisNexis, a worldwide newspaper database, the
three days after the election showed enough articles to get a balanced and interesting
view on how the victory of O’Donnell was perceived by the Republican
establishment, and how they reacted to their defeat by insurgents within their party.
During her campaign O’Donnell was directly and openly attacked and
obstructed by the GOP establishment. A clear example of this obstruction is that she
was banned from using the Republican county offices for her campaign, and that she
had to finance her own offices. She was also smeared by the media with information
that directly came from the establishment camp. Journalists wrote in The Washington
Post that “During the primary contest, the state Republican Party attacked her sharply
for her money problems and her misstatements. They barred her from using county
GOP offices.” 53 So the GOP establishment actively tried to sabotage a candidate who
officially ran on their behalf. The reactions of establishment Republicans, or the
absence hereof, after O’Donnell’s victory are very illustrative for the general
atmosphere within the establishment. It is common courtesy for high party officials to
publicly congratulate a candidate that has won the party’s nomination, even if it is not
the candidate of their liking. This is done to show to the media that the party is
internally united, because after internal elections a party must show that it is still one
front against its opposition. If a party fails to do this it becomes an easy pray for its
opponents who can characterize their enemy as internally divided and weak. In the
case of O’Donnell’s victories, congratulatory messages either stayed out, or came
significantly late. When they did come they were half-hearted, to say the least. “One
53
Gardner, A. , Somashekhar, S. (2010, September 16) In Delaware’s Senate Race, Frustration with
GOP boiled over. The Washington Post
40
sign of demoralization inside the GOP establishment came in the lukewarm news
release from NRSC Executive Director Rob Jesmer on Tuesday night: ‘We
congratulate Christine O’Donnell for her nomination this evening after a hard-fought
primary campaign in Delaware. As telling was that Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.), the
NRSC chairman who has been on the losing end of a series of primaries, issued no
statement.” 54 Later on Conryn did issue a statement. On Wednesday morning, the
head of the Senate Republicans’ campaign arm sought to downplay suggestions of a
rift in the party. “Let there be no mistake: The NRSC – and I personally as the
committee’s chairman – strongly stand by all of our Republicans nominees, including
Christine O’Donnell in Delaware,” Senator John Cornryn said, in a statement. “I
reached out to Christine this morning, and as I have conveyed to all our nominees, I
offered her my personal congratulations and let her know that she has our support.
This support includes a check for $42.000 – the maximum allowable donation that we
have provided to all our nominees – which the NRSC will send to her campaign
today.” 55 This message came a day to late and only after the media showed negative
remarks made by one of the GOP establishment most important representatives, Karl
Rove. In an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity on the eve after the election he
argued that O’Donnell’s nomination made it impossible for the Republican Party to
win the Senate back in the general election. He also criticised her personal
characteristics and suggested that these characteristics did not make her a suitable
candidate. “There is just a lot of nutty things she’s been saying that just simply don’t
add up,” Karl Rove, the Republican strategist, said in a television interview on Fox
News, “I’m for the Republican, but I can tell you, we were looking at eight to nine
seats in the Senate. We’re now looking at seven to eight. In my opinion, this is not a
race we’re able to win.” 56 Rove’s opinion is usually very valuable to the GOP and her
establishment and voters. With this comment he did not increase O’Donnell’s chances
in the general election. Kabaservice states that Rove’s comment worked in
O’Donnell’s favour among Tea Party voters. “The fact that no less a Republican
leader than Karl Rove had called her unfit for office only reinforced her followers’
belief that her victory would provide a stinging and necessary rebuke to the party
54
Balz, D. (2010, September 15) Long Shot wins GOP race in Delaware. The Washington Post
(regional edition)
55
Shear, M. (2010, September 15) The Morning after: Whose Party is it? The New York Times
(Caucus Blog)
56
Zeleny, J. (2010 September 16) GOP Leaders say Delaware Upset hurts Senate Hopes. The New
York Times
41
elite.” 57
Other officials also had trouble with her victory. Naturally Mike Castle was
disappointed with his loss, but he refused to endorse her as Republican nominee. This
is very unusual because it makes the Republicans seem divided and weak as a party.
But he stated that: ““There are a lot of personal feelings in all this,” Castle said in an
interview off the House floor, citing “some of the personal smears” in the bitterly
fought campaign. “At this point I have no intention of endorsing.”” 58 In her campaign
against Castle O’Donnell called him a RINO, a Republican in name only, criticising
his voting records. These are allegations one could expect from a TPM candidate. But
she also smeared Castle in a very personal way. “Four days before the primary,
O’Donnell called Castle “unmanly” for filing an election complaint against her,
telling a radio host that “this is not a bake-off, get your man-pants on.”” 59
The Delaware Republican Party was very quiet for the first few days after
O’Donnell’s nomination, but did not bother to remove compromising information
about O’Donnell from their website. The Washington Post stated on September 16
that “the Delaware GOP is not on board yet. While local activists and Tea Party
Express leaders called for Ross’s resignation Wednesday, the party’s web page was
still loaded with attacks on O’Donnell.” 60 Tom Ross is the Chairman of the Delaware
Republican Party. He had been exceptionally critical of O’Donnell during the
primary, calling her a “liar”, and he said that “she could not be elected dog catcher” 61
But two days after her election Ross and his party had turned around to embrace
O’Donnell as their nominee. “While most establishment Republicans opposed Ms.
O’Donnell in her battle against Michael N. Castle, they had embraced her by early
Wednesday. Mr. Ross finally came out with a statement Thursday in which he said it
was ‘time to come together.’ He did not mention Ms. O’Donnell by name or even
specifically mention the Senate race.” 62 He also pledged to work hard for his
57
Kabaservice, G. (2012) Rule and Ruin: The Downfall of Moderation and the Destruction of the
Republican Party, from Eisenhower to the Tea Party. New York: Oxford University Press p. 390
58
Kane, P. (2010, September 17) Mike Castle won’t endorse Christine O’Donnell for Senate, citing
‘Smears’. The Washington Post
59
Kane, P. (2010, September 17) Mike Castle won’t endorse Christine O’Donnell for Senate, citing
‘Smears’. The Washington Post
60
Gardner, A. , Somashekhar, S. (2010, September 16) In Delaware’s Senate Race, Frustration with
GOP boiled over. The Washington Post
61
Seelye, K. (2010 September 17) Unity in Delaware: GOP Backs it’s Candidate. The New York
Times
62
Seelye, K. (2010 September 17) Unity in Delaware: GOP Backs it’s Candidate. The New York
Times
42
nominee. ““The Delaware Republican Party plans on doing what it does every
election year – working hard for our candidates,” he said. “We have reached out to the
NRSC, NRCC, and RNC to ensure that our candidates have as much support as
possible,” he added, referring to the party’s committees at the Senate, House and
national levels. “The winds of change are blowing hard in Delaware and together we
can take our state and country back,” he said. “I will honour my commitment to our
party’s grassroots activists and will continue to serve as chairman of the Republican
Party of Delaware.”” 63 Ross did not mention O’Donnell’s name in the whole
statement to the press, but he did try to create an air of grassroots support for his
position. This statement is not exactly an endorsement or a warm recommendation to
choose O’Donnell as Senator.
The Delaware Republicans were forced to issue this statement by the outcome
of the election. They had been exceptionally critical of O’Donnell during the primary,
more critical that one would expect when the candidate is a member of the same
party. To keep the criticism going after the loss of their candidate would have been
political suicide. They were so sure of a win for Castle that they might have gone a bit
to far with their negative campaign towards O’Donnell’s candidacy, and effectively
hurt the chances of O’Donnell being elected in the general election and thereby the
chance of their own party winning the Senate majority back. But the mood within the
establishment was certainly very anti-O’Donnell, even after her election. The
Washington Post wrote on the day after the election that “a senior Republican, who
spoke on the condition of anonymity to offer a candid view, said the National
Senatorial Committee would ‘walk’ out of the Delaware race.” 64 This comment, be it
anonymous, illustrates how shocked and disappointed the GOP’s establishment was
by the victory of O’Donnell. The lack of establishment support also became apparent
in Christine O’Donnell’s comments after her victory. “O’Donnell, interviewed on
CNN, brushed off those threats, saying GOP leaders in Washington “don’t have a
winning track record.” She added, “I’d love their support but I’m going to win
without them.”” 65 O’Donnell did not count on the establishment to win, and
63
Seelye, K. (2010 September 17) Unity in Delaware: GOP Backs it’s Candidate. The New York
Times
64
Balz, D. (2010, September 15) Long Shot wins GOP Race in Del. The Washington Post (regional
edition)
65
Balz, D. (2010, September 15) Long Shot wins GOP Race in Del. The Washington Post (regional
edition)
43
association with the Washington powerbase could cost her Tea Party votes because it
would look like she was warming up to the establishment’s wishes.
Official statements are usually issued on the evening after an election. But some of
the most important statements, for example the one of the Delaware GOP, came only
after two days. This, in combination with Karl Rove’s negative comments directly
after O’Donnell’s election, show me that the Republican Party had trouble coming up
with a unified and coordinated response to the surprise win claimed by the Tea Party.
Apparently the opinions on how to deal with the Tea Party victory within the
Republican establishment were divided. My assumption becomes more plausible
when you read the frantic statement issued by Michael Steele, then the chairman of
the Republican National Committee. This committee is bestowed with the national
leadership of the Republican Party. “Steele must figure out how to mend a party
shredded along its right flank by uber-conservative tea-party candidate victories -Christine O'Donnell's shocker in Delaware most prominent among them -- over
establishment Republican candidates who party regulars believe would have a better
chance in the general election. Accordingly, part of the morning-after routine involves
aligning oneself with the hot hand, and Steele – though he officially heads the
Republican Party, which to many would be synonymous with ‘the establishment’positioned himself as a critic of the powers-that-be. “The establishment in this town is
so clueless and so out of touch with what real people are going through every day.
We’ve heard the clarion call from states all across this Union, including (Tuesday)
night, that a different kind of change is coming.”” 66 Steele can be considered the
leader of the mainstream of the Republican Party, and is thus de facto one of the
leaders of the Republican establishment. With this comment he actually distanced
himself from his own position and his direct colleagues. This is a very strange move
for the national leader of the GOP. It exemplifies the panic that swept through the
Republican Party’s powerbase in the days after O’Donnell’s victory. The
establishment also had to deal with the nomination of Tea Party candidates like Rand
Paul, Marco Rubio and Joe Miller. “The first thing I thought this morning when I
woke up was: The wave is coming,” long-time Republican strategist Terry Holt said.
66
Roig-Franzia, M. , Horowitz, J. (2010 September 16) Hung-over or not, Parties must go on; The
Morning after the Primaries, Dems & GOP strive to Look Refreshed. The Washington Post
44
“We’ve all been trying to measure how high it would be and what impact it would
have. Now we know. The message is: Politicians beware. The wave is coming.” 67
So at first the Republican establishment was hesitant about embracing
O’Donnell as the new Republican protégé. But during the first days after the election,
when the news had sunk in, the GOP powerbrokers realized that there was no other
option than to reel her in to their camp and to make the victory seem like a GOP
victory. “Party leaders insist that the anti-establishment anger it represents and
channels will benefit the GOP in November. “We’re in the eye of the storm here,”
said Don Stewart, a spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.).
“Those people are fired up, and they are not going to vote Democrat. We are about to
hit the other side of that storm.”” 68
The Problem was that the Tea Party didn’t exactly jumped for joy with the
establishment attempts at conciliation. They saw this as a way for the establishment to
incorporate the TPM into the GOP framework, and to benefit from the Tea Party’s
popularity without having to listen to them. “Tea Party candidates bristled when
former Senate GOP leader Trent Lott (Miss.), now a lobbyist, told The Washington
Post in July: “ As soon as they get here, we need to co-opt them.” They argue that the
rise of their movement will in fact make other Republicans less inclined toward
compromise and accommodation. Whether or not the party wins control of either
house of Congress this fall, every Republican lawmaker will be keenly aware of
incumbents who fell in the primaries because they were insufficiently conservative.
They will know that in the era of the Tea Party, any step away from the path of
orthodoxy could be the making of a devastating campaign ad - or a primary
opponent.” 69 This, I believe, is the influence the Tea Party has won over the public
policy of the GOP after the 2010 election. O’Donnell did not win the general election,
and the Republicans are still the minority party in the Senate. But a profound effect
that the primary of Delaware had, in combination with other Tea Party victories, is
that incumbent and newly elected officials have a deeply instated fear of the Tea Party
and its opinion. As a result partisanship and right-wing rhetoric have increased in
Congress. Legislation introduced by Democrats has little chance of support among
67
Roig-Franzia, M. , Horowitz, J. (2010 September 16) Hung-over or not, Parties must go on; The
Morning after the Primaries, Dems & GOP strive to Look Refreshed. The Washington Post
68
Tumulty, K. (2010 September 16) Tea Party’ win Del. is Message to GOP. The Washington Post
69
Tumulty, K. (2010 September 16) Tea Party’ win Del. is Message to GOP. The Washington Post
45
Republicans, even if the proposed policy is beneficial to a ‘Republican cause’, or
would have passed easily before the era of the Tea Party. Republicans in Congress
feel that cooperation with Democrats will make them seem weak to the Tea Party.
They feel that they are just one primary election away from being replaced by a more
conservative candidate. The Tea Party kicked moderation out of the Republican Party.
The role of the TPM as a conservative watchdog over Republican officials,
with tools for disciplining their officials will profoundly influence Republican and,
thereby, American politics. ““That’s going to make people very nervous about their
votes,” said former Congressman Vin Weber (R-Minn.), who is now a lobbyist.
Particularly on spending, “the safest vote politically will be no,” he added – which
means it could be difficult for Republican congressional leaders to marshal the
numbers they need even for routine appropriations bills that are necessary to keep the
government operating.” 70
Another clue that suggests the disappearing moderate wing within the GOP, was the
endorsement for O’Donnell that came from Mitt Romney. Mitt Romney is a former
Governor of Massachusetts and a Presidential candidate for the 2012 election. During
his term as Governor, Romney could be considered a moderate. With the instalment
of a Massachusetts healthcare system that resembled the one Obama is trying to
implement now, he was seen as a moderate and progressive Republican who was not
afraid of bipartisan cooperation. These characteristics of moderation and
bipartisanship were common among a lot of East coast Republicans. But with his
2012 Presidential bid in the making, Romney saw it necessary to endorse a right-wing
conservative to attract Tea Party support during the upcoming primaries for the
election of a Republican Presidential nominee. “The Tea Party phenomenon may also
have the effect of getting the 2012 Republican Presidential race of to an early start
and sending the contenders further to the right. (...) On Wednesday, former
Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, who is expected to make another bid for the
White House in 2012, announced his endorsement of O’Donnell and gave her $ 5000.
“Now it’s the time for Republicans to rally behind their nominee, Christine
O’Donnell,” he said. “She ran an impressive campaign. I believe it is important we
70
Tumulty, K. (2010 September 16) Tea Party’ win Del. is Message to GOP. The Washington Post
46
support her so we can win back the U.S. Senate.”” 71 This is a first indication of the
way the Tea Party is influencing the 2012 Republican primaries. It is setting the
agenda for the primaries and pushes candidates to the right. But with Romney
endorsing a conservative right wing candidate with little chance of winning a general
election in the largely Democratic state of Delaware, the power of the Tea Party
within the Republican Party is becoming apparent.
In the general elections the TPM is a lot less powerful, than in Republican primaries.
The movement is not very popular among moderate Republican voters, independents,
and dissatisfied Democrats. They are way to conservative for most voters. This is also
visible in the statistics about the TPM. A Gallup Poll published in 2011 says that only
10% of registered Democrats have a favourable opinion of the TPM, among
independents 30% of the voters have a positive opinion about the movement, but
among registered Republicans 60% of the questioned have a favourable opinion about
the TPM. 72 A small part of all the people who are eligible to vote are supporters of the
movement, but among the registered Republicans more than half of all the voters are
supporters of the Tea Party. So to be nominated as a Republican you would have to
convince more than a few Tea Partiers. If anything, the 2010 elections showed that the
TPM also had a negative effect on the electoral success of the GOP, because Tea
Party candidates were too conservative to win general elections against Democrats.
The strength of the movement lies in the internal influence it has on the GOP. The
way the Tea Party was able to dominate the Republican primary season in 2010
scared incumbent and moderate Republicans. They adjusted their voting pattern and
rhetoric to please the Tea Party constituency. “The new force within the Republican
Party is contemptuous of safe, pragmatic calculations for winning swing voters and
offers no forgiveness for political compromises and ideological inconsistencies.
Saying you're for smaller government, for instance, and then backing the bailout of
Wall Street banks. "There's going to be an absolute stress on 'I.P.' - ideological
purity," predicted Ken Duberstein, a Reagan White House chief of staff who is a
71
Tumulty, K. (2010 September 16) Tea Party’ win Del. is Message to GOP. The Washington Post
USA Today/Gallup April 20-23 2011 as retrieved on April 17 2012 from
http://www.gallup.com/poll/147308/Negative-Views-Tea-Party-Rise-New-High.aspx
72
47
lobbyist.” 73 So the Tea Party has found a mechanism that allows it to control and
discipline the Republican congressional policy without getting its own candidates
elected. The proof that this mechanism works is that there has been a stark decline in
bipartisan cooperation in Congress since the rise of the Tea Party. Due to
unwillingness from Congressional Republicans to compromise, the Obama
registration almost had to be shut down in 2011. The Republicans refused to raise the
debt ceiling, this had been common policy in the past, which was necessary in order
to pay for the salary of government workers and for public services. After his loss
Castle gave a statement that seems to support my assumption that the Tea Party’s
influence on the GOP creates partisanship and a loss of moderation. “Republicans
who might be inclined toward the middle of the road, he said, are petrified of “quick
attacks by columnists and the Sean Hannitys of the world. People are very afraid of
crossing the line and being called Republicans in Name Only -- or worse.” As a result,
“not too many members are willing to stand up.” “Part of it,” he added, "is worry
about primaries, and this election has shown the power of very conservative
groups.”” 74 The allegation of being a RINO had worked during O’Donnell’s
campaign against Castle. The ‘curse word’ has also helped other Tea Partiers in
beating their moderate opponents in elections. Republicans are now conditioned to
keep their voting behavior conservative. After the Delaware primary the Washington
Post wrote that “Whatever happens in November, the leadership of the party is on
notice that the grass roots is watching, sternly, and is prepared to punish anyone who
strays from what they perceive as party orthodoxy.” 75 This mechanism inspires
Congressional Republicans to oppose every proposal done by a Democrat to prevent
an impression of willingness to compromise; they do not want to become known as a
RINO. Prominent Republican figures who used to determine the course of the GOP
are now shunned when they criticize the Tea Party or her candidates. The GOP tries to
appease the Tea Party, to avoid problems and internal differences during the 2012
election.
Despite rumors about a decline in the Tea Party’s popularity, the faction is still
influencing the 2012 GOP primaries for the selection of the Presidential candidate. In
an article in The New York Times, these developments are also reflected. “The party's
73
Tumulty, K. (2010, September 17) Republicans rethink ’12 playbook. The Washington Post
Dionne, E.J. (2010, September 16) Storming the Castles. The Washington Post.
75
Balz, D. (2010, September 15) Republicans ride the Tea Party Tiger. The Washington Post.
74
48
hopes for retaking Congress are deeply bound up with the fate of Tea Party candidates
across the country, and the party’s leaders have done little to distance themselves
from the extremism that now constitutes mainstream conservative policy. When the
House Republican leader, John Boehner, voiced a possible compromise on tax cuts,
he was immediately shouted down by other party officials and pilloried as weak by
right-wing blogs. Mr. Rove noted that Ms. O'Donnell is unlikely to win in November,
possibly preventing the Republicans from taking over the Senate. He is now a pariah
himself in those same circles. On Wednesday, Mr. Boehner invited Tea Party activists
to help “drive the debate” in Washington and shape the legislative agenda. That
invitation act should be a dose of adrenaline to dispirited Democrats, independents
and mainstream Republican voters who had not fully grasped the stakes in
November's election.” 76
Now, while this chapter is being written, the GOP primary season for the 2012
Presidential election are, unofficially, over. Formally the Republican Presidential
candidate will be appointed at the Republican Convention. But Romney has no
opponents anymore. After a surprisingly successful and long campaign, Rick
Santorum has postponed his campaign indefinitely which means that he is pulling out
of the race. The primary season, however, has taken unusually long. This is partly due
to a procedural change in how the GOP chapters in the individual states organize their
primaries. They have changed the way they award delegates. Before, the winner of a
primary election in a state would receive all the state’s delegates. After the long
primary season of the Democrats during the last Presidential election, and the positive
effect it seem to have had for the Democrats, the Republican State Committees
changed their procedure. Most states now apply the Democratic way of awarding
delegates. Namely that delegates are awarded according to proportional allocation.
Delegates are distributed according to the percentage of the popular vote a candidate
has managed to collect. This means that you don’t necessary have to win the most
states to become the nominee. You have to collect the most delegates so if you win in
a view large states and finish second in other states with a close margin you can
theoretically become the nominee.
But this procedural change is only part of the explanation of why the GOP
76
Editorial (2010, September 16) Primary Day 2010: The Tea Party’s Snarl. The New York Times
49
nomination process has taken so long. Thus far, Romney has managed to collect the
largest amount of delegates. But in most primaries he did not win with large margins,
and he lost from Santorum in a couple of states that he was expected to take easily.
This is due to the internal disagreements that continue to torment the Republican
Party.
There were a lot of conservative candidates in the running when the primaries
started. Almost all candidates were promoting themselves as fiscal and social
conservatives who loathed Washingtonian practices. The central question of the
Presidential primary season was; who is a true conservative. Even Romney had to
build his campaign around this subject. It was hard for him to prove that he was a
true, anti-Washington, conservative. During his term as Governor of Massachusetts he
was considered a moderate Republican who was not afraid of making ‘liberal’
decisions. He reformed the Massachusetts healthcare policy to what seems like a
precursor of ‘ObamaCare’. But now he is promising to repeal ‘ObamaCare’ as soon as
he is in office. In The Washington Post Skocpol says that “Romney has constantly
declared his determination to get rid of ObamaCare the minute he moves into the
White House. Of course, Romney’s healthcare overhaul in Massachusetts, which he
continues to defend, is essentially the same thing as Obama’s Affordable Care Act
does.” 77 During his term in office he changed his position on abortion. In his
campaign for the governorship he had promoted himself as pro-choice. During his
governorship he changed his position and declared himself pro-life. So his move to
the right started already during his term as Governor of Massachusetts. Now, in his
campaign, he is doing his best to appear conservative. This is necessary to gain
support among Tea Party voters. But during the GOP primaries his fellow candidates,
who were known for their conservative stances, also forced him to the right. Rick
Perry, Michelle Bachman, Rick Santorum and Herman Cain are all social and
economic conservatives. They now have all postponed their campaigns. Newt
Gingrich who is also an all-round conservative also left the race. Ron Paul is known
for his economic conservatism. But he supports a small and non-invasive government
to an extreme. He thinks the government has no say in private matters like abortion.
He also wants to legalize soft drugs. Now, Paul also pulled out of the race, leaving
Romney sure of his nomination. Romney has been the only credible candidate for the
77
Skocpol, T. (2012, February 3) Mitt Romney, the Stealth Tea Party Candidate. The Washington Post
50
GOP nomination in this election from the start. The rest of the candidates were all to
conservative and had to many embarrassing slip-ups during their campaign
appearances, and skeletons in their closets, to be appropriate candidates. But it took
the GOP establishment exceptionally long to endorse Romney. While it was clear
from the beginning that Romney would get the nomination because he was the only
credible candidate with the largest campaign funds. Only now, after all his plausible
contenders have resigned, popular Republican officials and former Presidents are
starting to give Romney their lukewarm endorsement.
The way Romney campaigned with conservative issues, and his endorsement of
O’Donnell, can all be seen as results of the Tea Party’s effect on the GOP. Candidates
have to appear conservative; otherwise the establishment does not have the courage to
support them. They do not want to upset the Tea Party. Being anti-Washington was
one of the best qualities a candidate could have during the 2012 GOP primaries.
Apparently no government experience, or a debt with the IRS, are attractive assets
now for candidates. Because it makes the candidate seem like a real American who
can understand what his voters are going through. Romney can hardly be
characterized as struggling American. Romney is a very rich man and the owner of a
large company He has an Ivy League education and was born into a wealthy and
powerful family. Theda Skocpol has published an article in The Washington Post
about Romney’s relationship with the Tea Party. In this article she argues that
Romney actually is the perfect Tea Party candidate. “Romney — Swiss bank
accounts, establishment support and all — has maneuvered with ruthless precision
and impeccable timing to position himself as a champion of the Tea Party agenda.
During the primary campaign, he’s repeatedly pledged fealty to key Tea Party
priorities: cracking down on illegal immigration, repealing “Obamacare,” slashing
taxes and drastically scaling back government spending. It’s working: Half of the
primary voters in Florida who say they support the Tea Party went for Romney.” 78 So
the TPM is warming to Romney as a candidate. He is convincing Tea Party
sympathizers that he is determined to carry out their agenda. It is to be expected that
he will move his campaign rhetoric more to the centre during the general election to
attract moderates, independents, and disappointed Democrats. He has to appeal to
78
Skocpol, T. (2012, February 3) Mitt Romney, the Stealth Tea Party Candidate. The Washington Post
51
them too; otherwise he won’t be able to collect enough votes to beat Obama. So he
has quite a difficult campaign season ahead of him. Skocpol also thinks that Romney
will move more to the centre, as the general elections get closer. “Of course, if he
ends up in the general-election race, Romney’s campaign will rarely mention the Tea
Party. While throwing occasional red meat to the conservative faithful, he will
generally repackage himself as a centrist who knows how to grow the economy and
create jobs.” 79 Skocpol, however, argues that Romney might be a wolf in sheep’s
clothing, and that he has actually moved away from his moderate past. “In Romney,
the Tea Party has found the ultimate prize: a candidate loyal to the movement’s
agenda, but able to fool enough pundits and moderate voters to win the White House
at a time when the Tea Party has lost broad appeal. Pushing the Republican Party to
the hard right and denying Obama a second term have always been top tea party
goals. In Romney, the movement has just the man it needs.” 80 It is also wrong to think
that all Tea Partiers are casting their vote on the basis of ideological arguments.
Casting a pragmatic vote for Romney, because he is most capable to beat Obama, is
much more appealing to many Tea Partiers than four more years with a Democratic
President.
Skocpol’s assessment that Romney is not as moderate as he used to be agrees with
how she and other scholars feel the Republican Party is evolving. Kabaservice agrees
with Skocpol’s thesis that the GOP was already making a continuous movement to the
right before the Tea Party came into the picture. He states that the TPM is only a new
chapter in this systematic move to the right. “The Tea Party Movement was only the
latest in a cycle of insurgencies on the Republican right that had shaken the
Republicans since the McCarthy movement of the 1950s and the Goldwater revolt in
the early 1960s. Even the name of the movement was a throwback to the ‘T Parties’
of the early ‘60s, part of the right-wing, anti-tax crusade of that era.” 81
The disappearance of moderation out of the Republican Party might not be an
effect that can be solely contributed to the TPM. It is often suggested that both Parties
are purifying their ideological framework, and that the leftists in the Democratic Party
are also gaining more ground. But it seems that the GOP has a more noticeable
79
Skocpol, T. (2012, February 3) Mitt Romney, the Stealth Tea Party Candidate. The Washington Post
Skocpol, T. (2012, February 3) Mitt Romney, the Stealth Tea Party Candidate. The Washington Post
81
Kabaservice, G. (2012) Rule and Ruin: The Downfall of Moderation and the Destruction of the
Republican Party, from Eisenhower to the Tea Party. New York: Oxford University Press p. 387
80
52
struggle with this move to the right. Kabaservice agrees with this assessment. “Still,
most observers agree with Mike Castle that the domination of one ideological wing is
a ‘more extensive problem right now in the Republican Party than in the Democratic
Party.’” 82 The partisanship that is now paralyzing the US Congress can be ascribed to
the influence of the Tea Party on GOP officials who refuse to compromise out of fear,
even if it is in the country’s best interest. The elected Tea Partiers, however, may owe
their seats not only by the Tea Party revolt, but also to the rightward move of the
Republican Party. This rightward move supports my thesis that the Tea Party fits into
the factional history of the Republican Party and is another chapter in this history
rather than an independent phenomenon.
The Tea Party managed to dominate the 2010 Republican primary season by
challenging Republican incumbents. The movement has, despite their small number
of congressional elects, a large influence on the proceedings in Congress. Incumbent
Republicans fear the Tea Party and rather avoid upsetting the movement, than to risk
a challenge by damaging ads or conservative candidates during their next primary.
The TPM is pushing the entire rhetoric of the Republican Party to the right and kicks
moderation out of the party. This was also visible during the 2012 Republican
primaries. There were no candidates who campaigned with arguments for moderation.
Mitt Romney, who used to be a moderate, was now promoting himself as a right wing
conservative. With my analysis of the newspaper articles I found that the GOP tries to
incorporate the Tea Party by appeasing them, and to conform their public appearances
to the Tea Party’s wishes. This is also what the party has done with upcoming
insurgency factions in the past.
The Tea Party is not an independent phenomenon or a surprise insurgency. It
is part of the internal Republican tradition of factionalism. It is a grassroots effort to
push the Republicans rightwards, not an attempt to overthrow the balance in the
American two-party system or to start a new party. The fact that Republican Party
already was already in the process of becoming more conservative underlines this role
of the Tea Party. The Tea Party is powerful within and through the GOP, but has no
leverage outside the party. They could never become big enough to win a majority in
general elections because their support base outside the GOP is too small. The
82
Kabaservice, G. (2012) Rule and Ruin: The Downfall of Moderation and the Destruction of the
Republican Party, from Eisenhower to the Tea Party. New York: Oxford University Press p. 392
53
movement is a faction and will not turn away from the Republicans, because the only
alternative would be to start an own party. This would mean that the Republicans
would probably loose the next election, because half of her support identifies with the
TPM and would now vote for the Tea Party. Then the Tea Party would be stuck with a
liberal government and a relatively small party that has no leverage in Congress. This
effect makes secession an undesirable move for the TPM. Seeing the Tea Party in the
light of factionalism also helps us predicting the movement’s future. Previous rightwing factions did not secede, but were incorporated into the Republican framework.
The lasting influence of the Tea Party on the Republican Party will be that it stabilizes
the party’s move to the right, but that the movement will dissolve when they feel
heard by the Republicans and their wishes are incorporated. The next chapter will
help making this prediction more accurate. Below, a close look will be paid to the
effect that the faction has on the Republican Party’s ideology.
54
The Tea Party’s Ideology and its Influence on the GOP
“Our Founding Fathers entrusted us with the preservation of our liberty. Together,
we can save the republic they created.” 83
The Tea Partiers see their ideology as pretty straightforward and simple. They want a
small government that imposes low taxes and accommodates civil liberty. But once
this simple ideology has to be applied to real policies the difficult implications of this
seemingly uncomplicated ideology become apparent. For instance with intricate
matters like ObamaCare and illegal immigration, the Tea Party ideology is not as
univocal as it seems. This chapter will pay a closer look into the ideology of the Tea
Party and whether this ideology affects the ideological framework of the Republican
Party. Which historic documents and figures are used by the TPM and how do they
frame these events into their ideological framework?
The ideological framework is a difficult subject to discuss. The notion that
their ideology is clear-cut and uncomplicated is only tenable in a very narrowly
defined realm. I think that this is true as long as you stick to some of their well-known
conceptual economic points of view, and stay away from a discussion of social issues
and the implications of their economic stances when they would be turned into actual
policy. When it comes to more social subjects, the discussion becomes far more
complex. The difficulty is that the TPM is not an unambiguous organization. The
large lobbyist organizations, the media and the grassroots movement each have
different ideas about the specifics of the Tea Party ideology.
The Tea Party is a melting pot of different interest groups, as is also stated in
the previous chapters. Grassroots supporters and lobbyist organization are both part of
the movement but can differ in view they have on the organization and its role in
American politics. But this is not the most complicated division within the movement
when it comes to the ideological framework. The most problematic division within
the movement is between the different ideological factions that are participating. The
Tea Party harbours both social and libertarians. These different factions find common
ground in their fiscal conservatism. So that is a subject that most Tea Partiers agree
on. But social or moral issues are not that easy to agree on for Tea Partiers. Because
83
Armey, D., Kibbe, m. (2010) Give us Liberty: A Tea Party Manifesto. New York: HarperCollins
Publishers p. 9
55
these factions do not have a univocal vision of the role of the government in these
social matters, unified stances on illegal immigration, same-sex marriage, and some
government sponsored programs are difficult, if not impossible, to formulate for the
movement. Ron Paul, for instance, is often referred to as the spiritual father of the Tea
Party. Paul is an outspoken libertarian in the economic sense; the libertarian economic
theory is at the heart of the Tea Party ideology. But he is an all-round libertarian,
which means that he is not dead set against same-sex marriage and he has promoted
the legalization of marihuana. The majority of the TPM constituency does certainly
not share these policy stances. So there is not an over-all accepted consensus about all
the different subjects that are currently important in the political debate or the
ideology that is represented by the Tea Party.
The website of the Tea Party Patriots is headlined by the slogan fiscal responsibility,
constitutionally limited government, free markets. 84 Various propaganda books and
spokespersons repeat this simple mantra or state the same in different words. On the
cover of Dick Armey’s and Matt Kibbe’s book a Tea Party formula is featured. Lower
taxes + less government = more freedom. 85 These are the stances for which the Tea
Party is known. These stances are all economically oriented, although you can also
see that freedom and liberty are also incorporated into the slogans. The Tea Party is a
fragmented movement that acts like an umbrella organisation for different factions
that share the same economic ideology. These organizations try to stay away from
other more complicated subjects because these subjects can easily cause a split in the
movement. Still, it is possible to distil an overlapping ideological consensus, shared
by a large number of organizations involved in the TPM that embraces more than just
economic ideals. With an analysis of two primary sources that are available on this
subject, an overlapping ideological framework can be distilled from the Tea Party’s
bombastic rhetoric.
On February 24 in 2010 a joint ideological statement was released by over 60 Tea
Party organizations. 86 This statement was named the Declaration of Tea Party
84
As retrieved from www.teapartypatriots.org on May 5, 2012
Armey, D., Kibbe, m. (2010) Give us Liberty: A Tea Party Manifesto. New York: HarperCollins
Publishers cover first edition
86
Patten, D. A. (2010) Tea Party Groups Declare Independence. Newsmax.
http://www.newsmax.com/InsideCover/tea-party-declaration-independence/2010/02/24/id/350788
retrieved on May 27, 2012
85
56
Independence. 87 The endorsement of a large number of Tea Party organizations of
this document makes it very suitable as a primary source for this research. The
document can be considered a first-hand account of the Tea Party ideology. Another
document that can also be used as a primary source here is the petition Contract from
America. 88 This document was released on April 15, 2010, and also repeats the Tea
Party mantra. This document should not be confused with the Contract with America.
This document was released by the Republican Party in 1994 and championed by
Newt Gingrich. The Contract from America pledges to “advocate on behalf of
individual liberty, limited government, and economic freedom.” 89
It is very useful for this research to compare these documents. These are the
only joint documents that carry a broad base of support among the different Tea Party
organizations. Both documents harbour the same concepts that are also expressed in
the mantras above. A thorough and scientific analysis of these documents has, until
now, not been made. This is surprising because these are the only descriptions of a
shared Tea Party ideology available. Therefore a closer look to these primary sources
of Tea Party ideology can contribute greatly to our understanding of the ideological
stances of the movement.
The central theme of both documents is liberty, and the threat to individual
liberty that the current government poses. All the other stances are either inspired and
facilitated by liberty or are necessary for the protection of this right. The Declaration
of Tea Party independence gives quite a clear-cut definition of what the supporters see
as liberty, and what the essential freedoms are that sustain the existence of liberty.
“We believe that Liberty is based in rational self-interest, in freedom of thought, free
markets, free association, free speech, a free press and the ability granted to us under
the Constitution to direct our own affairs free of the dictates of an ever expanding
federal government which is as voracious in its desire for power as it is incompetent
87
The Declaration of Tea Party Independence can be found on
http://dailycaller.firenetworks.com/001646/dailycaller.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/Tea-Party-Decof-Independence-22410.pdf
88
The Contract from America can be found on http://www.contractfromamerica.org/
This petition was circulated in 2009 and 2010. Tea Partiers could send in and debate their view on what
the Tea Party should promote on the Contract from America website, and from all these contribution a
list of 10 bullet points was drafted, on the basis of the percentage of support on the website. This
contract is founded on a democratic base among Tea Party supporters, and is therefore very useful as
first-hand account of Tea Party ideology. These lists were sent to elected politicians to sign. A lot of
Republican congressmen have signed the contract. As is to be expected no Democratic politicians have
signed the document.
89
The Contract from America.
57
and dangerous in its exercise.” 90 So with liberty the Declaration refers to individual
liberty from governmental interference. The government was created by the Founding
Fathers to ensure individual liberty. The Declaration goes on to say that America was
founded because of the need for freedom from “previous generations”. Liberty is also
a reference to the most famous sentence of the Declaration of Independence. “We
hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are
endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life,
Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” 91 The title of Dick Armey’s and Matt Kibbe’s
Tea Party manifesto also refers to this sentence; Give us Liberty. Individual liberty is
also one of three core values that are named in the Contract from America. “Our
moral, political, and economic liberties are inherent, not granted by our government.
It is essential to the practice of these liberties that we be free from restriction over our
economic choices.” 92 So in the Contract liberty is defined in more economic terms.
The Declaration states that the alternative to liberty is tyranny, and that the movement
was founded to restore the path to liberty. It says that “this course, if not reversed, can
only lead to economic collapse and tyranny.” 93 Both documents see liberty in broader
terms than just economic freedom, individual liberty is the most important and leads
automatically to economic freedom.
Liberty is also what inspires the second joint stance of the Tea Party: a limited
government. A small non-invasive government that stays out of the economic realm is
the ideal way of governing according to the movement. The bailouts under both the
Bush and the Obama administration were the final straw for the Tea Party to come
into action and unite. The TPM saw this as government interference in the country’s
economy that had no constitutional legitimacy. The Declaration has a very bombastic
statement about how governmental interference led to the founding of the Tea Party.
“In seeking a path to liberty, a great and powerful movement is now rising from every
corner of our land. Created by the will of the American people, it rejects
unconstitutional domination by the government that is supposed to be its servant. This
movement has arisen, in large part, because our elected officials have failed us.” 94
This statement has a strong populist undertone. The Tea Party sees a negative
90
Declaration of Tea Party Independence.
The Declaration of Independence (1776) as retrieved from
http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.html on May 23, 2012
92
The Contract from America
93
Declaration of Tea Party Independence.
94
Declaration of Tea Party Independence.
91
58
correlation between the size of the government and the citizen’s individual liberty.
When the government’s size and power grow, the liberty of the individual decreases.
Governmental interference in the economy is considered unconstitutional by the TPM
because it hurts the free-market capitalism on which the country’s economy is
founded. They usually base this argument on the Tenth Amendment in the Bill of
Rights. This amendment regulates the balance between states rights and federalism. It
limits the power of the federal government in regard to states and people. The
amendment declares that “The powers not delegated to the United States by the
Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively,
or to the people.” 95 Actions or policies initiated by the government that do not comply
with the Tea Party’s point of view are usually declared unconstitutional on the basis
of the Tenth Amendment. The Declaration of Tea Party Independence also refers to
this Amendment. “We reject all acts that ignore or diminish the 2nd and 10th
Amendments to the US Constitution and we seek to have all powers not delegated to
the United States by the Constitution to be reserved to the States respectively, or the
People.” 96 The Second Amendment regulates the citizen’s right to bear arms.
The function of the federal government should be the protection of the
citizen’s liberties and safety. They champion a kind of night-watchman state in which
the government only regulates justice and safety. This a very libertarian vision on the
function of the government. The wish for a limited government partly stems from the
conservative emphasis on individual responsibility. The citizen can take care of him
or herself when the government stays away. This is also why conservatives and the
Tea Party reject a welfare state, and uses the term socialism as an insult. Tea Partiers
regularly refer to President Obama as a socialist, and they characterize his appointed
bureaucrats and public officials as his ‘czars’. Calling his bureaucrats czars is
practically the same as calling Obama a tyrant. For instance, they see the reforms of
the healthcare system initiated by the Obama administration as a way for the
government to interfere in the private sphere. They see the government as a
mechanism that is constantly endangering the liberty of its citizens, and has to be kept
in check to ensure the rights of citizens. O’Hara phrases this stance of Tea Partiers as
following in his book: “They embrace government as a necessary evil in constant
95
The Bill of Rights (1789) As retrieved from
http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/bill_of_rights_transcript.html on May 28 2012
96
Declaration of Tea Party Independence.
59
need of being trimmed back like weeds in the spring.” 97 The second part of the
Declaration of Tea Party Independence is dedicated to the rejection of the current
Democratic government. “We reject the endless creation of myriad federal
government agencies that drown free enterprise and local control in the swarms of
education, ecology, and commerce bureaucrats who style themselves ‘czars’ sent to
harass us. We reject the creation of federal government regulations and agencies
which demand the States pay for unfunded Federal mandates.” 98 States rights are also
considered more important than federalism. This belief has also been instilled in the
Republican Party since the Second World War. The Contract from America also
harbors an admiration of the night-watchman state. Their description of the function
that the government should have matches the description of this governing style. “The
purpose of our government is to exercise only those limited powers that have been
relinquished to it by the people, chief among these being the protection of our liberties
by administering justice and ensuring our safety from threats arising inside or outside
our country’s sovereign borders. When our government ventures beyond these
functions and attempts to increase its power over the marketplace and the economic
decisions of individuals, our liberties are diminished and the probability of corruption,
internal strife, economic depression, and poverty increases.” 99 So the Contract also
lists the dangers posed by a large powerful government, as seen by the Tea Partiers.
The government should stay away from economic and private issues.
This leads to the third Tea Party principle, a free market. This principle is
combined with the other prominent economic stances the Tea Party stands for, fiscal
responsibility and lower taxes. The Tea Partiers call themselves capitalists. This term
was uttered in the Santelli rant that kick-started the movement. The economic system
is glorified at rallies and in the books released by the different Tea Party supporters.
The Declaration of Tea Party Independence states the following: “We believe that
capitalism – NOT GOVERNMENT – is essential to the creation of wealth and a
vastly reduced government provides the foundation for a thriving capitalist
system.” 100 Tea Partiers are alarmed by the growing federal deficit. They were
enraged by the bailouts mainly from a libertarian point of view. To them the bailouts
97
O’Hara, J. M. (2010) A New American Tea Party: the Counterrevolution against Bailouts, Handouts,
reckless Spending, and more Taxes. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. p. 215
98
Declaration of Tea Party Independence.
99
The Contract from America
100
Declaration of Tea Party Independence.
60
were a form of government interference that resembled socialism or even
communism. They also disagree with the cap and trade legislation proposed by the
Obama registration because it would allegedly compromise the economy for
ecological benefits. The Contract from America calls for economic freedom. With this
they mean unbridled capitalism, and a financially prudent government. “The most
powerful, proven instrument of material and social progress is the free market. The
market economy, driven by the accumulated expressions of individual economic
choices, is the only economic system that preserves and enhances individual liberty.
Any other economic system, regardless of its intended pragmatic benefits, undermines
our fundamental rights as free people.” 101 Lower taxes are partly necessary to keep
the government small and to give them less financial power, and also because it takes
money away from ordinary citizens who work hard for their pay. Tax money should
only be spent on the necessary public amenities and the country’s safety. The
government now supposedly has too many expensive social programs that support
people who do not take responsibility for their own lives. Tea Partiers often claim that
poverty is created by governmental interference in the private sphere and the
economy. High taxation on wages and goods takes money away from normal
Americans who can’t miss that money. Benefits for unemployment, for instance,
could motivate people to stop looking for work and make them ‘addicted to welfare’.
They oppose every initiative to raise taxes. The proposal by the Democrats to raise the
taxes on the highest incomes was blocked in Congress by Tea Party and Republican
Congressmen.
Economic freedom and individual liberty reinforce each other. A limited
government facilitates these freedoms. Jared A. Goldstein, a law professor from the
Roger Williams University, summarized the Tea Party’s ideological framework as a
mechanism. “The Tea Party Movement articulates all of its positions in terms of this
set of interlocking principles—individual liberty, limited government, and free
markets—which they identify as core constitutional principles. Any government
action the movement opposes—whether it is healthcare reform, bailouts, taxes, debt,
or cap-and-trade legislation—involves “excessive government” and therefore
unconstitutionally infringes on individual liberty and interferes with the free
101
The Contract from America.
61
market.” 102 This is the ideological consensus within the TPM: outside of this
ideological framework, when asked about specific policy issues, Tea Partiers tend to
become uncomfortable. These three principles make up the foundation of the
movement.
Outside of this foundation the movement is divided and vulnerable. Social
issues can split the movement into different factions. There is also the issue of how
the three principles should be applied to reality. It is easy to oppose policy proposals
suggested by opponents, but difficult to transform the three principles into real policy
with a large support base. In my point of view, these are the weaknesses of the
movement, and these weaknesses paralyze the movement to a certain degree. The
movement defends itself against these allegations by saying that it is essential to unite
on these three principles because the economic situation calls for action, and that
differences should be ignored for now. “We reject the idea that the Tea Party
Movement must all be unanimous in our specific policy views in order to win. We
recognize that the current situation requires we come together in confederation to
achieve the MANY MUTUAL GOALS we all seek to accomplish. We recognize that
the current situation requires that we concentrate on the many things we have in
common rather than those few things about which we may disagree.” 103 So they argue
that they can put aside their differences for now. But when it comes to reality this is
not entirely true. Republicans are opposing Democratic legislation in Congress to
appease the Tea Party but don’t try to come up with alternative legislation inspired by
the Tea Party because they fear disapproval and punishment by the Tea Party. This
creates partisanship in Congress but also stagnation in the movement, because
activists can’t channel their enthusiasm into actual policy. After a closer look it will
also become apparent that many activists are not as opposed to government spending
and interference as they, and we, think.
Now several actual policy issues will be discussed that do not directly appeal to the
Tea Party’s foundation, to see how Tea Partiers react when they are confronted by, for
instance, policies from which they benefit. One very hot topic within the Tea Party is
the fear of what they call ‘ObamaCare’. Hereby they refer to the Patient Protection
102
Goldstein, J. A. (2011) The Tea Party Movement and the Perils of Popular Originalism. Arizona
Law Review vol. 53 issue 3 p. 845
103
Declaration of Tea Party Independence.
62
and Affordable Care Act, which was signed into law by President Obama in 2010.
This act reforms the public and the private health insurance sector. People are now
obliged to have health insurance, unless their religious beliefs or financial situation
makes it impossible to comply with this legislation. The legislation also modernizes
Medicare, thereby reducing its costs. Tea Partiers are enraged by these reforms. They
have organized rallies and protests against these reforms, and try to get the legislation
repealed. Tea Partier John O’Hara summarizes the debate, and how the TPM defines
the liberal point of view. “The current debate is centered on two very distinct
questions: How do we cover America’s 45.7 million uninsured and how do we
contain skyrocketing healthcare costs? These two questions have ignited a debate
where Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives, and yuppies and
hippies are at each other’s throats. The problem is enhanced and exacerbated by the
fact that hard left liberals believe no market should exist in healthcare other that the
government. They are convinced that the only way to achieve true healthcare reform
is through a single-payer, government-run healthcare system where the federal
government is the one paying all the bills. This concept is the holy grail of liberal
healthcare policy.” 104 Supporters of the Tea Party tend to have a very one-sided view
of the reform legislation. The demographics of the Tea Party suggest that a large part
of the TPM’s constituency is profiting from Medicare, because such a big portion of
the constituency is older. It seems that they would benefit greatly from this new
legislation. Instead they are convinced that they are going to have to pay for poor
people, while they themselves have worked their entire live to take care of their
pension and healthcare. Skocpol and Williamson argue that there are many
misconceptions within the TPM about the new healthcare legislation, and that people
do no grasp how this legislation is benefiting them. They also state that the way Tea
Partiers defend their Medicare suggests that they aren’t as opposed to government
spending as you’d think. These misconceptions were probably spread by the
conservative media and ultra-right spokespersons. The GOP and rightwing elites are
not correcting these misconceptions; instead they try to disguise the negative
consequences that a rejection of this legislation might have for the grassroots
supporters who are using the Medicare program. They do not mention that the
Affordable Care Act will make healthcare insurance less expensive and more
104
O’Hara, J. M. (2010) A New American Tea Party: the Counterrevolution against Bailouts,
Handouts, reckless Spending, and more Taxes. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. p. 178
63
transparent. Instead they feed misconceptions to the Tea Party supporters, because
they need popular support if they want to get the legislation repealed. Most
Republicans and rightwing elites have opposed the legislation from the beginning, and
use the support of the grassroots faction for an air of popular support for this stance.
Therefore they feed falsities to a very responsive Tea Party audience that seemingly
has no concept of its own interest.
Many within the Tea Party incorrectly believe that the new legislation is going
to cut into their Medicare assistance, and will install institutions that could potentially
harm their health. They also believe that the politicians who voted for this legislation
were not very well informed when they voted for the passage of this legislation. “The
importance of first-hand reading dominates Tea Party discussions of healthcare
reform. In point of fact, Tea Party members we interviewed were deeply misinformed
about the Affordable Care Act of 2010. One Virginia Tea Partier regaled us at length
with (a completely factual untrue) account of the strong public option supposedly
contained in the law, a measure she said would kill the private insurance companies.
In a voice shaking with fear more than anger, another Virginia Tea Party member told
us that the Affordable Care law includes ‘death panels’ and would abolish Medicare –
prospects which, she said, terrify the 92-year-old woman in her nursing care. The
Affordable Care Act contains no such provisions, of course. But no matter if Tea
Partiers themselves are misinformed. They are certain that the politicians who voted
for what they derisively call ObamaCare were ignorant of its dangerous provisions.
The Senate health reform bill, several interviewees noted, had been passed late at
night on Christmas Eve 2009, when the politicians themselves could not possibly
have read the thousands of pages of the final legislation.” 105 If you believe in these
false allegations spread among local Tea Party chapters you would oppose these
reforms as well. But what is striking, and serves as proof that the Tea Party grassroots
supporters are being tricked by their own elites, is that a large number of supporters is
actually against cutbacks in the Medicare program. This is a federal program that can
be seen as a welfare program that is paid for by contributions of employers and
employees. But in reality the government also sponsors this program. One could
therefore define this program as a governmental interference in the private sphere, a
phenomenon that the Tea Party is supposedly dead set against. The rich sponsors and
105
Skocpol, T., Williamson, V. (2012) The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism.
New York: Oxford University Press p. 54
64
lobbyist organizations object to these programs, and make reforms in healthcare
policies seem conflicting with Tea Party stances.
This, however, is not the case for the grassroots faction in the Tea Party. On
this issue, the interests of the different factions in the movement vary significantly.
Tea Partiers now believe that the Democrats want to cut into their Medicare. So they
support assistence by the government and were made to believe that the Republicans
are defending this, and the Democrats want to take it away. Most grassroots activists
profit from this government-sponsored program, and would suffer financially if this
program would be cut back. Seventy percent of the Tea Party supporters oppose cuts
in the Medicare program. 106
So something else than opposition to government interference dictates their
stance on government spending. Their opposition stems more from a fear of changing
values in American society. Poor (black) people and illegal immigrants supposedly
profit from programs designed to assist hard-working Americans, for which Tea
Partiers paid taxes. They feel that these people do not deserve this assistance, but are
reaping the benefits of these programs without ever having contributed to them. It has
more to do with a feeling of entitlement. As Skocpol and Williamson indicate, the Tea
Partiers consider themselves as model Americans, who have worked themselves up to
middle class and took their responsibility as American citizens seriously. Now, at
their old age they have to watch how young, poor, and foreign people take advantage
of their benefits. These people are not entitled to use these programs according to the
Tea Partiers. That is why they oppose the new legislation also. Because they believe
that they will be forced to pay for the health benefits for irresponsible and
undeserving people. “Tea Party members establish themselves as worthy Americans
in terms of the contributions they have made – and contrast themselves to other
categories of people who have not worked to make their way in society and thus do
not deserve taxpayer funded support. This moral social geography, rather than any
abstract commitment to free-market principles, underlies Tea Party fervor to slash or
eliminate categories of public benefits going to unworthy people who are ‘freeloading’ on the public sector.” 107 So it is more a matter of who is entitled to profit
from government benefits that dictates the stance of the (grassroots) Tea Party on
106
Skocpol, T., Williamson, V. (2012) The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism.
New York: Oxford University Press p. 176
107
Skocpol, T., Williamson, V. (2012) The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism.
New York: Oxford University Press p. 66
65
government spending on healthcare and the reform of the legislation than an
opposition to all government spending.
This stance on healthcare also shapes the view that many Tea Partiers have on illegal
immigration. Although Tea Partiers claim they want a night-watchman form of
government, this government should spend a whole lot on the protection of the
borders and on disciplining people who come to America illegally. Large lobbyist
organizations, like FreedomWorks, and spokespersons try to avoid this subject
because the movement has no official or prominent stance on this and the subject can
splinter the Tea Party. But in the states located near America’ s borders Tea Parties
consider opposition to illegal immigration as a chief point for the movement.
Illegal immigration is opposed for several reasons by a lot of Tea Partiers. The
large influx of mainly South-American immigrants is threatening the distinct
American culture in the eyes of Tea Partiers. Illegal aliens don’t share the same
traditions and they often do not speak the language. They overtake neighborhoods and
want to learn about their own history in school. At a rally near the Mexican border in
Searchlight, Nevada, Tea Partiers were recorded saying that illegal immigration
threatened their livelihood and was changing their neighborhood. “Reflecting the
proximity to the Mexican border, just 250 miles to the south, many had come out to
express their anger about immigration. ‘It’s overwhelming our schools, our
neighborhoods,’ said John Roddy, who had driven with his wife, Shirley, from San
Diego. ‘Our neighborhoods are being overrun by multiple families in houses.’ The
Roddy’s said they have nothing against helping the needy. ‘But if we do, they don’t
put forth the effort,’ Shirley said. We’ve given them so much they don’t help
themselves.’” 108 This reflects the thinking about entitlement and the preservation of
American culture for the Tea Partiers. They do not want illegal immigrants to benefit
from government assistance, because they allegedly don’t contribute to these
programs.
The myth that illegal immigrants are stealing jobs from Americans is also
responsible for the stark opposition of the TPM. These illegal aliens, in fact, are
mostly doing unskilled low paying work that Americans are not willing to do, and
contribute significantly to the functioning of the American economy. Most illegal
108
Zernike, K. (2010) Boiling Mad: Behind the Lines in Tea Party America. New York: St. Martin’s
Griffin p. 149-150
66
immigrants do not have access to welfare programs because they do not have a green
card, while, in many cases, they do pay taxes. Illegal immigrants are seen as a threat
to America’s culture and considered undeserving of governmental benefits, just as
poor African-Americans.
The Tea Party has been accused of racism against African-Americans. Sometimes the
movement is even characterized as a revolt that has arisen out of fear of an AfricanAmerican President. In my opinion, these allegations are overstated. Although there
are some Tea Partiers who joined out of racist motivations, these Tea Partiers
represent by no means a majority of the Tea Party. Still, racist rhetoric is persistently
present at Tea Party rallies. These racist references to African-Americans are inspired
by stereotypes and prejudices. But in contrast to racist opinions expressed about the
Islam and Muslims, this racism is not fueled by a perceived threat to the American
values, cultural change, and terrorism. This distinction can be distilled from the way
the Tea Partiers talk about these minorities in the media and at rallies. Rally signs
about African-Americans usually mention references to poor (lazy) people who
parasitize on the benefits meant to benefit Tea Partiers. Muslims are often depicted as
dangerous radicals who want to change the American culture.
The racist comments about African-Americans are mostly inspired by the
arguments about ‘free-loading’ and public spending. “Tea Party supporters are even
more likely than other conservatives to believe that racial minorities are held back by
their own personal failings.” 109 So the feeling that the poor African-Americans are
using the government’s welfare programs without contributing to the American
society inspires the mainstream racial views within the Tea Party. The opposition of
some factions within the Tea Party are said not to stem from racism, but from
opposition to the government interfering in citizen’s private lives. “Appearing on The
Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC, Rand Paul said he disagreed with the provisions
of the 1964 Civil Rights Act that required businesses and restaurants to serve blacks.
He said that while he abhorred discrimination, he did not like the idea of telling
private business owners what to do.” 110 So while the Tea Party tries to keep openly
109
Skocpol, T., Williamson, V. (2012) The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism.
New York: Oxford University Press p. 69
110
Zernike, K. (2010) Boiling Mad: Behind the Lines in Tea Party America. New York: St. Martin’s
Griffin p. 178-179 Rand Paul is the son of Ron Paul, and one of the prominent politicians who identify
themselves strongly with the Tea Party.
67
racist signs and protestors away from rallies, and opposes allegations of racism, it still
boosts some racist opinions on the basis of who is entitled to what and the disapproval
of government interference. The policy stances proposed by the Tea Party
disproportionately hurt poor, African-American, people. Whether this is the result of
racism within the movement cannot be proved.
Religiously sensitive subjects like abortion and same-sex marriage are very difficult
for the Tea Party to deal with. Libertarians within the movement typically think the
state should not make regulations concerning these subjects because these are private
matters on which citizen should make their own decisions. The Tea Party, however,
harbors a lot of social conservatives too. These social conservatives violently oppose
matters like abortion and same-sex marriage on the basis of their religious beliefs.
These two groups cannot possibly come to an agreement about this issue, but
still the coexist in the same movement. “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 the
government in enforcing moral standards.” 111 But the social conservatives seem to
have a prominent majority when it comes to public profiling. Religiously inspired
signs are plentiful at typical Tea Party rallies. Skocpol and Williamson also found this
in their research. “In our fieldwork experience, the many rank-and-file members who
hold heartfelt Christian conservative views set the tone for the Tea Party as a whole.
Libertarian members tend to accommodate the social conservative view, at least to
some degree. The repeal of the ‘don’t ask don’t tell legislation’ by the Obama
administration aroused a lot of anger among many Tea Party supporters. The recent
endorsement of same-sex marriage by Obama received the same amount of scorn. The
change of mind of the Republican Presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, who now
opposes same-sex marriage, seems to be Tea Party inspired. He needs to keep the Tea
Party vote within the Republican Party.
It seems to be a bit hypocritical when you want less government interference into
people’s private lives, but do want to interfere in the most private matters of all,
namely love and reproduction. This somewhat underscores the allegation that the Tea
Party is against all governmental policies that interfere in the economy or the private
111
Skocpol, T., Williamson, V. (2012) The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism.
New York: Oxford University Press p. 35
68
lives of citizens they oppose, but not against interference that are enforcing their view
on the society. Most prominent Tea Partiers and large organizations try to stay away
from these subjects. They state that the economic policies are much more important
than a focus on social issues, and that a split in the movement should be prevented
because the economic matters are to pressing. “ ‘Every social issue you bring in,
you’re adding planks to your mission,’ said Frank Anderson, a founder of the
Independence Caucus, which worked with Tea Party groups to evaluate candidates’
positions on issues. ‘And planks become splinters.’” 112 Although al the social and
moral issues mentioned above are carefully avoided, they do tend to come up in
interviews and at rallies. When more attention will be paid to these subjects, they will,
in my view, split and destroy the movement. The probability that these subjects will
become more prominent in the movement is unavoidable because once the Tea
Party’s envoy’s in Congress have to vote on these subjects they are forced to take
sides within the Tea Party. I think that it is very likely for the TPM to be eliminated
on the basis of this problem. Especially when you see that the support for certain
social policies is very strong within the movement. “Tea Party supporters in 2010
were more likely than others polled to say that illegal immigration was a ‘very serious
threat,’ that global warming would have no serious impact, that gay marriage should
not be legally recognized, and that Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision
legalizing abortion, had been a bad thing.” 113
Tea Partiers argue that their preference for liberty, a small non-invasive government,
and economic freedom are inspired and dictated by the Constitution. “Just as Rick
Santelli invoked Founding Fathers to excoriate an Obama mortgage-assistance
measure, so do Tea Party groups across America link their present-day activities to a
constantly restated reference for the country’s founding documents: the Constitution,
the Bill of rights, and the Declaration of Independence.” 114 The ideology stems from a
very narrow reading of the Constitution, and a desire to interpret the meaning of the
text the way the Founding Fathers have intended. Tea Partiers believe that they can
112
Zernike, K. (2010) Boiling Mad: Behind the Lines in Tea Party America. New York: St. Martin’s
Griffin p. 143
113
Zernike, K. (2010) Boiling Mad: Behind the Lines in Tea Party America. New York: St. Martin’s
Griffin p. 58 The poll referred to here is the 2010 New York Times / CBS poll.
114
Skocpol, T., Williamson, V. (2012) The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism.
New York: Oxford University Press p. 48
69
extract the true meaning of the Constitution by close reading, and that every American
is able to understand the true meaning of the document.
With this stance Tea Partiers denounce elitism. A law professor is, according
to them, not per se better equipped to interpret the Constitution than a carpenter.
They also refer to the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights as sources
that inspired their policy stances. These documents are used as a way to prove that
they have the right vision on America, and that everyone who disagrees, disagrees
with the country’s founding documents and can be considered unpatriotic.
“References to the Constitution are often used to justify stands on particular issues;
indeed, the invocation of Constitutional authority seems intended to render particular
views incontestable.” 115 Even the name of the movement is a very explicit reference
to a revolutionary event in American history, the Boston Tea Party. This famous
historical event is where some American citizens decided to stand up to their
oppressors, and where the American Revolution began. Skocpol and Williamson
underline the existence of this conviction in the Tea Party. “For regular Tea Party
participants, the Constitution is a clear-cut document readily applicable to modern
political issues. They evince the democratic conviction that they themselves, as
average Americans, can read and interpret the Constitution.” 116 They might need to
study the document very closely but they can grasp the meaning just as good as any
expert can. The glorification of the original meaning of a historic document is often
called originalism. This is a form of constitutional interpretation in the U.S, and it
dictates what value should be given to the exact text of the Constitution. Many
scholars define originalism as following: “Originalists are committed to the view that
original intent is not only relevant but authoritative, that we are in some sense
obligated to follow the intent of the framers.” 117 So the original text, and with that the
original intent of the Founding Fathers is decisive in how we should interpret the
Constitution. In her book about the Tea Party, journalist Kate Zernike defines the way
the Tea Partiers use and interpret the Constitution as follows “The Tea Partiers’ view
of the Constitution was commonly described as “originalism,” a fidelity to the exact
words of the document as they were written in 1787 that has adherents at major
115
Skocpol, T., Williamson, V. (2012) The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism.
New York: Oxford University Press p. 49
116
Skocpol, T., Williamson, V. (2012) The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism.
New York: Oxford University Press p. 51
117
Farber, D. A. (1988) The Originalism Debate: a Guide for the Perplexed. Ohio State Law Journal,
vol. 49: 1085
70
universities and, in Anonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, on the U.S. Supreme Court.
And some Tea Partiers’ version of the Constitution sounded like just that. But many
others were learning subjective interpretations of the Constitution that went beyond
the primary source, and beyond what legal scholars or Americans would recognize –
even using a dictionary – in reading the original document.” 118 Interpretation of
historic legal documents is by definition liable to subjective interpretation. But the
explanation of the Constitution that many of the Tea Partiers see as authoritative is, in
fact, entirely subjective and a wrong interpretation of the Founding Fathers wishes.
Jill Lepore, a Professor in History at Harvard University, goes further than labelling
the Tea Partiers as originalists, she calls them historical fundamentalists. She explains
the term in her book The Whites of their Eyes: The Tea Party’s Revolution and the
Battle over American History. “Historical fundamentalism is marked by the belief that
a particular and quite narrowly defined past – “the founding” – is ageless and sacred
and to be worshipped; that certain historical texts – “the founding documents” – are to
be read in the same spirit with which religious fundamentalists read, for instance, the
Ten Commandments; that the Founding Fathers were divinely inspired; that the
academic study of history (whose standards of evidence and methods of analysis are
based on scepticism) is a conspiracy and, furthermore, blasphemy; and that political
arguments grounded in appeals to the founding documents, as sacred texts, and to the
Founding Fathers, as prophets, are therefore incontrovertible.” 119 This way of worship
is certainly practiced by a large part of the Tea Party constituency. But I think it
would be an overstatement to ‘accuse’ the whole TPM of historical fundamentalism.
There are certainly fractions that have a far more moderate view of the
Constitution. But, in my view, you can see the effects of historical fundamentalism in
the way Tea Partiers behave in office or at rallies. Signs that refer to the Founding
Fathers rolling over in their graves because of various policy issues are common at
rallies. The encouragement of partisanship in Congress, and the refusal to support
anything that reeks of government expansion or interference because it supposedly
goes against the Founding Fathers wishes, is partly the effect if these originalist
views. “A tour of Tea Party websites around the country quickly reveals widespread
determination to restore twenty-first century U.S. government to the Constitutional
118
Zernike, K. (2010) Boiling Mad: Behind the Lines in Tea Party America. New York: St. Martin’s
Griffin p. 68
119
Lepore, J. (2010) The Whites of their Eyes: The Tea Party Revolution and the Battle over American
History. Princeton: Princeton University Press p. 16
71
principles articulated by the eighteenth-century Founding Fathers.”
120
The constant
reference to historic figures and events and the citation of sentences of the
Constitution to justify their policies do hint at historical fundamentalism.
In his book a New American Tea Party: the Counterrevolution against
bailouts, handouts, reckless spending, and more taxes, Tea Party activist John M.
O’Hara discusses the connection between the revolutionaries during the American
Revolution and the Tea Party activists now. “Many have posed the question: Does the
Boston Tea Party parallel work? Yes it does. While the historical comparison is not
perfect to the ‘t’, the general principles are identical. In the Boston Tea Party,
American revolutionaries fought the idea that tyrants in a far-off land (Britain) should
dictate public policy affecting them, their children, their livelihood, and their general
wellbeing. Today, American counterrevolutionaries fight to preserve the land these
men gave their lives to create, combating the idea that tyrants in a far away land
(Washington, D.C.) should dictate public policy affecting them, their children, their
livelihood, and their general well-being. The issue is no longer tea tariffs and imperial
rule, but bailouts and handouts, stimulus in the face of deficits, cap and trade,
universal healthcare, and the like dictated against the will and the interest of the
people, and at the peril of future generations and the nations as a whole.” 121
The Tea Party explanation of historic events and documents is not always
balanced and unbiased. They frame these events so that they underline the meaning of
the TPM’s agenda. This technique is very common in politics, but misuse of this
technique can lead to very dangerous political developments. Historical falsities were
used by the Nazi’s to justify their discriminatory policy towards Jews and other
minorities. Just to be clear, the Tea Party is not compared to the Nazi regime here. I
just want to make clear what a dangerous weapon historical interpretation can be
when it comes to the justification of policy.
Speeches and signs at rallies often also allude to the right of citizens to
overthrow or change a government when unalienable rights are infringed upon. This
right is also declared in the Declaration of Independence. “Whenever any Form of
Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or
120
Skocpol, T., Williamson, V. (2012) The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism.
New York: Oxford University Press p. 48
121
O’Hara, J. M. (2010) A New American Tea Party: the Counterrevolution against Bailouts,
Handouts, reckless Spending, and more Taxes. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Preface p. XXVXXVI
72
to abolish it, and to institute new Government.” 122 Only now the Tea Party protestors
mean that the government in Washington is compromising their rights and not the
government of the United Kingdom. This is also the reason why John O’Hara calls
the insurgency of the Tea Party a counterrevolution. The Tea Party rallies to keep
certain values alive and to reinstate them in the U.S. governmental policy. They are
not trying to create a new form of government, they are trying to reinstate the policy
initiated by the Founding Fathers, or the TPM version of the Founding Fathers
wishes. O’Hara states that “The movement is not and never was a revolution but a
counterrevolution. This is a crucial distinction. To revolt is an attempt to break free or
overthrow a long-standing political structure. The Tea Parties do the opposite by
opposing the radical policies of bailouts, handouts, wealth redistribution, and
intrusion into our lives that can be described as radically revolutionary. He agrees
with Saul Alinsky, a famous leftist community organizer and writer, on the definition
of a counterrevolution. Alinsky states the following; “I will argue that the failure to
use power for a more equitable distribution of the means of life for all people signals
the end of the revolution and the start of the counterrevolution.” 123 O’Hara calls an
overbearing state that gives out money to irresponsible entities radical, the way the
TPM tries to stop the government is a ‘backlash’ and thus counterrevolutionary. 124
It is interesting that a Tea Partier like O’Hara agrees with a leftist organizer like Saul
Alinsky and praises his techniques to motivate and organize a movement. The way the
Tea Party grassroots movement is organized and came into being resembles the way
historic leftist movements were founded. The grassroots technique used to be reserved
to leftist opposition movements, like the Civil Rights movement and the Populist
Movement. The Tea Party is open about their borrowing of these techniques and their
admiration for the way these movements were organized. You can recognize
Alinsky’s theories in the way the TPM organizes itself. O’Hara discusses Alinsky’s
theories extensively. He does his best to reject Alinsky’s political views, but pays a lot
of attention to how Alinsky organized and influenced different social movements.
Skocpol and Williamson also discuss the Alinsky influence on the TPM. “Indeed,
122
The Declaration of Independence (1776) as retrieved from
http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.html on May 23, 2012
123
Alinsky, S. (1971) Rules for Radicals: a Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals. New York:
Random House p. 10
124
O’Hara, J. M. (2010) A New American Tea Party: the Counterrevolution against Bailouts,
Handouts, reckless Spending, and more Taxes. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. p. 204
73
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.” 125 In her book Zernike also quotes a Tea Partier
promoting Alinsky. “Use the Alinsky playbook of which the left is so fond: freeze it,
attack it, personalize it, and polarize it.” 126 So the Tea Party is not afraid to
acknowledge that they owe a lot to the leftist grassroots movements that have
preceded them. But I will argue here that the Tea Party shares more with previous
leftist movements that just community organizing. They also share beliefs that bring
to mind the term populism.
The term populism is always quickly brought up when grassroots movements
are concerned. In this case, however, the Tea Party has more traits that make the term
applicable. This is very controversial because the Tea Party violently opposes the left
in its rhetoric, but still shares some believes that were originally harbored by leftist
movements, and has some resemblances the leftist Occupy movement that is the
leftist grassroots movement that is currently active. Just like the Tea Party, this
movement was founded because of anger over how the financial crisis is handled by
the government.
The Tea Party is often described as a populist movement, and according to the
definition of populism that the historian Michael Kazin uses, this description is
justified. Kazin, a professor in history at Georgetown University, is the author of the
seminal work about populism in the current academic debate about the phenomenon.
He wrote his book, The Populist Persuasion, in 1995 and is considered the current
expert on the history of populism in America. In his book he defines populism as a
form of political rhetoric that did not end with the Populist Movement, as many of his
predecessors claimed, but has persisted until the current day. Populism is “ a language
whose speakers conceive of ordinary people as a noble assemblage not bounded
narrowly by class, view their elite opponents as self-serving and undemocratic, and
seek to mobilize the former against the latter.” 127 Often this also means that these
‘noble Americans’ are entitled to certain benefits, which others are not. The Tea Party
fits this description because they see themselves as model Americans who are entitled
125
Skocpol, T., Williamson, V. (2012) The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism.
New York: Oxford University Press p. 42
126
Zernike, K. (2010) Boiling Mad: Behind the Lines in Tea Party America. New York: St. Martin’s
Griffin p. 83
127
Kazin, M. (1995) The Populist Persuasion: an American History. New York: Basic Books p. 1
74
to certain benefits that they have earned through hard work. They revolt against the
government who is supposedly infringing on their Constitutional rights.
The Populist Movement is usually referred to as the first populist uprising in
American history, and the godmother of modern outbursts of populism. This
movement can also be called the Agrarian Revolt, because the movement started
among dissatisfied farmers at the end of the 19th century. During this revolt farmers
from different regions found that they shared a lot of similar interests, and united
within the Populist Movement. This movement founded a political party named the
People’s Party and was active approximately from 1892 to 1908. This era is seen as
the period in which the force of populism is most visible in the history of the United
States. It was also the largest civil effort to democratize American politics. The Party
and the farmers were supposedly inspired by very simple romantic ideas about
farming, which can be considered myths. The historian Richard Hofstadter calls these
beliefs the Agrarian myth. 128 The Populists were anti-elitists who believed that the
government and large corporations were harming their livelihoods.
Certain elements of the rhetoric of these movement can also be recognized in
the way the TPM arguments to defend their ideological stances. The Tea Partiers have
an Agrarian myth of their own. They glorify the way they have worked and behaved
throughout their lives. They have contributed to the American society, and have
earned their own money and are now entitled to reap the fruits of their labor. This is
the Tea Party myth. As you can read above, in the paragraph about the Tea Party
reaction to healthcare reform, Tea Party supporters see themselves as the deserving in
the American society. That idea automatically makes other factions in the American
society undeserving. The subjective and narrow definition of the Constitution and the
way they glorify the Founding Fathers also give the movement a populist complexion.
Their stance that ordinary citizens can, and are possibly better equipped, to read and
explain the meaning of the Constitution resembles the anti-elitism of the Populist
Movement. The TPM distrusts scientific experts and professional politicians. They
characterize Obama as a disconnected Harvard law professor who has no concept of
the problems of the average American. “With his Ivy League degrees, President
Obama is also perceived as a member of a haughty, overbearing, and dubiously
patriotic higher-educated elite. While the business community gets a free pass, Tea
128
Hofstadter, R. (1955) The Age of Reform: From Bryan to FDR. Alfred A. Knopf inc. p. 24
75
Party activists are very concerned about liberal cultural elites, who they believe scorn
most Americans.” 129 They define the Democratic Party as a leftwing elite that wants
to make the U.S. a socialist paradise. The use of myths and the anti-elitism are traits
that the leftwing Populist Movement and the rightwing Tea Party Movement share.
Another similarity between the two movements is the appellation to a ‘silent
majority’.
The Tea Party calls itself the spokesman for the silent majority.
“Conservatives in the Tea Party attack big government and rally behind the slogan
“Silent Majority No More!” 130 President Richard Nixon first introduced the term in
its present meaning. The silent majority is the number of hard working majority of
Americans who do not have time to protest or to become politically active. A Tea
Party website describes what they mean with the term; “Today, we’re seeing a New
Silent Majority. Some of them are members of the Tea Party Movement, many are
not. Quite simply they are the vast numbers of people whose lives have been torn
apart by the economic turmoil that besets America in 2012.” 131 Kazin states that this
is a trademark of populism. “In every campaign season, scores of politicians – both
liberal and conservative – vow to fight for ‘middle-class taxpayers’ and against a
variety of ‘bureaucrats’, ‘fat cats’ and ‘Big Men’. Such images and countless others
like them make up the language of populism. Whether orated, written, drawn,
broadcast, or televised, this language is used by those who claim to speak for the vast
majority of Americans who work hard for their country and love their country. The
Tea Party seamlessly fits this description. The fact that the grassroots activists are
mislead by rightwing elites and powerful lobbyist organization, and are not aware that
they are hurting their own financial position with their support by supporting these
organizations, underscores the populist character of the Tea Party.
In both the Tea Party and the Populist Movement, the phenomenon of
American distinctiveness has a main role. Both factions claim, or claimed, to be
operating out of a desire to safeguard the traits that define America, and make it
distinct from, and superior to, other nations. Tea Party activists often call themselves
patriots, and characterize their opponents as unpatriotic or un-American. They fear
that the government and other factions like illegal immigrants are permanently
changing the American culture and its values. The Populists, who believed that the
129
Skocpol, T., Williamson, V. (2012) The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism.
New York: Oxford University Press p. 79-80
130
Lassiter, M. D. (November 3, 2011) Who Speaks for the Silent Majority? The New York Times
131
As retrieved from http://americanteapartypolitics.com/the-new-silent-majority/ on May 30, 2012
76
government and the large corporations were threatening the American ideals, also
held this belief. Tea Partiers find Obama and the Democrats foreign and un-American.
The belief that Obama was not born in America, and that his birth certificate is false,
is also persistent in the Tea Party. The similarities between the 19th century Populist
Movement and the Tea Party and the way the TPM fits Kazin’s description of
populism underscore my assumption that the Tea Party is a populist movement. What
also motivates my belief in the populist nature of the Tea Party is Kazin’s thesis that
populism has been ‘hijacked’ by the right since the 1960s.
With the youth movement of the Goldwater’s Presidential campaign, the right
adopted the rhetoric formally reserved for the leftist movements. “Beginning in the
late 1960s, conservative activists and politicians – most of whom were Republicans –
re-created
themselves
as
the
authentic
representatives
of
average
white
Americans.” 132 They adopted the populist rhetoric abandoned by the Democrats and
the left. “For two decades, from the end of the 1960s to the end of the 1980s,
conservative Republicans had posed authentically in populist dress by keeping
cultural resentments uppermost in the public mind. Adhering to a disciplined script,
GOP politicians ran against a ‘liberal establishment’ composed of federal bureaucrats,
the mass media, arrogant academics, and other amoral ‘special interests’.” 133 He also
refers to the Christian right as a conservative faction that profited from populist
tactics, and was also used by the GOP as a way to engage voters. In an interview with
CNN Kazin also places the Tea Party in the tradition of rightwing factions that have
come up since the GOP turned more conservative. “The Tea Partiers are ideologically
similar to every mass conservative upsurge from the early 1950s to the present: They
favor an essentially unregulated economy, no large government presence with the
exception of the military and the national security apparatus, and the moral values
taught in evangelical Protestant and traditional Catholic churches.” 134
After an in-depth exploration of the Tea Party ideology, and the concepts and
phenomena that accompany the Tea Party ideology, it is important to see what effects
this ideology and the Tea Party’s populism have on the Republican Party’s ideology.
An important document that can be used to find and answer to this question is a
132
Kazin, M. (1995) The Populist Persuasion: an American History. New York: Basic Books p. 246
Kazin, M. (1995) The Populist Persuasion: an American History. New York: Basic Books p. 266
134
CNN (November 9, 2010) Can the Tea Party endure? As retrieved from
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/11/07/kazin.tea.party/index.html on May 30 2012
133
77
Pledge to America. 135 The GOP released this document on September 23, 2010, to
outline which legislative issues the Republicans would prioritize in the new
Congressional term. This is a primary source that can be considered as a registration
of the GOP reaction to the Tea Party ideology. They released it before the 2010
Congressional elections, so the document should probably be seen as a campaign
move. The document was intended to attract the Tea Party vote, and to show that they
take the Tea Party ideology seriously. The pledge can basically be seen as an answer
to the earlier mentioned Contract from America issued by the Tea Party. The
document is a forty-five-page repetition of the Tea Party’s stances and it
accommodates for most of the TPM requests. It also agrees with the points mentions
in the Declaration of Tea Party Independence.
The difficulty is, that to a certain extent, the ideologies of the Tea Party and
the Republican Party are similar. It is, however, striking that the Republican Party
feels the need to confirm policy stances that they have been known for, for over more
than half a century. The Tea Party just thinks the GOP has strayed away from their
principles, and the GOP tries to prove that they care about these things.
The way the pledge articulates the GOP economic policy is very remarkable.
The party wants to cut government spending to a pre-bailout level. 136 Interesting is
that the GOP initiated the Wall Street bailout and has caused the very large budget
deficit during the Bush administration. They want to end TARP, the legislation that
was the immediate causes of the foundation of the TPM. They want to reduce
government spending, and the Congress’s budget and to put a “hard cap on new
discretionary spending.” 137 They want to accommodate small business owners; a
majority of the TPM holds a small business. They want to cut these owners taxes, and
stop limiting legislation. “The best way to get people working again is to rein in the
growth of government and end the uncertainty facing small businesses. By addressing
both issues, our plan revives free enterprise and moves America away from a debtdriven economy.” 138 The Pledge wants to reduce the size of the government, the
second spear point of the Tea Party. “We must put common-sense limits on the
135
A Pledge to America: a New Governing Agenda built on the Priorities of our Nation, the Principles
we stand for & America’s Founding Values (September 23, 2010) A PDF of this document can be
found on http://www.gop.gov/indepth/pledge
136
A Pledge to America
137
A Pledge to America
138
A Pledge to America
78
growth of government and stop the endless increases.” 139 They want to instate
legislation that enhances the politicians' opportunity to fully inform themselves about
the details of proposed legislation before it’s put to a vote. The Tea Party is convinced
that politicians are voting for legislation that they have not read. This is supposedly
how the Affordable Care Act was passed. The Pledge states that: “We will ensure that
bills are debated and discussed in the public square by publishing the text online for at
least three days before coming up for a vote in the House of Representatives. No more
hiding legislative language from the minority party, opponents, and the public.
Legislation should be understood by all interested parties before it is voted on.”140
The Pledge also professes ‘Constitutional adherence,’ to incorporate the Tea Party’s
originalist vision on this document. For too long, Congress has ignored the proper
limits imposed by the Constitution on the federal government. Further, it has too often
drafted unclear and muddled laws, leaving to an unelected judiciary the power to
interpret what the law means and by what authority the law stands. This lack of
respect for the clear Constitutional limits and authorities has allowed Congress to
create ineffective and costly programs that add to the massive deficit year after year.
We will require each bill moving through Congress to include a clause citing the
specific constitutional authority upon which the bill is justified.” 141 This is an
important concession to the TPM. The GOP even speaks out on the moral issue of
abortion. They want to abolish government funding for abortion. This is gesture to
please the social conservatives within the Tea Party. The document also outlines their
ideological stance on moral values. “We pledge to honor families, traditional
marriage, life, and the private and faith-based organizations that form the core of our
American values.” 142 This suggests that they oppose abortion, same-sex marriage, and
religious restrictions in society. The GOP also wants to repeal the healthcare
legislation, and replace it by a privatized insurance scheme. Other proposals that echo
the Tea Party agenda are putting more restrictive legislation in place to limit illegal
immigration and its effects on the American society. They want to instate security
measures to prevent terrorism and give the troops more moving space. Measures to
tighten the border security are also discussed. The following quote seems to mirror
both the Declaration of Tea Party Independence and the Contract from America. “Our
139
A Pledge to America
A Pledge to America
141
A Pledge to America
142
A Pledge to America
140
79
founders built a system of checks and balances to slow the growth of government and
prevent the tyranny of the majority. The ultimate power in this system of government
is held by the people, who were given the tools by our Founders to hold those they
elect as their representatives accountable for their actions. Government exists to be
the servant of the people, not their master.” 143
In short the document tries to incorporate the Tea Party ideology into its own
framework. So the effect of the Tea Party ideology is that it pushes the GOP’s
ideology rightward. Where the Republican Party used to be somewhat open to
bipartisan cooperation, they are not compromising on their ideological stances
anymore. All the elements of the Tea Party mantra are now part of the GOP’s core
values; at least this is what they project to the public. This may eventually estrange
independents and disaffected Democrats, and thus harm their electoral chances. It is
possible that now the primaries are over that they try to appease moderates as well,
but this remains to be seen. For now the populist Tea Party Movement is dictating the
GOP’s ideological stances, and they are making sure that the Republicans are
reminded about their conservative stances. The GOP is still the party of large
corporations. These corporations were not against these bailouts, and even benefited
from them. With the bailouts, the Bush administration was actively helping these
large corporations, whose wishes dictated a lot of Bush’s economic policies. These
corporations have not withdrawn from the GOP, they are simply less vocal at the
moment. The Tea Party’s grassroots are unknowingly supporting large corporations,
and the GOP stances in Congress that assist these businesses, while these policy
stances actually hurt their own interests. Blocking Obama’s healthcare legislation will
benefit insurance and medical companies greatly. The grassroots faction of the Tea
Party is not only used by the large lobbyist organizations as astroturf, but the
Republican Party and its interests also benefit from the suggestion of a wide popular
support base on some policy subjects. The Party’s ideology is turning more
conservative under the influence of the Tea Party, but on occasion the Republicans
make good use of the Tea Party’s popular support. They now constantly highlight and
reaffirm their conservative ideology to keep the Tea Party satisfied. The ideology of
the Republican Party, however, has been moving to the right for a long time. The Tea
143
A Pledge to America.
80
Party simply keeps the Republican Party’s ideology on its conservative track.
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The Influence of the Tea Party Movement on the Republican Party
The different ideological factions that have risen inside the organization’s ranks since
the party’s foundation have formed the Grand Old Party’s ideology. Some factions
were co-opted and absorbed into the party’s framework, like the religious right and
the conservatives. Due to evolution in the Republican Ideology, other factions were
forced to leave the party. The Progressive wing was essentially pushed out of the
party. During the existence of this movement, which was championed by Theodore
Roosevelt, an irreparable split within the party became visible between the
Progressive and the more conservative members. The party chose the side of the
conservative members and the Progressives left the party. This split in the party
steered the party’s ideology towards the stances that the Republicans are known for
today. The Goldwater campaign enabled the possibility for Reagan’s economic
conservatism to become mainstream. With the emergence of the religious right, a
moral conservatism was added to the GOP’s ideology.
Factions that gain support among different Republicans are inspired by
sentiments, developments and anxieties that come up in the American society.
Developments threatening, what certain people see as, distinctive American qualities
are especially inspiring for the start of a conservative movement. These anxieties also
inspired the foundation of the Tea Party. This movement was able to come up because
the previous right-wing factions had made the mainstream Republican Party
conservative. The bailouts issued, to save the economy from collapsing under the
Bush administration and continued by Obama, threatened the economic freedom of
‘normal Americans’. The growth of the government in size and influence scared
people who see the ideal American society as a place where individual liberty is the
most important asset. This individual liberty is reinforced by economic freedom and
by keeping the government small in size and influence. This is the ideal image of
America for supporters of the Tea Party Movement. These, usually older white, and
male activists feel that their country is being changed by modern developments that
are eating at the foundations of their society. Illegal immigration, economic
interference, and for some, gay rights, are threatening the American culture and are
changing it into a socialist or dictatorial society without respect for civil liberty or
room for individual responsibility. Gun control and new government agencies were
82
violating the Second and Tenth Amendments of the Bill of Rights. In fact, the
Constitutional base that granted the government its powers was deteriorating. When
Santelli held the rant on television, the anger about these issues already simmered
among conservatives. The rant simply inspired people to take action.
The Tea Party was founded in 2009, without an organizational leadership or a unified
body of thought. The supporters simply agreed on the economic policy that should
guide the American market and protected their freedoms.
Individual liberty,
economic freedom and a small non-invasive should safeguard this ideal American
society. The Tea Party calls itself a grassroots movement, which is true to a certain
extent. The movement was founded by grassroots activists who still make up the
general fabric of the movement with their local chapters. These chapters, however, do
not agree on issues outside of the economic mantra. Actual economic policies and
social issues are a hard to agree on for the Tea Party Movement. Sometimes the policy
stances of the Tea Party’s grassroots faction are inspired by misleading falsities
spread by the GOP and rightwing elites. The policies promoted by these elites can
actually be harmful for the interests of this grassroots faction of the Tea Party. They
are lured into supporting policies that will cut back the benefits that they are, in fact,
depending upon. A lot of Tea Partiers are not aware of how these elites are harming
their economic interests. This also means that they have no concept of their own
economic interests, and are very vulnerable for deception by populist arguments and
lies. Because both libertarians and moral conservatives are active in the movement,
social issues can potentially split the movement and are therefore avoided.
The Republican Party is the vehicle of this movement. They are a faction within this
party and try to steer the party their way. The criticism of the movement, that shares
the values for which the GOP stands, is that the Republican establishment has lost
touch with the party’s core values and is only interested in electoral victories. The
movement is not trying to start a third party, but wants to mould the Republican Party
into a consistent conservative party that does not compromise with Democrats. They
see themselves as conservative ‘watch dogs’ who safeguard the pure Republican
conservatism.
Different means to influence the Republican governing style are at their
disposal. The most visible way is to challenge incumbent Republicans with more
83
conservative Tea Party candidates during Republican primary elections. These Tea
Party candidates have often, except from a few success story, been too conservative to
prevail in general elections. But these candidates have managed to win primaries from
popular incumbent Republicans. This technique sends a warning message to other
incumbent Republicans. Tea Party candidates kicked out popular moderates, who
were respected by the Republican establishment and had a good chance of victory in
the general elections. This effect scared campaigning Republicans and made them use
Tea Party rhetoric to win over Tea Partiers during their primaries. The elected
Republicans also got the message. Either align your voting to the Tea Party’s
preference, or be challenged by destructive ad’s or Tea Party candidates in your next
election. Bipartisanship disappeared out of Congress, and Republicans who used to be
willing to compromise took a hard stand against the Democrats. This effectively
paralyzed the Democratic government and in 2011 almost caused a government
shutdown, because the Republican refused to raise the debt ceiling, which used to be
common practice both Democrats, and Republicans. The Tea Party is largely
responsible for the unprecedented lack of bipartisanship in the 112th Congress.
Republicans fear the thorn of the Tea Party and try to appear as conservative as
possible. The success of this technique also has effect on the 2012 Presidential
election. That is to say, on the GOP primaries for this election.
My newspaper analysis, done in the second chapter, supports the existence of
these developments. It also records the Republican establishment’s reaction to the Tea
Party’s attack. They immediately tried to shun respected Republican figures that
openly criticised the movement. They actively tried to co-opt them into the Party, and
make the Tea Party success seem like Republican success. Even though the
movement was very critical of the Republican Party. The Republican establishment
has also done this with previous factions within their ranks. This puts the Tea Party in
a long tradition of factionalism within the Republican Party and also is telling when it
comes to the movement’s future. The study by Skocpol and Williamson, the most
important study about the Tea Party yet, also suggests that the Tea Party is actively
pushing the GOP’s officials rightwards, a process that has been going on since before
the Tea Party’s existence, but they do not mention the factional tradition in the GOP
as a cause of this move to the right. On the basis of my analysis of the party’s
factional history I can conclude that the Tea Party is the newest chapter in the party’s
factional tradition. The Republicans are treating the factions the same as they have
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done with previous factions. They co-opt the movement by accommodating its
demands, and where they can they use the suggestion of popular support to their own
advantage. To make this description of the influence of the Tea Party on the GOP
more accurate, an evaluation of the movement’s influence on the Republican ideology
is also helpful.
The two Tea Party documents analysed in this thesis, The Declaration of Tea Party
Independence and the Contract from America, are primary sources that express the
joint Tea Party ideology. That is to say, an ideology that is shared among a majority
of the Tea Party chapters. These documents, however, ignore the ideological
discrepancies within the movement. While claiming to support a small non-invasive
government, many of the Tea Party grassroots activists actually benefit and depend on
this government assistance. They do not want to cut off these programs. This wish is
mainly issued by the large organizations that use the grassroots as astroturf. Tea
Partiers want that these programs support the ones who have earned the right to
assistance, namely themselves. With the deserving they mean hard-working
Americans who paid their taxes and have taken their individual responsibility. The
arguments to keep their benefits resembles arguments that are usually uttered by the
left, and even the Occupy movement, which is usually seen as the ideological
counterpart of the Tea Party on the side of the left. Both movements argue that
responsible hard-working Americans are hit by the crisis, and that the government is
wrong in assisting large corporations and irresponsible people that have caused the
crisis. Constituents of both movements see themselves as the normal Americans who
supposedly lose their benefits to undeserving people and corporations that need
government assistance. The movements only differ in whom they characterize as the
undeserving. Tea Partiers see poor people who have not contributed to the American
society as the undeserving. They do not want illegal immigrants and poor AfricanAmericans to benefit from programs to which they have not contributed. The leftwing
point out the large corporations that made irresponsible decisions and now need
government assistance as the undeserving. This resemblance reinforces the populist
character of the Tea Party.
Because of ideological discrepancies between different factions within the
movement, there are also disagreements about the movement’s stance on moral
issues, the Tea Party puts an emphasis on what unites the movement, the economic
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stances of the supporters. The mantra of the movement can be summarized as
individual liberty, economic freedom and a small non-invasive government. Also the
movement agrees on the importance of America’s founding documents and historical
figures. They share a radical (subjective) orginalist approach to the meaning of these
documents for modern day politics. The TPM also harbours the populist believe that
every American can explain the just meaning of the country’s founding documents,
and that expert views on these documents are not necessarily better that the views of
normal Americans. The Tea Party holds a firm suspicion against academic and
political (leftist) elites.
The Pledge to America, released by the Republican Party, can be seen as an
answer to these ideological stances. This document has not yet been compared to the
two joint policy statements released by the Tea Party in a scientific way. Although the
three documents are excellent primary sources for information about the Tea Party’s
ideology and the Republican reaction to this ideology. In this thesis a comparison has
been made between the two joint policy documents and the document that was
released by the Republicans. The comparison brought forth some interesting
information.
Republicans try to emphasize the ideological similarities between the faction
and the party, and pledge to uphold these ideological stances. The originalist approach
to the Constitution, and the meaning of the document to modern day politics are fully
acknowledged by the Republicans. The wish to co-opt the movement becomes very
clear when you compare this document to the two documents issued by the Tea Party.
Although the Pledge is a campaign document, it outlines the Republican promises to
the Tea Party if the movement is willing to support the party. The acceptance and
glorification in the document of the Tea Party ideology signifies that the Republican
Party is turning further to the right. The whole Republican ideology is now adapted to
the rightwing believes of the Tea Party and also carried out in Congress. When it
suites them, Republicans also use the Tea Party as justification for their policies. They
are not afraid to mislead the Tea Partiers to gain their support for their policies, even
if these policies can harm the economic position of these activists. They use the Tea
Partiers’ lack of knowledge to indoctrinate them via, for instance, conservative news
outlets like Fox news. The Tea Party seems to be a responsive audience for biased
information and falsities about Democratic policies and intents. It is in the GOP’s
interest to keep the TPM’s activists misinformed, because when they find out that
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they might have more in common with leftwing organizations than the corporate
oriented GOP they could leave the GOP and could form a powerfully alliance with
these organizations on the basis of their similar policy stances.
This thesis agrees with the seminal study of Skocpol and Williamson on most points
and adds valuable information. Where Skocpol and Williamson use individual
interviews of grassroots activists to point out the diversity in the movement. Here, the
analysis of the Contract from America, the Declaration of Tea Party Independence
and the Pledge to America adds a distillation of the shared ideological stances behind
the superficial surface of the economic mantra. This thesis also adds a new chapter in
the history of the GOP to the book of Lewis L. Gould. The Tea Party is the newest
chapter in the GOP’s history. The Tea Party is a symptom of the party’s shift to the
right and not, as Skocpol and Williamson try to convey, a cause of further rightward
expansion. They also state that ultra-conservative wave was already visible during the
emergence of the Christian wing, but do not place the Tea Party in the factional
tradition of the Republican Party. The move to the right started with the Goldwater
campaign, and the Tea Party is a chapter in this shift of the GOP and not the cause of
an ideological shift.
The Republican Party has been making a continuous move to the right over the last
two decades, so the role of the Tea Party in this should not be overstated. Since the
Reagan administration, moderation has flowed out of the party and conservatism has
found a steady base within the party. The Tea Party is just a chapter in this evolution
that prods the party further rightwards, just as the previous factions have done. The
accommodation of the Tea Party values in the Republican framework take away the
movement’s prime reasons of existence. My prediction is that the Tea Party’s fire will
slowly die out because when their wishes are accommodated, the movement will no
longer have a purpose. The Republicans will move ever rightwards, and settle in to
their role as archconservatives. It is highly likely that the future of American politics
spells a lot more partisanship, as both parties are becoming more focussed on
ideological purity. It will be harder to pass legislation through Congress, because the
will to compromise is disappearing. The process of polarization of American politics
paints a grim picture for the future when it comes to effective governing. Ideological
factions only signify turns in the two main parties’ ideology, and are not overturning
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the current political domination of the Republicans or the Democrats. So it is probable
that the Tea Party is not changing the Grand Old Party, the Party is changing itself.
88
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