Change They Can't Believe In: The Tea Party and Reactionary Politics in America

by Christopher S. Parker, Matthew Barreto

Overview

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 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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691151830
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	05/26/2013
Pages:	384
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.20(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Christopher S. Parker is the Stuart A. Scheingold Professor of Social Justice and Political Science at the University of Washington, Seattle. He is the author of Fighting for Democracy (Princeton). Matt A. Barreto is associate professor of political science at the University of Washington, Seattle, and director of the Washington Institute for the Study of Ethnicity, Race and Sexuality. He is the author of Ethnic Cues.

Table of Contents

List of Figures and Tables vii

Preface and Acknowledgments xiii

INTRODUCTION Who Is the Tea Party and What Do They Want? 1

1 Toward a Theory of the Tea Party 20

2 Who Likes Tea? Sources of Support for the Tea Party 66

3 Exploring the Tea Party's Commitment to Freedom and Patriotism 102

4 Does the Tea Party Really Want Their Country Back? 153

5 The Tea Party and Obamaphobia - Is the Hostility Real or Imagined? 190

6 Can You Hear Us Now? Why Republicans Are Listening to the Tea Party 218

CONCLUSION 241

Appendix 261

Notes 307

Index 351

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Parker and Barreto have conducted exacting research to probe the contours of support for the Tea Party, and their innovative, scientific, and critical book highlights how Tea Party sympathizers differ from mainstream conservatives in crucial ways. The authors demonstrate that despite the public image of the Tea Party, its supporters cannot be characterized as either patriotic or freedom loving. This is a must-read for all students of American politics and anyone concerned about democracy in America."—Michael C. Dawson, University of Chicago

"This original and important book is the most well-researched and significant scholarly study of the Tea Party movement and its members yet to appear. Unfolding a profile of Tea Party activists threatened by liberal changes and ill-formulated images of big government and state regulatory power, Parker and Barreto tease out core beliefs and views, ranging from commonplace conservatism to racist antagonism. Their book is an outstanding contribution to understanding American politics."—Desmond King, University of Oxford

"The Tea Party has attracted a great deal of attention since it burst on the scene in 2010, but few books about the movement have rested on as impressive an empirical foundation as this one. The portrait Parker and Barreto paint of the model Tea Party sympathizer is chilling and sure to anger movement apologists who insist the group is made up of typical patriotic conservatives. This timely, important work deserves the widest audience possible."—Doug McAdam, Stanford University

"Through a statistically and historically informed analysis of the views of Tea Party sympathizers, Parker and Barreto show that at bottom, many condemn America as it has come to be: a country in which white straight Christian men do not set standards for all. Precisely because their American dreams must go unfulfilled, the passions of these sympathizers will remain forces in American life for years to come."—Rogers M. Smith, University of Pennsylvania

"This book's main contribution to the growing literature on the Tea Party movement is its focus on the characteristics and political beliefs of Tea Party supporters—rather than activists—and its theoretical framework, which locates the Tea Party in the broader structure of far-right social and political movements in the United States."—Alan Abramowitz, Emory University

Editorial Reviews

University of Washington political scientists Parker (Fighting for Democracy) and Barreto (Ethnic Cues) offer a scathing analysis of the Tea Party movement, linking it in spirit to the Ku Klux Klan and the John Birch Society. Taking today’s conservative populists to be dangerous and their ideas self-incriminating, the authors speculate that Tea Party supporters may perceive of social change as subversion. Based on research and interviews, they suggest racism, desire for social dominance, and economic anxiety drives the Tea Party. Right-wing nationalism and “pseudo patriotism” complete the picture. Are Tea Party populists unhappy with high taxes and intrusive government? Is their gripe about illegal immigrants or LGBT rights? Is it displacement from power? We can only be sure there’s panoramic and unjust anger, they argue. Parker and Barreto contend that the Tea Party is a “reaction to Obama’s presidency” and suspected efforts to wrest power and policy from “real Americans.” They minimize the fiscal complaints and rapid government growth, especially Obamacare, which inflamed the movement. Although the Tea Party falls short of the radical and sinister political force this academic hit job would have its readers think it is, this study will appeal to campus progressives eager to cast this movement in the most chilling, unflattering light. (June)

Publishers Weekly

"In Change They Can't Believe In, Parker and Barreto examine the emergence of the Tea Party in the wake of the Obama presidency. . . . In addition to marshaling a great deal of original data, the authors capably place the Tea Party movement in a historical context."

Choice

Winner of the 2014 Best Book Award, Race, Ethnicity, and Politics Section of the American Political Science Association

From the Publisher

[Parker and Barreto's] statistically informed analysis helps us understand the Tea Party's priorities, its fervor, and its contempt for compromise.

Huffington Post - Glenn C. Altschuler

Change They Can't Believe In offers valuable empirical data on the Tea Party, and its focus on supporters' antagonism toward Obama is critical to understanding the movement.

New Republic - Michael O'Donnell

Parker (social justice and political science, Univ. of Washington, Seattle; Fighting for Democracy) and Barreto (political science, Univ. of Washington, Seattle; Ethnic Cues) posit that Tea Party supporters are more prone to racism, less supportive of civil liberties, and well to the right of mainstream conservatives, feeling their country is "slipping away" and finding a focus for their discontent in the Obama presidency. The authors draw these not entirely surprising conclusions mainly from research encompassing over 2,500 telephone interviews based on scientific sampling. The authors further believe that Tea Party supporters are "reactionary conservatives" who aim to resist change in a way similar to right-wing movements of the past such as the Ku Klux Klan and the John Birch Society, an argument, they believe, more vulnerable than those made based on polling results. VERDICT Parker and Barreto are political scientists who have rigorously documented their Tea Party polling to the point that while specialist readers will value their research, most others will tire of the argument and are more likely to engage with a book such as Theda Skocpol and Vanessa Williamson's The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism.—Robert Nardini, Niagara Falls, NY

Library Journal

Two University of Washington political science professors offer a rigorous scholarly investigation of the tea party. Parker (Fighting For Democracy: Black Veterans and the Struggle Against White Supremacy in the Postwar South, 2009) and Barreto (Ethnic Cues: The Role of Shared Ethnicity in Latino Political Participation, 2010) make the case that tea party supporters are driven above all by "anxiety incited by Obama as President." Intuitively, this may already make sense to many readers, but the authors muster the evidence in support, dividing and subdividing different categories of political activity and belief to arrive at a firm basis for their conclusion. They support the steps of the argument with bar charts, regression analysis and a methodological appendix. They identify the tea party's racism and commitment to the policies of a bygone age with reactionary, revolutionary conservatism, as opposed to the evolutionary type. For them, the tea party is the latest in a series of organizations and movements that include the Know-Nothing movement, the Ku Klux Klan and the John Birch Society. Parker and Barreto established frames of analysis by studying 42 tea party websites over two years and comparing them with the more orthodox conservative publication the National Review Online. The authors then employed a multistate survey of race and politics to "tease out" differences between the supporters and sympathizers of the six different tea party formations. The belief that Obama is destroying the country, held by more than 70 percent of tea partiers, shows they are out of step with the mainstream of conservatism, where only 6 percent hold that belief. A dispassionate, academic account supported by reasoned facts in place of political passions.

Kirkus Reviews