The Tea Party has more in common with Al Qaeda than it would like to think. Both are of an extremely religious bent. Both hate Barack Obama. And both are starfish organisations - at least according to Jonathan Rauch of the National Journal. [2].

Rauch uses Ori Brafman and Rod A. Beckstrom's model of the spider and the starfish [3] and applies it to the relationship between the Republican Party and its troublesome base movement. Spider organisations, Brafman and Beckstrom argue are [4]:

"centralized and have clear organs and structure. You know who is in charge. You see them coming."

The Republican Party is pretty much a spider organisation, with established means of fundraising and a centralised bureaucracy. Starfish organisations on the other hand:

"tend to organize around a shared ideology or a simple platform for communication - around ideologies, like al Qaeda or Alcoholics Anonymous. They arise rapidly around the simplest ideas or platforms. Ideas or platforms that can be easily duplicated. Once they arrive they can be massively disruptive and are here to stay, for good or bad. And the Internet can help them flourish."

Sound familiar? The Tea Party movement is undoubtedly a starfish organisation. It has a basic, shared ideology (very conservative, very Christian). It has used the internet, particularly social media [5], to spread its message - and it has caused massive disruption for the Republican Party. Just watch Karl Rove's tetchy interview with Sean Hannity [6] about the Tea Party's latest success, Christine O'Donnell, to see how the Tea Party is affecting the Republican establishment.

Starfish organisations have the upper hand today, argue Brafman and Beckstrom - and the Tea Party's recent successes certainly backs this up. Watch the video below for Rauch's explanation.