Tea party: fad or foundation?

• Author: Bresler, Robert J.
• Position: STATE OF THE NATION - Tea Party movement in the United States

OVER THE PAST 70 YEARS, we have seen numerous political movements. Many left lasting footprints on the American political landscape. The 1930s saw the industrial labor movement; the 1950s and 1960s, the civil rights movement; the 1960s, the anti-war movement; and the 1970s, the feminist and environmental movements. They eventually were incorporated into the Democratic Party and left behind an organizational infrastructure complete with fund-raising and lobbying groups. Their marches are not as frequent (although Al Sharpton cannot seem to let a year pass without leading one) and bullhorns no longer are necessary for them to be heard. These groups more or less play an inside game--getting key players into a Democratic Administration or on a Congressional payroll, influencing the details of legislation, raising money for campaigns, supporting sympathetic think tanks, and paying high-priced lobbyists. Above all else, what these movements wanted was something from the government, so they became fixtures in the Washington scene. They have a stake in every congressional budget and many pieces of legislation.

In some respects, the Republican Party grew from the 1980s on as a reaction against these movements. The industrial labor movement, once the heart and soul of the Democratic Party, has shrunk in size and influence; now labor's loudest voice comes from the municipal workers and teachers unions. Thus, many white, middle class workers have become alienated from the Democrats. A vivid example is West Virginia, once the most Democratic state and the heart of coal country, which voted for George W. Bush in 2004 and John McCain in 2008 by wide margins.

The Republican Party has not been the home of any movement. The Christian conservatives are too diffuse to be called a movement. Only on the issue of abolishing partial-birth abortions, where the country broadly was in support, has it witnessed any major legislative accomplishment--nothing compared to the legislation on behalf of minorities, the environment, and women.

Where then does the Tea Party fit into this mosaic? Will it make an impact as strong as these previous movements? Its religious component seems vague and formless; it does not put cultural issues front and center; and it does not share the neoconservative passion for the global spread of democracy and liberty. In fact, one of its major candidates for the Senate, Rand Paul of Kentucky, did not support the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan. It...