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8 November 2010updated 27 Sep 2015 5:40am

The Tea Party doesn’t exist

Gary Younge dissects America’s hard-right, populist “movement”.

By Mehdi Hasan

The typically excellent Gary Younge, in today’s Guardian, takes on the myths surrounding the so-called Tea Party movement across the pond:

The “Tea Party” does not exist. It has no members, leaders, office bearers, headquarters, policies, participatory structures, budget or representatives. The Tea Party is shorthand for a broad, shallow sentiment about low taxes and small government shared by loosely affiliated, somewhat like-minded people. That doesn’t mean the right isn’t resurgent. It is. But the forces driving its political energy are not those that underpinned its recent electoral success.

The Tea Party is not a new phenomenon. It’s simply a new name for an old phenomenon – the American hard right. Over the last two years the term has provided a rallying point for a coalition of disparate groups, most of which have been around for many years. Minutemen (anti-immigrant vigilantes), birthers (who deny that Obama was born in the US), Promise Keepers (Conservative Christian men), Oath Keepers (military and police, retired and current, who vow to resist unconstitutional government “by any means necessary”), Fox News watchers, Glenn Beck lovers and Rush Limbaugh listeners who had no unifying identity before.

Having a name helps. It has offered a political identity to a significant number of people who were either not active or might not have understood themselves to be in any way connected. That name has helped reorient the stated priorities of the right away from social issues and towards fiscal ones. But this is no more than the old whine in new bottles.

He adds:

. . . the Tea Party has its own “news” channel – Fox – devoted to its growth. It promotes Tea Party demonstrations as though they are events of national celebration and showcases those who pose as its leaders as though they are national celebrities. Second, it has money. A lot of it. When it comes to elections it has the backing of huge amounts of money from private corporations and individuals who are behind institutions – like the Tea Party Express, Freedomworks, Americans for Prosperity and Tea Party Patriots – which are run by people with a proven track record of right-wing Republican activism.

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Read the full piece here.

 

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