Part 9 (2/2)

41. David Leonhardt, ”In the Process, Pus.h.i.+ng Back at Inequality,” New York Times, March 24, 2010, A1 and A19. The equality-enhancing aspects of the Affordable Care Act of 2010 are more fully explored in Lawrence R. Jacobs and Theda Skocpol, Health Care Reform and American Politics: What Everyone Needs to Know (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010).

42. A photo of this sign, at a Tea Party rally in Madison, WI, can be seen at /2009/04/16/10-most-offensive-tea-par_n_187554.html as of May 12, 2011.

43. Christopher Parker, et al., ”2010 Multi-State Survey of Race and Politics,” University of Was.h.i.+ngton Inst.i.tute for the Study of Ethnicity, Race, and s.e.xuality. The website link appears in the following note.

44. Ibid. Parker's data suggests some very interesting subtleties to racial views in America more generally. Tea Partiers are more negative about everyone's hard work, intelligence, and trustworthiness. Sometimes, their views of blacks are much more negative than their views of whites. For instance, 14% more Tea Partiers described whites as hardworking than described blacks as hardworking. Skeptics of the Tea Party, by contrast, deem whites and blacks hardworking at almost exactly the same rate. But when it comes to trustworthiness, Tea Party skeptics have larger differences between their views of blacks and whites than Tea Party faithful. 72% of Tea Party skeptics rated whites trustworthy, while only 57% rated blacks trustworthy-a difference of 15%. Tea Partiers were less likely to see either blacks or whites as trustworthy, but the difference was only 9%. Though these data are only for white respondents, they do not control for other factors that may be significant, such as age. For these and other findings, see depts.was.h.i.+ngton.edu/uwiser/racepolitics.html, available as of May 5, 2011.

45. To some degree, this fear of outsiders was warranted, as the April 2010 Tea Party protest on the Boston Common was overrun with local college students and union members, many of whom were carrying ironic and purposefully misspelled signs, with slogans like ”I forget what I'm angry about.” or ”Down with taxis.”

46. From a description of upcoming guest speakers at /coming-to-dmtp.html as of February 27, 2011.

47. Muslims actually make up only 0.6% of the U.S. population. Data from the CIA World Factbook, available at e citizens, they pay a fine, get in the back of the line. There is a path to citizens.h.i.+p. But not amnesty.” Stanley would presumably be disconcerted, if not horrified, to discover to what extent his views of immigration coincide with those proposed by President Obama. In a July 2010 speech, the President said: ”Today, we have more boots on the ground near the Southwest border than at any time in our history. [...] We are committed to doing what's necessary to secure our borders. [...] We have to demand responsibility from people living here illegally. They must be required to admit that they broke the law. They should be required to register, pay their taxes, pay a fine, and learn English. They must get right with the law before they can get in line and earn their citizens.h.i.+p. [...] We can create a pathway for legal status that is fair, reflective of our values, and works.” A transcript of this speech is available at blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2010/07/01/transcript-of-obamas-immigration-speech/as of May 20, 2011.

49. John Lantigua, ”Illegal Immigrants Paying Taxes?” Palm Beach Post, April 25, 2010. For a more complete understanding of the programs for which unauthorized immigrants are eligible, see ”Overview of Immigrant Eligibility for Federal Programs,” National Immigrant Law Center, available at mittee in charge of setting funding for the programs he denounced. He is quoted in Daniel Luzer, ”The Lie About Pell Grants, the 'Welfare of the 21st Century,'” Was.h.i.+ngton Monthly, April 5, 2011. Rehberg has his facts wrong because most low-income Pell grant recipients who do not finish college drop out after a semester or two and are not a continuing cost to taxpayers.

52. Chris Isadore, ”Job openings remain scarce for unemployed,” CNN Money, October 7, 2010. See also ”Unemployment rates by age, s.e.x, and marital status,” Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey, Bureau of Labor Statistics, available at /2010/12/08/bond-vigilantes-still-invisible/ as of May 21, 2011.

58. Richard Hofstadter, The Paranoid Style in American Politics: And Other Essays (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996).

59. In emails to Theda Skocpol.

60. Mark Leibovitch, ”Being Glenn Beck,” New York Times, September 29, 2010.

61. From the website for the Southwest Metro Tea Party, available at //educate-motivate.php as of May 5, 2011.

CHAPTER 3.

1. With only a few exceptions-such as the work of Amy Gardner and other reporters at the Was.h.i.+ngton Post-journalistic accounts of gra.s.sroots Tea Partiers are based on b.u.t.tonholing people who attend rallies for short interviews. Journalists also call up advocacy leaders based in Was.h.i.+ngton DC, and so their articles often quote these elites and attribute their ideological views to the Tea Party as a whole.

2. Quotes from our interview with Tom in February 2011 are used under his real name with his permission.

3. Jean Casanave, ”Losing Our Way,” letter to the editor, Gloucester-Mathews Gazette-Journal, May 10, 2009.

4. ”Government Restraint Group Forms in Mathews,” Gloucester-Mathews Gazette-Journal, June 19, 2009.

5. The account of Tea Party activities in Charlottesville comes from email exchanges and phone interviews Theda Skocpol conducted with Carole Thorpe in February and April 2011.

6. Cindy Pugh's and Mara Souvannasoth's real names are used because this portrait is entirely compiled form public records. The quote here from Mara is from their November 27, 2010 appearance on the radio show, ”The Patriot,” broadcast on AM 1280 in the Twin Cities. Both women recounted the story of how they met on that program, and also on ”The Sue Jeffers Show,” FM 100.3, on September 21, 2010.

7. Bob Cusack, ”Bachmann Urges Confronting Lawmakers on Health Care Bill,” The Hill, October 31, 2010.

8. Information on the Southwest Metro Tea Party's activities comes from its website available at mnteapartypatriots.ning.com/ as of May 11, 2011.

9. ”How to Organize Your Own 'Tea Party' Protest,” created February 21, 2009, 12:31 A.M., by Brendan Steinhauser and published at FreedomWorks.org.

10. Brandon is quoted in Chris Good, ”The Tea Party Movement: Who's In Charge?” The Atlantic, April 2009.

11. Ibid.

12. The historical patterns and the post-1960 transition are doc.u.mented in Theda Skocpol, Diminished Democracy: From Members.h.i.+p to Management in American Civic Life (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2003).

13. Marshall Ganz is a gra.s.sroots organizer who now teaches at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

14. See, for example, ”Organizing for America catches heat,” UPI, January 13, 2010.

15. Paul Bedard, ”GOP Chairman Michael Steele Denies Tea Party Claim,” U.S. News and World Report, April 10, 2009.

16. Amy Gardner, ”Gauging the Scope of the Tea Party Movement in America,” Was.h.i.+ngton Post, October 24, 2010.

17. Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, North Carolina, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Was.h.i.+ngton have more than thirty Tea Party groups.

18. For instance, Tea Parties that have a social networking component, using a service like MeetUp or Facebook or Ning, usually make visible the number of people who have joined online. We found online members.h.i.+p data for about one-third of the Tea Party groups; we believe larger groups are especially likely to have members.h.i.+p data visible because smaller groups tend to have less complex websites and are less likely to set up a social network component to their website.

19. Skocpol, Diminished Democracy, especially ch. 3 and pp. 130131, Table 4.1.

20. In fact, several Tea Party organizers we spoke to were somewhat disdainful of 9/12 groups, claiming that those groups were less politically committed and less engaged.

21. Amy Gardner, ”Tea-Party Activists Question if Rebel Political Movement has Changed for the Worse,” Was.h.i.+ngton Post, December 31, 2010.

22. As we will see in the following chapter, conservative media were crucial to the spread of the Tea Party idea, and Fox News host Glenn Beck, in particular, helped encourage local meetings via his ”9/12 Project.”

23. Skocpol, Theda, Marshall Ganz, and Ziad Munson, ”A Nation of Organizers.” American Political Science Review 94(3): 527546.

24. Our account is based on information from interviews with local Virginia Tea Party leaders who observed or partic.i.p.ated in the formation of the state Federation.

25. On Federation lobbying, see Wesley P. Hester, ”Tea-Party Backers Grill Va. Lawmakers,” Richmond Times-Dispatch, January 6, 2011; and Anita k.u.mar and Rosalind S. Helderman, ”Virginia Tea Party Aims to Put General a.s.sembly Lessons into Practice,” Was.h.i.+ngton Post, March 6, 2011.

26. Wesley P. Hester, ”Tea Party All Grown Up and Planning for the Future,” Richmond Times-Dispatch, October 10, 2010. The schedule of events is available at /schedule.php as of May 11, 2011.

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