Part 7 (2/2)

A second risk for the GOP lies in public opinion and the struggle to attract moderate voters going into 2012. Tea Party extremism exacerbates already considerable public disillusionment with the Republican Party. Not only will many younger, more diverse, less economically well-off voters go to the polls in 2012, ”independent” voters who truly are in the middle are also more likely to vote in a presidential election year. Will the Tea Party turn more voters off about the Republican brand? There is significant social science research to suggest this is a serious possibility.80 National surveys reveal increasingly negative public evaluations of the Tea Party-with the percent of Americans who tell survey researchers that they are opposed to the Tea Party now surpa.s.sing those who say they support it, in some polls by a wide margin.81 Over the past two and a half years, Americans have gradually firmed up their views of the Tea Party, following an initial period in which many were uncertain about what it was, or undecided in their a.s.sessments.82 As the picture clears, the proportion of Americans saying they like or sympathize with the Tea Party has remained relatively steady at about 25%30%. (In one surprising poll, from none other than Fox News, the Tea Party's popularity failed to beat out that of the much-maligned Internal Revenue Service!83) By contrast, the percentage of Americans saying they do not like, or oppose, the Tea Party has increased. Familiarity, in short, seems to have bred dislike. This is a troubling trend for the Republican Party going into 2012 because the party has become so closely identified with Tea Party activism.

During the 2010 election cycle, the GOP strategy was openly to encourage Tea Party activism, on the theory that the party would benefit from highly motivated potential voters and from new infusions of money. No doubt, many GOP leaders still hold this perspective. On the other hand, other GOP leaders and strategists understand that hard-core conservative Republicans who identify with the Tea Party cannot provide enough votes to win all elections, certainly not in swing states and districts, or in the 2012 presidential contest. Many GOP candidates-including eventually the 2012 presidential nominee-will need to appeal not just to Tea Party supporters, but also to nonTea Party Republicans, independents, and wobbly Democrats.

Consequently, it has to be worrisome for GOP strategists that the views of Tea Party const.i.tuents are parting company on many issues with the views of moderate Republicans and independents. American voters can be slow to figure out complicated policy issues, especially when they are fed misleading information by major media outlets. Sooner or later, however, most voters get a bead on things, particularly when real-life matters such as college aid and health care are at issue. As Americans figure out the real choices about the future of social spending and taxes for the United States, the Republican Party may not be in a good place if it continues to defer to the most ideological elements of the Tea Party. Surveys also show that even many Republicans support tax increases along with spending cuts to tackle U.S. budget deficits, a plan anathema to many of the national advocacy organizations stoking Tea Party fervor.84 When survey-researchers issue reports declaring that the ”Tea Party's Hard Line on Spending Divides the GOP,” trouble may be brewing.85 Add to that the likelihood that the style of Tea Party politics-angry, demanding, and absolutist-may be increasingly at odds with the preferences of other citizens. To the degree that Americans want government focus on what works for the economy, the tenor of Tea Party rhetoric wears thin.

For all the hype about the impact of the Tea Party on the fortunes of Republicans versus Democrats, the bigger story, as we have seen, is the impact of the Tea Party on the GOP. The Republican Party has been moving toward the right for some time, and that movement only quickened after the advent of the Tea Party. Although the symbolism of ”the Tea Party” is already fading in popularity, the power of hard-right ideologues consolidated during the first years of the Obama Administration is likely to continue to drive Republican politics, crowding Republicans into an ultra-right corner. As American politics marches on, the Tea Party, even if it doggedly persists, will not be able to call all the shots-and Republican leaders will have to decide how far they want to go in the directions Tea Partiers are urging. Before long, the Tea Party ideology and its adherents may s.h.i.+ft from an a.s.set to an albatross for many in the Republican Party.

The Tea Party and American Democracy.

Where is the Tea Party headed? The question was posed to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, when he appeared on the NBC program ”Meet the Press” on January 9, 2011. Just a couple of months earlier, Reid had surmounted a well-funded and nationally touted challenge by GOP senate candidate Sharron Angle. ”She was Tea Party backed, a Tea Party candidate,” observed the NBC host David Gregory. ”Do she and others, as part of this Tea Party, represent a lasting force in American politics?” Reid was characteristically blunt in response. ”The Tea Party will disappear as soon as the economy gets better,” he declared. ”And the economy's getting better all the time.”1 Harry Reid was a bit too glib, according to the a.n.a.lysis developed in this book. Even if the U.S. economy recovers more quickly and completely than most a.n.a.lysts antic.i.p.ate, the political forces operating through the Tea Party are unlikely to go ”poof” in direct relation to a rising Gross Domestic Product. The U.S. economic plunge that started in 2008 was at most an accelerant to the Tea Party explosion, which was in essence a political reaction by very conservative Republicans alarmed by the presidency of Barack Obama and the threat that Democrats in Was.h.i.+ngton DC might reshape U.S. policies for the longer term. Conservatives dreaded that Obama and the Democrats would use the national crisis to tighten regulations on business, raise taxes on the wealthy, and further social programs benefiting younger Americans who are increasingly racially diverse. The older white activists of the Tea Party joined conservative ideologues and business interests in dreading what might be done by the new Democratic president and Congress-and the fears of all these groups persist. As long as Barack Obama remains in the White House, and as long as landmark Democratic achievements such as the Affordable Care Act of 2010 remain on the books, the gra.s.sroots and elite forces that combined to create the Tea Party will not stand down. They have the social commitment and organizational and financial wherewithal to keep going-certainly through 2012, and perhaps well beyond.

In this concluding chapter, we step back to consider the overall implications of the Tea Party. How might elite and gra.s.sroots Tea Party forces figure in the election of 2012? We cannot say for sure, but our a.n.a.lysis does suggest possibilities. Then we reflect on the paradoxes of the democratic citizens.h.i.+p exemplified by gra.s.sroots Tea Partiers, and conclude with an a.s.sessment of the overall impact of the Tea Party on American politics.

TEA PARTY FORCES HEADED INTO 2012.

Throughout this book, we have gained insights by recognizing that the Tea Party is made up of a combination of forces: gra.s.sroots activists, national elites pus.h.i.+ng ideas and directing funds to very conservative candidates, and right-wing media cheerleaders. Keeping this framework in mind helps us lay out the possible ways the various forces at work in the Tea Party may affect the electoral landscape and GOP candidates going into 2012. National advocacy forces want right-wing policy gains and aim to block GOP candidates who might not go along with their programs. The owners and editors of the right-wing media want GOP victories, and will soft-pedal the ”Tea Party” brand if it seems to be hurting Republicans in the general electorate during 2012. And gra.s.sroots Tea Partiers have gained considerable clout inside the GOP. They are likely to keep that clout with GOP officeholders, but their influence in the general electorate will recede going into 2012. This melange may lead the different parts of the Tea Party to operate at cross-purposes, and will certainly create a fluid and volatile situation for the Republican Party and the national electorate.

As we have learned, professionally run national organizations affiliated with the Tea Party include advocacy groups pus.h.i.+ng long-standing right-wing policy nostrums along with political action committees that channel funds to Republican candidates who can be expected to toe the appropriate policy lines while in office. For the national organizations that have jumped on the Tea Party bandwagon, the GOP is a vehicle for realizing an agenda that includes reduced taxes on the wealthy and business; removal of regulations on business; and, if at all possible, radical restructurings of popular social programs to turn them into market subsidies rather than social ent.i.tlements. These policy goals are much more important to elite organizations in the Tea Party orbit than is the overall popular reputation of the Republican Party-although, of course, if Republican candidates lose in large numbers at the polls, it would be harder to push or protect favored free-market, low-tax policies.

After the November 2010 triumphs by the GOP, elite organizations riding the Tea Party wasted no time in urging newly elected DC representatives, governors, and state legislators to enact as many right-wing priorities as possible, and to do it as fast as possible. And indeed, no time was wasted. As we discussed in Chapter 5, the Republicans in the House of Representatives moved within months in virtual lockstep to adopt a highly ideological federal budget blueprint designed by Representative Paul Ryan. The Ryan plan was applauded in the auditoriums of the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Inst.i.tute, but it quickly proved unpopular with the general public, above all because it promised to privatize Medicare, but for other reasons as well. In May 2011, the GOP lost a special election in an upstate New York House district that usually votes overwhelmingly Republican, and the victory of Democrat Kathy Hochul was widely attributed to her attack on the Ryan budget plan to eliminate traditional Medicare and ask the elderly to fund a greater proportion of their own health insurance on the open market. National Republican leaders and strategists maneuvered thereafter to neutralize what had clearly become a detriment for their candidates in 2012. Some political a.n.a.lysts decided that it might be possible for Democrats to retake control of the House of Representatives in 2012.

The Ryan budget, emblematic of GOP priorities in DC in general, was a clear instance of ideological overconfidence-misreading what happened in 2010. Voters put more GOP Representatives and Senators in office, but as was discernable at the time of the 2010 election, they did so mainly as a repudiation of Democrats who had failed to revive the economy. Voters were not endorsing radical budget cuts or restructurings of popular social programs. Where Medicare and Social Security are concerned, even Tea Partiers at the gra.s.s roots never proposed or demanded anything of the sort. Ideological elites, not voters sympathetic to the Tea Party, urged the GOP in Was.h.i.+ngton DC onto the thin ice of radical domestic policy-making.

In key states like Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan, and Florida, new GOP governors and legislatures made equally abrupt policy moves right after 2010. Invariably, they cut taxes on business and dealt with overall budget shortfalls entirely through quick contractions of public spending on education and health care. GOPers in the states also moved quickly to ram through legislative blueprints disseminated by conservative think tanks- to curb the power of public employee unions, eliminate business regulations, and toughen up rules affecting how citizens register to vote or actually vote on election day.2 All of these moves in GOP-dominated states tended to be applauded by elderly Tea Partiers, who are happy to weaken unions and are sufficiently riled up about immigration to support legal rules to make registration and voting more difficult. Older white Tea Partiers are not fans of generous educational funding, either, because they fear paying higher taxes that benefit children of younger adults, who are much more racially and ethnically diverse than older cohorts. Gra.s.sroots Tea Partiers did not, for the most part, initiate the policy steps taken starting in early 2011 by GOP governors and legislators, but they approve them.

Many members of the general public, including many independents who supported GOP candidates in 2010, feel differently, however. So broadly unpopular were many of the GOP moves in the states that by the middle of 2011, the popularity ratings of governors such as Rick Scott in Florida and John Kasich in Ohio had taken a nosedive; recall elections were under way in Wisconsin and Michigan; and a centerpiece anti-union measure pa.s.sed by the GOP in Ohio was scheduled for a referendum in the fall of 2011.3 The very fact that these challenges occurred within months of GOP majorities taking over state capitols is another indication, like the Ryan budget in Was.h.i.+ngton DC, of the way in which ideological pressures can induce electorally dicey overreach among GOP officials.

Despite the danger of unpopular overreach, the att.i.tude of right-wing policy advocates tends to favor forging full-speed ahead. They are not likely to let up the pressure on GOP officeholders during 2011 and 2012. Ideological elites on the right are confident to the point of arrogance, and they have a lot of resources to deploy. They expect that large infusions of campaign cash at the last minute can sway or bamboozle sufficient numbers of low-information voters to protect most of the GOP inc.u.mbents who vote their way on key policy matters and to secure victories for most of the GOP candidates they favor.

Elite Tea Party linked organizations also presume that measures disem-powering their political opponents can help GOPers in 2012 and beyond. Requiring all voters to show photo IDs at the polls can discourage even legal immigrants and burden young people or poor people who do not have drivers' licenses.4 Measures to undercut rival organizations are even better. Public sector unions will have less money to spend in 2012 if they cannot collect dues or deliver higher wages and improved benefits to members. From the point of view of the right-wing advocacy organizations operating through the Tea Party, immediate policy gains must be taken where they can, and any dips in GOP popularity corrected later, in the final months before the next election. So we can expect FreedomWorks, Americans for Prosperity, Tea Party Express, and their ilk to keep the pressure on GOP officials and candidates.

Media cheerleaders, especially at Fox News, may have a very different calculus, however. Back in 2009, the conservative media went all out to help the emerging gra.s.sroots activism of the Tea Party spread and take hold in many states and localities. Fox anchors and hosts, in particular, also helped to reinforce the narrative of the Tea Party as a gra.s.sroots force aimed at purifying and reforming the GOP (although, tellingly, Fox hosts urged Tea Partiers not to create a third party that would divide votes against Democrats). However, as the Republican Party and the nation move into the presidential election year of 2012, Fox News will take a pragmatic stance focused on helping whatever GOP presidential candidate emerges from the primaries maneuver to claim a national majority. If ”Tea Party” activism still seems helpful to GOP electoral prospects in 2012, Fox will feature it. But if not-if independents remain wary of the Tea Party and the brand loses popularity-then Fox will switch gears. It will tout the supposed mainstream credentials and economic message of the GOP presidential candidate. Fox will feature whatever themes seem most likely to help Republicans win the presidency, gain control of the Senate, and hold the House. Quite likely, this will mean taking the spotlight off past policy moves of dubious popularity-like the Ryan budget of 2011-and also downplaying those gra.s.sroots activists so vividly featured in 2009 and 2010. The mainstream media may focus on the Tea Party as ”controversial,” but if the Tea Party continues to lose appeal to the general voting public, Fox and friends will try to change the focus. In an early sign of this likely change of network policy, Glenn Beck was sent packing by Fox management in early 2011.5 This brings us to the gra.s.sroots Tea Partiers themselves. What about their role leading into November 2012? In many Republican-leaning districts and states, the efforts of gra.s.sroots Tea Partiers to take control of GOP committees and keep a close eye on the votes of GOP elected officials will guarantee continued Tea Party clout inside the Republican Party itself. Many senators, representatives, state-level officials-and GOP candidates for those offices-will have to propitiate their local Tea Party leaders to maintain enthusiasm among core conservative voters. Yet as we discussed in Chapter 5, Republican politicians may have a hard time simultaneously satisfying Tea Party activists and the nonTea Party voters they also need to win. GOP officials and candidates will struggle to appeal both ways, and they will not be able to turn fully away from Tea Partiers in most places. Even if the Fox spotlight s.h.i.+fts, and even if the national public registers wariness or negative evaluations of the ”Tea Party” going into 2012, gra.s.sroots Tea Partiers in many places are organized, determined, and socially interconnected. Whatever Harry Reid may like to think, they will not go away.

Gra.s.sroots Tea Party involvement in the GOP presidential primaries may also be intense, but may not add up to a united effort for a winning candidate. In our interviews with Tea Partiers around the country, we asked about preferences for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination and got very scattered answers. Those who liked Sarah Palin considered her not viable as a general election candidate; and some did not like her. Many had nice things to say about Mike Huckabee before he decided not to run, and we presume that some of those Tea Partiers later took a liking to Michele Bachmann. We heard nothing positive about Newt Gingrich, and universal skepticism or negativity about Mitt Romney (because of his health plan, the precursor to ObamaCare, and because he is not considered trustworthy). This or that minor GOP candidate got a positive mention here or there-including Herman Cain. When Donald Trump was bl.u.s.tering about Obama's birth certificate, he got a chuckle and an ”Atta boy” from some Tea Partiers, but no one seemed to take him seriously as a presidential contender.

The Tea Partiers we met in various states had no consensus or shared enthusiasm for any particular GOP presidential possibility in the early stages. One New Hamps.h.i.+re Republican linked to the Tea Party told us that he expects supporters to unite behind one candidate in late 2011 or early 2012. A broadly popular candidate like Rick Perry may inspire the Tea Partiers, who dislike Mitt Romney and would prefer that he not win the GOP nomination. The split between social conservatives and libertarians could become evident, as some Tea Partiers go for candidates favorable to Christian conservative priorities, and others deliver votes to Ron Paul. Two of the early GOP primaries, in Iowa and South Carolina, are likely to give strong voice to the socially conservative wing of the Tea Party. The New Hamps.h.i.+re primary could give greater leverage to libertarians, but that primary is an ”open” contest, where independents and Democrats can vote as well as registered Republicans. Tea Partiers in New Hamps.h.i.+re may not have as much leverage as they hope in that critical early contest.

The key point is this: when the general election enters full swing in the spring of 2012, Tea Partiers as such will end up supporting whoever runs on the GOP line against the hated Barack Obama. The hard-core activists will all vote for Republicans down the line. Gra.s.sroots Tea Partiers will not, however, have very much sway in the broader electorate. Many Republicans not identified with the Tea Party, and many independents who could vote GOP, may be turned off by the gra.s.sroots Tea Party style and by far-right policy priorities. Even if mainstream Republicans and many independents join Tea Partiers to vote for the same GOP contenders in 2012 contests, the larger electorate will not be as open to the Tea Party message as it was in 2010.

Younger Americans, including people of more diverse ethnic, racial, and cla.s.s backgrounds, will make up a higher proportion of the 2012 electorate than they did in 2010. The types of voters whose share of the vote will increase may or may not go for Democrats versus Republicans, but they are not very amenable to Tea Party messages or very likely to interact with Tea Party activists-except, perhaps, with an aunt, uncle, or grandparent at Thanksgiving dinner! In addition to s.h.i.+fting social categories and networks in the 2012 electorate, inc.u.mbent GOP officials who have taken strong right-wing policy stands will make the Tea Partyinfluenced agenda of the Republican Party much more visible to ordinary voters.

That agenda is not proving consistently popular. For younger, working-age adults, above all, the GOP budget ideas are a clear threat-not just to the social safety net, such as it is, but to education and health care funding on which many working people and their children depend. Younger Americans are also likely to be turned off by the anti-gay social policies pushed by Christian conservative gra.s.sroots Tea Partiers, as well as by the racial and ethnic stereotypes underlying Tea Party ideology.6 And many legal immigrants are repelled by the strong gra.s.sroots Tea Party emphasis on draconian border and police measures to hara.s.s and deport undoc.u.mented residents.

Ironically, the Ryan budget pushed by elite Tea Party forces has also raised concerns among middle-aged and elderly voters who might otherwise approve the GOP budgetary messages. Those messages, after all, stress holding down taxes and cutting public spending-above all, on programs that serve children and young adults. But a proposal to radically restructure Medicare, even if slated to take effect only in 2021, can easily frighten elderly voters. It certainly alarms adults 45 to 55 years old, the sons and daughters of today's elderly. After all, Medicare is not just an ”old people's program,” it is a cornerstone of family security because, in its absence, working-age adults would have to take funds from their family budgets to help cover health care costs for grandma and grandpa. Americans live in families, and most people will not sit still and watch grandmother or grandfather go without necessary health care.

In the electoral big picture, in sum, the Tea Party had the wind at its back between 2008 and 2010, but it is now headed into crosswinds if not counter-force gales. Americans will be dealing with more of a known Tea Party agenda in 2012, much of it unpopular stuff from right-wing think tanks; moreover, Americans will vote on it in greater, more diverse numbers than in 2010. Voters in 2012, including many younger people and minorities, won't merely decide if they like or dislike Democrats; they will be able to evaluate policies backed by Republicans at the behest of the ideological advocacy organizations identified with the Tea Party.

Social scientists are not good at predicting future events, so we stipulate that we do not know whether Barack Obama will be reelected in 2012, or how the balance of Republicans versus Democrats will sort out in the House, the Senate, and the states. At the national level, virtually any combination of outcomes is possible-from, on the one extreme, Obama winning reelection along with the Senate barely staying in Democratic hands and the House barely swinging back to the Democrats, to, on the other extreme, GOP victories sweeping the presidency and both houses of Congress. A mixed outcome is very possible.

It is irritating to be unable to prognosticate the inst.i.tutional outcomes with any certainty because the policy consequences are likely to be quite different, depending on which scenario comes to fruition. A GOP sweep would lead to the hobbling if not repeal of the Affordable Care Act of 2010, and possibly put Medicare and Social Security on the privatization block. A Democratic sweep (even partial Democratic victories that include surprisingly large gains in the House) would sustain all of these social programs and probably lead to tax increases on the very rich. Another way to express the policy stakes of 2012 is to say that, even if the Tea Party loses coherence and popularity and weighs less heavily in an enlarged electorate, the enormous leverage it has gained over the national policy agenda after 2010 could survive and deepen anyway. Tea Partybacked conservative Republicans gained a lot of ground in 2010. And GOP victories in 2012, even with slight margins, would be sufficient to block tax increases on the wealthy and s.h.i.+ft the fiscal burden toward cuts in major social ent.i.tlements inherited from the Great Society and the New Deal. The stakes in the 2012 election are very high.

THE PARADOXES OF TEA PARTY CITIZENs.h.i.+P.

Prognostication aside, what is the normative bottom line for the Tea Party as a force in American democracy? Some readers may laugh at this question-a.s.suming that the Tea Party is either laudable or d.a.m.nably bad, depending on where one stands on its policy priorities. But the vitality of gra.s.sroots engagement in the Tea Party raises poignant questions even for observers who disagree strongly with what the Tea Party stands for.

This was brought home to both authors at a Harvard forum in March 2011. We had recently completed several rounds of interviews with gra.s.s-roots Tea Partiers, and our findings came up during a discussion of Barack Obama's presidency and conservative reactions to it. Most people in the audience were liberals (or progressives critical of Democrats from the left). One questioner was a professor who has done important research on partic.i.p.atory democracy, and she knew that both of us care about active civic engagement and have studied its manifestations in America, past and present. The professor asked the most difficult question: ”Even if you question their policy stands,” she said, ”what do you make of the active citizen engagement of Tea Partiers? Is their engagement a good thing for American democracy-or not?” The room fell unusually silent as we shared our reflections.

On the ground, in local rallies and regular meetings, the gra.s.sroots Tea Party is a model of active citizens.h.i.+p. Ordinary men and women, some previously active in politics and others with civic experience under their belts, take voluntary initiatives to make events happen and run meetings. Without pay, they pitch in to do everything from setting up chairs and handing out leaflets, to arranging for speakers, putting out newsletters, and preparing refreshments. At Tea Party meetings, people ask questions and make comments after a speaker has finished his or her presentation. And when groups discuss priorities and decide how to divvy up tasks, quite a few ordinary women and men step up to chair a task force or carry on a key duty. Tea Party meetings have the same ”let's pitch in and get it done” air about them as clubs and lodges and church societies throughout America's past as ”a nation of joiners.”7 The willingness of gra.s.sroots Tea Partiers to plunge into new realms and learn about the nitty-gritty of politics is also remarkable. Midway through our interviews on the Middle Peninsula of Virginia, we were struck by a telling contrast. Between us, the two authors have attended many meetings of highly educated liberals in and around academic communities. In those meetings, detailed knowledge of public policies is common. People know exactly what is in Obama's health reform law, exactly how all kinds of taxes work, and can tell you who pays for and benefits from government expenditures. They can debate the intricacies of cap and trade versus carbon taxes. But even liberal PhDs are often extremely vague about how U.S. politics actually works. People will proclaim in meetings that President Obama should just give a speech on a particular priority-and act as if that would get it done, forgetting the complexities of Congressional rules and alliance-building. Opinionated, educated liberals often have no idea what happens in state legislatures, local government boards, or political party committees. Gra.s.sroots Tea Partiers, by contrast, know the rules and procedures for pa.s.sing bills and advancing regulations in detail-for local, state, and national government. But at the same time, they hold wildly inaccurate views of what is in, or not in, public policies or legislative proposals. They know process, but flub content-the exact opposite of the academic liberals.

For Tea Partiers, a lot of study goes into mastering legislative and political processes. We saw evidence of that work getting done in almost every Tea Party locale we visited. A few members take it upon themselves to track all bills of a certain type in the state legislature, for example, to figure out who is voting on them and when. Using the official names and numbers of the bills, and explaining the steps for moving things through committees to floor votes, they let other Tea Party members in their area know exactly when to send a letter or email, and to whom, to push for preferred outcomes. The same thing happens with legislation in the national Congress, and with topics about to be taken up by local government committees and boards. often, members of a Tea Party group also figure out the rules for nominations and decision-making for the Republican Party in their area- and mobilize people to attend the relevant meetings and make their voices heard, or cast their votes for key party offices. Leaders of local Tea Parties undertake this kind of research and orchestrate actions to take advantage of what is learned about pending legislation or key GOP decisions. But many regular members pitch in, too. They have learned to use the Internet to track government actions, and they exhibit a mastery of legislative process and arcane party rules that compares well to the knowledge of political scientists who specialize in these areas.

We found ourselves impressed by Tea Partiers' mastery of political processes. But we were also repeatedly shocked at the wildly inaccurate things people unblinkingly believe about what government does, how it is financed, and what is actually included (or not) in key pieces of legislation or regulation. In Virginia, for example, Tea Partiers confidently told us that the Affordable Care Act of 2010 (”ObamaCare” in their parlance) includes both death panel

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