The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism


Book Description

In this penetrating new study, Skocpol of Harvard University, one of today's leading political scientists, and co-author Williamson go beyond the inevitable photos of protesters in tricorn hats and knee breeches to provide a nuanced portrait of the Tea Party. What they find is sometimes surprising.




Boiling Mad


Book Description

A surprising and revealing look inside the Tea Party movement—where it came from, what it stands for, and what it means for the future of American politics They burst on the scene at the height of the Great Recession—angry voters gathering by the thousands to rail against bailouts and big government. Evoking the Founding Fathers, they called themselves the Tea Party. Within the year, they had changed the terms of debate in Washington, emboldening Republicans and confounding a new administration's ability to get things done. Boiling Mad is Kate Zernike's eye-opening look inside the Tea Party, introducing us to a cast of unlikely activists and the philosophy that animates them. She shows how the Tea Party movement emerged from an unusual alliance of young Internet-savvy conservatives and older people alarmed at a country they no longer recognize. The movement is the latest manifestation of a long history of conservative discontent in America, breeding on a distrust of government that is older than the nation itself. But the Tea Partiers' grievances are rooted in the present, a response to the election of the nation's first black president and to the far-reaching government intervention that followed the economic crisis of 2008-2009. Though they are better educated and better off than most other Americans, they remain deeply pessimistic about the economy and the direction of the country. Zernike introduces us to the first Tea Partier, a nose-pierced young teacher who lives in Seattle with her fiancé, an Obama supporter. We listen in on what Tea Partiers learn about the Constitution, which they embrace as the backbone of their political philosophy. We see how young conservatives, who model their organization on the Grateful Dead, mobilize a new set of activists several decades their elder. And we watch as suburban mothers, who draw their inspiration from MoveOn and other icons of the Left, plot to upend the Republican Party in a swing district outside Philadelphia. The Tea Party movement has energized a lot of voters, but it has polarized the electorate, too. Agree or disagree, we must understand this movement to understand American politics in 2010 and beyond.




Change They Can't Believe In


Book Description

How the political beliefs of Tea Party supporters are connected to far-right social movements 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 the perception that America is in danger directly informs how Tea Party supporters think and act. In a new afterword, Parker and Barreto reflect on the Tea Party’s recent initiatives, including the 2013 government shutdown, and evaluate their prospects for the 2016 election.




Ten Tea Parties


Book Description

Everyone knows about the Boston Tea Party, in which colonists stormed three British ships and dumped 92,000 pounds of tea into Boston Harbor. But did you know about the Philadelphia Tea Party (December 1773)? How about the ones in York, Maine (September 1774) or Wilmington, North Carolina (March 1775)? This is the first book to chronicle all these uniquely American protests. Author and historian Joseph Cummins begins with the history of the East India Company (the biggest global corporation in the eighteenth century) and their staggering financial losses from the Boston Tea Party (more than a million dollars in today's money). In Philadelphia, Captain Samuel Ayres was nearly tarred and feathered by a mob of 8,000 angry patriots. In Annapolis, Maryland, a brigantine carrying 2,320 pounds of the "wretched weed" was burned to ashes. Together, these stories illuminate the power of Americans banding together as Americans--for the first time in the fledgling nation's history.--From publisher description.




The Tea Party


Book Description

A historian looks at the remarkable rise of the Tea Party movement and its effect on American politics. The Tea Party burst on the national political scene in 2009–2010, powered by right-wing grassroots passion and Astroturf big money. Its effect is undeniable, but the message, aims, and staying power of the loosely organized groups seem unclear. In this book, American political historian Ronald P. Formisano probes the rise of the Tea Party movement during a time of economic crisis and cultural change and examines its impact on American politics. A confederation of intersecting and overlapping organizations, with a strong connection to the Christian fundamentalist Right, the phenomenon could easily be called the Tea Parties. The American media’s fascination with the Tea Party?and the tendency of political leaders embracing the movement to say and do outlandish things?not only helped the movement, but also has diverted attention from its roots, agenda, and the influence it holds over the Republican Party and the American political agenda. Looking at the Tea Party’s claims to historical precedent and patriotic values, Formisano locates its anti-state and libertarian impulses deep in American political culture as well as in recent voter frustrations. He sorts through the goals the movement’s different factions espouse and shows that, ultimately, the contradictions of Tea Party libertarianism reflect those ingrained in the broad mass of the electorate. Throughout American history, movements have emerged to demand reforms or radical change, only to eventually fade away, even if parts of their programs often are later adopted. Whether the Tea Party endures remains to be seen, but Formisano’s brief history certainly offers clues.




African American Tea Party Supporters


Book Description

To their critics who celebrated the election of America’s first African American president, black Tea Party supporters are self-loathing race traitors. In African American Tea Party Supporters: Explaining A Political Paradox, Kirk A. Johnson interviews thirty elected officials, radio personalities, military veterans, and other black Tea Partyers to reveal a group with deep regard for African Americans—and even for Barack Obama—but also divergent perspectives on race, religion, government, and Tea Party racism. Johnson argues when viewed in the context of their family structures and life experiences, black Tea Partyers’ unusual political choices are knowable, understandable, and largely rational.




Tea Party Patriots


Book Description

The definitive history of one of the most radical, revolutionary movements the country has ever seen, from those who started it all In 2009, an unemployed mother of two and a politically inexperienced northern California attorney met on a conference call that would end up starting one of the largest grassroots political organizations in American history, the Tea Party Patriots. Fueled by the fires of passion and patriotism, Mark Meckler and Jenny Beth Martin have become the faces of the most powerful political movement in the country, empowering their more than twenty million members by using both high-tech advances and the time-tested American tradition of rallying in public. Promoting the basic principles of the Tea Party Movement—free market, limited government, and fiscal responsiblity—the Tea Party Patriots have become the largest tea party organization in the world. With unparalleled access to the inner workings of the movement, Meckler and Martin hope to explain how the Tea Party came to be, what it is and is not, and perhaps most important, provide the first comprehensive, forward-looking document outlining a plan to restore America to its prior greatness. Never before has there been such an audience for this material. Americans of all political stripes have been waiting for a thorough and informative account of this movement. Straight from the co-founders themselves, Tea Party Patriots promises to be the definitive source for a political revolution.




Defiance of the Patriots


Book Description

An evocative and enthralling account of a defining event in American history This thrilling book tells the full story of the an iconic episode in American history, the Boston Tea Party—exploding myths, exploring the unique city life of eighteenth-century Boston, and setting this audacious prelude to the American Revolution in a global context for the first time. Bringing vividly to life the diverse array of people and places that the Tea Party brought together—from Chinese tea-pickers to English businessmen, Native American tribes, sugar plantation slaves, and Boston’s ladies of leisure—Benjamin L. Carp illuminates how a determined group of New Englanders shook the foundations of the British Empire, and what this has meant for Americans since. As he reveals many little-known historical facts and considers the Tea Party’s uncertain legacy, he presents a compelling and expansive history of an iconic event in America’s tempestuous past.




Crashing the Tea Party


Book Description

The Tea Party has been the most high profile and controversial social movement in the US of recent times. But real analysis of the Tea Party remains slim - is it a genuine social movement or a topdown interest group created by the Republican Party and corporate funding? Crashing the Tea Party is based on first-hand observation of local Tea Party chapters, and undertakes a critical journalistic and scholarly examination from the national and local level. Paul Street and Anthony DiMaggio provide a carefully documented account which challenges conventional wisdoms. Crashing the Tea Party fills the gap in public understanding about this particular social movement, and how social movements in general relate today to the ideologies of left and right and the mass media.




Tea Party Guide to Being a Real American


Book Description

"America is good. Everything else is bad." So begins the first chapter of the greatest book ever on the second-greatest Tea Party ever: your Tea Party. Or, if you're a godless wussy liberal dirty poopy socialist, their Tea Party. Either way-with us or against us-The Tea Party Guide to Being a Real American is for you. America is in hot water, and this book is going to teabag the whole damn country. This book has the answers. Answers to questions like Why did Jesus write the Constitution? and What's the most patriotic sexual position? Well, it doesn't quite answer that second one, but th.