The debate in the run-up to next Tuesday’s mid-term US elections has been dominated by the Tea Party. But who are they really, and what do they want? Simon Wilson reports.
What is the Tea Party?
For starters, the Tea Party is not a political party, and doesn’t want to be – that would involve embracing politics, agreeing a unified agenda, and putting forward a programme of proposals for government. The Tea Partiers are essentially an oppositional (and as yet fragmented) movement. Their explicit (but hard-to-measure) goals are to “restore honour” to America and to “take back” the nation. What they share is an anger born of economic angst – political rage against big government in general and President Obama in particular.
If not a political party, what is it?
It’s a loose coalition or network of ‘grassroots’ groups across the United States that are more or less linked by their ultra-conservative and avowedly patriotic outlook. The groups have names such as the Tea Party Patriots, Tea Party Nation and Tea Party Express. By most accounts its inception can be dated to February 2009, when Rick Santelli, a business commentator on CNBC, launched into an on-air tirade against the latest federal bail-out and invoked the pre-Revolutionary spirit of Boston, 1773. “President Obama, are you listening!?” he cried. “It’s time for another Tea Party.” Santelli’s cri de coeur struck a chord with millions of Americans, overwhelmingly white and well educated, but who believe themselves to be over-taxed and under-represented. The name stuck, and the bandwagon rolled – pushed along by Facebook, email, and support of rightwing media figures, such as Glenn Beck and other Fox News pundits.
How many of them are there?
No one knows for sure – and that’s partly because the very nature of the Tea Party is contested. Sceptical critics, mainly on the left, but including some Republicans, have been arguing for months that the Tea Party isn’t so much grassroots as “Astroturf” – a carefully cultivated fake designed to look spontaneous by its über-capitalist puppet-masters. However, a recent investigation by The Washington Post found that 86% of local leaders report that most of their activists are newcomers to political activity. Many Tea Partiers are decent, hardworking types who have reluctantly been roused to action by their worries over the future of the US. Even so, there is a grain of truth in the quip by Obama’s aide, David Axelrod, that the Tea Party is “a grassroots citizens’ movement brought to you by a bunch of billionaires”.
So is this a puppet party?
Two of the key funders are Charles and David Koch of Koch Industries, one of the largest privately held businesses in the US. With a combined fortune of $35bn, the Kochs have donated more than $100m to right-wing causes since the 1980s, setting up anti-government think tanks and lobby groups known as the “Kochtopus”. According to a lengthy hatchet job on the brothers in the New Yorker in August, they are the billionaire brains behind the Tea Party. But here’s the rub. The Kochs have been funding similar movements for decades without conjuring up a Tea Party before now. It seems more credible that the money is following the public mood – of an anti-Democrat, anti-big-government backlash.
They’re all Republicans then?
The ones standing for election to Congress certainly are – a fact that’s proving a mixed blessing for the Republicans (see below). Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform and an influential voice in conservative politics, argued recently in the FT that the Tea Party has focused on peripheral issues (“shiny things”) that “captivate radio talk show hosts but fail to move voters” – such as Arizona’s restrictive immigration law, the proposed Park 51 Islamic centre (“Ground Zero mosque”) in Manhattan, and the never-ending “controversy” over whether Obama is really a Christian and/or native-born American. Mainstream Republican voices want the party to remain focused on its core message, cutting spending, and fear that the wackier Tea Partiers have contaminated the Republican brand. How badly contaminated may become clearer after 2 November.
‘Wacky’ as in extremist?
Yes. Some of the most high-profile candidates have attracted adverse publicity for their extreme views on everything from masturbation to witchcraft. Moreover, Tea Party events have sometimes been disfigured by racist slogans, mostly aimed at President Obama.
That said, for every crackpot, the Tea Parties have elevated a credible, eminently electable candidate, such as Pat Toomey in Pennsylvania, Marco Rubio in Florida and Colorado’s Ken Buck. So the movement can’t be written off entirely.
What’s the latest news?
Assuming Republicans regain control of the House of Representatives on Tuesday, the Republican Senate leader, Mitch McConnell, may well be demanding to know why an equivalent shift did not happen in the upper chamber, argues Edward Luce in the FT this week. Republicans need to take ten of the 37 seats up for grabs, of which only 12 are competitive. One of the easiest should have been Delaware, but DeMint and his allies backed Christine O’Donnell, a flaky Tea Party darling, over Mike Castle, a seasoned Republican who “would have waltzed to victory”. According to opinion polls, the Republicans may also lose several other states (such as Kentucky, Alaska and Nevada) where Tea Party figures have grabbed the Republican nomination, but which ordinarily ought to have offered easy victories.