Change They Can't Believe In: The Tea Party and Reactionary Politics in America
Christopher S. Parker
Language: English
Pages: 384
ISBN: 0691151830
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Are Tea Party supporters merely a group of conservative citizens concerned about government spending? Or are they racists who refuse to accept Barack Obama as their president because he's not white? Change They Can't Believe In offers an alternative argument--that the Tea Party is driven by the reemergence of a reactionary movement in American politics that is fueled by a fear that America has changed for the worse. Providing a range of original evidence and rich portraits of party sympathizers as well as activists, Christopher Parker and Matt Barreto show that what actually pushes Tea Party supporters is not simple ideology or racism, but fear that the country is being stolen from "real Americans"--a belief triggered by Obama's election. From civil liberties and policy issues, to participation in the political process, the perception that America is in danger directly informs how Tea Party supporters think and act.
The authors argue that this isn't the first time a segment of American society has perceived the American way of life as under siege. In fact, movements of this kind often appear when some individuals believe that "American" values are under threat by rapid social changes. Drawing connections between the Tea Party and right-wing reactionary movements of the past, including the Know Nothing Party, the Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s, and the John Birch Society, Parker and Barreto develop a framework that transcends the Tea Party to shed light on its current and future consequences.
Linking past and present reactionary movements, Change They Can't Believe In rigorously examines the motivations and political implications associated with today's Tea Party.
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of our participants fail to see the Tea Party in a positive light (see figure 2.2). More to the point, the remaining 44 percent of our participants in the sample believe the emergence of the Tea Party is bad for America. As one can well imagine, then, the responses for the group least attracted to the Tea Party depart markedly from the above responses in tone and content. For instance, 23 percent of those who think ill of the Tea Party do so on ideological grounds. Simply put, they see the Tea
the Tea Party because of their discomfort with change, something that generally occurs with advancing age. Class-based explanations, as we discussed in chapter 1, are also important. This work suggests that it’s not the poor and uneducated who tend to support right-wing movements but often those in the middle. Since white males are more likely to support right-wing movements, race and gender are also important factors. Religion is another important factor. In this case we draw on evangelical
the public, even other conservatives. It may also be the case that the surge in Tea Party–backed candidates who won in 2010 were from districts that were so evenly balanced, they are susceptible to the above-mentioned pendulum effect, in which the electoral balance switches back and forth. In this case, the Republican surge we witnessed in 2010 may simply be the typical give-and-take that happens during alternating election cycles. If this is the case, we may find few national differences between
participation *Significant at p < 0.05, one-tailed Several chapters earlier, we mentioned a number of factors that may furnish the motivation for the Tea Party and its supporters. Specifically, in chapter 1, in which we conducted the long interviews, we detected both anger and fear in many of the responses surrendered by Tea Party sympathizers. Assessing political participation indirectly helps to adjudicate which emotion appears to have been the most prevalent among Tea Party supporters. As
it’s logical to conclude that any perceived attempt to diminish the status of her group will be read as an assault on her status as well. Of course, we have argued all along that Obama, and what his presidency represents, is a threat to the social prestige of “real Americans.” Given the fact that threat also induces anxiety, something that spurs political engagement,32 we cannot afford to rule it out as a factor that motivates the political participation of believers. It seems, then, that we can