The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism

September 26, 2011
Harvard political scientist Skocpol and grad student Williamson conduct a journalistic study of the Tea Party, combining “publically available evidence with in-depth personal interviews and local observations.” The Tea Party, they contend, is made up of well-off white Republicans fiercely protective of their social security and Medicare benefits and fiercely against social spending on “undeserving” younger people and immigrants; they are canny about politics but misinformed about public policy, and unalterably opposed to the very concept of a black president . While the movement is genuinely grass-roots, the authors argue, it is swayed by conservative media and “highly ideological right-wing billionaires,” the result is a fragile coalition—initiatives to cut their entitlements don’t sit well with Tea Partiers—that is nonetheless shoving the Republican party into a corner of unpopular extremism. The authors confirm the conclusions reached liberal journalists about the Tea Party, but they do it with a fine-grained nuance and thoughtfulness that resonates.