The Tea Party And The Remaking Of Republican Conservatism Part 8

Fox News makes viewers both more conservative and less informed. The introduction of Fox News into the cable roster has been shown to have coincided with an uptick in voting for Republican presidential candidates.8 The capacity to s.h.i.+ft U.S. voting patterns suggests that Fox News has a very real persuasive power, although obviously people predisposed to be conservatives choose the network they watch. But Fox weighs more heavily-and in a way more worrisome for U.S. democracy-by spreading misinformation and evoking racial and ethnic stereotypes. Watch a day of Fox, and you will have the impression that illegal immigrants, criminals, and badly behaving people of color are overrunning America. You will also get the impression that federal officials and liberals are constantly plotting to take away the rights and ruin the family finances of regular Americans-all to aggrandize themselves and take care of "freeloading" supporters. You will hear dire warnings about the supposedly imminent collapse of the national economy and U.S. currency (and commercials will urge you to buy gold to ward off disaster in the looming economic collapse).

Fox News viewers are more likely than other news consumers to be misinformed on political issues. In 2010, Fox News watchers were fourteen points more likely to believe-mistakenly in most instances-that their own taxes had gone up, and thirty-one points more likely to believe that the health care reform law pa.s.sed under Obama would increase the deficit (when in fact it is projected to significantly reduce the long-term federal deficit).9 As mentioned above, we saw evidence of such policy misinformation in our interviews-in all cases speaking with Tea Partiers who reported regularly getting all or almost all of their news from Fox and other overtly conservative sources. In more than one instance, moreover, we tracked the falsehoods directly to Fox.10 At a Tea Party meeting in Ma.s.sachusetts, people discussed the possibility that the "SmartGrid" (an infrastructure improvement to the electricity grid, a plan approximately as controversial as road repair) was in fact a plan that would give the government control over the thermostats in people's homes. We wondered how such an outlandish conspiracy theory could have been accepted by the intelligent and well-educated people at this meeting-until we checked the Fox News transcripts. Glenn Beck had indeed raised this weird possibility on his show.11 Tea Partiers' factually inaccurate beliefs about many policy matters are particularly striking given their relatively high levels of education and overall savvy about the political process. It is hard to escape the conclusion that deliberate propagation of falsehoods by Fox and other powerful media outlets is responsible for mis-arming otherwise adept Tea Partiers, feeding them inaccurate facts and falsely hyped fears. If so, the elite media impresarios who have encouraged and helped to shape Tea Party activism are more responsible than the gra.s.sroots members themselves for marrying activism to falsehoods and stoking destructive social stereotypes that pit older white Americans-the Fox viewers.h.i.+p-against younger, less privileged, often minority fellow citizens.

So far, we have disagreed with Harry Reid's declaration in January 2011 that the Tea Party will soon disappear. Whatever happens with the economy, we expect Tea Party forces to remain in the field for quite some time, even if the Tea Party label loses its charm. Many gra.s.sroots Tea Partiers will continue to attend meetings, and those who rarely attend will still respond to emails urging them to attend rallies or turn out at the polls to vote for conservative candidates. The right-wing media, too, will keep doing its thing- put out whatever Roger Ailes of Fox News and other key decision-makers think will favor the electoral fortunes of the GOP and advance conservative policy causes.

Even more certain to stay active are the national advocacy organizations, whose followings in email lists and on the Web have greatly swelled in the Tea Party period. Americans for Prosperity and FreedomWorks now have many more gra.s.sroots ties, and much greater reach into many states and localities, than they did before 2009. They will continue to stoke free-market preferences and engage gra.s.sroots citizens to push favored legislation-at the state level as well as nationally-and will do so with greater clout in and around the GOP than they had before the Tea Party emerged. The roving billionaires who fund these advocacy organizations are not going to let up either. They remain alarmed at Obama's presidency. In an era of steadily rising wealth and incomes at the very top, they have nearly unlimited wherewithal to influence public debates and elections-even as the Supreme Court has cleared away legal obstacles to the sway of fat cat money in politics.

Nevertheless, even if organization, resources, and strong networks keep its various parts active for some time to come, it is hard to see the Tea Party as such hanging together for many more years. The "Tea Party" label has become more ho-hum. Elites that find the label less than helpful for electoral or policy struggles will downplay it during the general presidential contest in 2012. The greater limitation for the Tea Party is the age of its partic.i.p.ants. Gra.s.sroots Tea Partiers are mostly older people whose activism will of necessity wane in coming years. GOP supporters and Fox viewers, too, are disproportionately from the ranks of older white Americans. Both the Tea Party gra.s.s roots, and key inst.i.tutions surrounding it, must find ways to appeal to younger cohorts of Americans, who are more racially diverse, or their decline is a.s.sured.

For the coming months and years, however, Tea Party activism and its elite supporters will sharpen social tensions in U.S. politics. As Brookings demographer William Frey and journalist Ronald Brownstein have pointed out, U.S. politics finds itself in a period of cultural mismatch between generational groups.12 Older Americans are disproportionately white and often wary about paying taxes for programs to help younger cohorts, who are increasingly racially and ethnically diverse. The oldsters value Social Security and Medicare, to be sure, but feel they have already paid for them through lifetimes of work and tax contributions. When the federal budget is strained, older Tea Partiers want to make sure that cuts. .h.i.t programs other than theirs.

The "grey" versus "brown" divide-a tension that superimposes divisions by age and experience, income, and ethnicity-is increasingly apparent for the United States as a whole. The mismatch is especially acute in certain states, including major Republican strongholds in the West and South, where recent immigrants coexist with older whites who were reared and began their working lives in an era of restricted immigration.13 Budget battles can be more naked in the states, too, because potential tax increases to pay for public education and Medicaid would ask older, disproportionately white Americans to contribute more to sustain programs benefiting younger, more racially diverse residents. As we have seen, the Tea Party is very much a reaction by older white conservative Americans who resent and fear what they think might be the political accompaniments of a nation transformed by rising younger cohorts with different experiences, values, and social characteristics. Barack Obama's presidency, coming at a moment of national economic crisis that strained public budgets, only crystallized and heightened Tea Party fears on both the social and fiscal fronts.

If Obama is reelected in 2012, the generationally grounded fears will remain, and Republicans supported by Tea Partiers will continue to push against Democratic priorities. If Obama is defeated, the Republican president who replaces him will come under strong pressure to accept radical cuts in public programs that benefit younger Americans, as well as tax cuts for the wealthy that will necessitate restructurings of Medicare and Social Security for future cohorts of retirees. Elderly Tea Partiers themselves may be held whole by Republicans fearful of angering their most aroused followers, but the children and grandchildren of Tea Partiers will suffer from drastic GOP cutbacks along with all other younger Americans. The big winners will be the super-rich fat cats who have manipulated Tea Party activism with such glee.

"Tea Party" as a fas.h.i.+onable label is losing its l.u.s.ter, as the media and many conservative elites move on. But the outlooks, values, and heightened engagement of many older American citizens who gravitated toward this protest effort starting in 2009 will remain. Tea Party fears and outlooks are central to American politics in a period of culturally polarized generational change. For better and worse, Tea Partystyle politics is likely to remain, for some time to come, a pivotal part of ongoing, fierce disputes about what U.S. government should do and not do. Tea Party activism is a generationally bounded variant of long-standing forms of conservative populism in America.

The Tea Party in all of its manifestations has pulled the Republican Party sharply toward the right, and s.h.i.+fted U.S. public debates at a critical juncture, blunting the reformist force of Barack Obama's historic presidency. The Tea Party's place in history, side by side with Obama, is a.s.sured. Even so, the longer-term results and after-effects of Tea Party mobilizations remain to be seen. Will elite and gra.s.sroots Tea Party efforts prove to have permanently s.h.i.+fted the center of gravity of U.S. politics? Will they have a long-term effect on the capacity of American government to respond to a changing society and ensure opportunity and security for citizens of all ages and backgrounds? These crucial questions remain as yet unanswered. Only time and future politics will tell.

Notes.

INTRODUCTION.

1. Vanessa Williamson attended this meeting and took notes.

2. Theda Skocpol attended this meeting and took notes.

3. Vanessa Williamson attended this meeting and took notes.

4. More details and references appear in Chapter 3.

5. Johanna Neuman, "As Voters Go to the Polls to Pick His Successor, George W. Bush Hits New Low in Approval Rating," Los Angeles Times, November 4, 2008.

6. Allen Barr and Mike Allen, "Steele Trap? GOP Fears Grow," Politico, March 4, 2009.

7. See, for examples, the stories about a possible Democratic-led "New New Deal" in the November 24, 2010 issue of Time, which featured a memorable cover showing Barack Obama in an FDR pose, riding in an open convertible with a cigarette dangling from his grinning mouth.

8. Jeffrey M. Jones, "In First 100 Days, Obama Seen as Making a Bipartisan Effort," Gallup, April 24, 2009.

9. The first national media figure to bring significant attention to the Porkulus protests was Mich.e.l.le Malkin. See her blog post from February 16, 2009: http://mich.e.l.lemalkin.com/2009/02/16/from-the-boston-tea-party-to-your-neighborhood-pork-protest/. In April, Malkin offered a snarky "cheat sheet" for reporters struggling to catch up with the Tea Party story: http://mich.e.l.lemalkin.com/2009/04/15/a-tax-day-tea-party-cheat-sheet-how-it-all-started/. (Both blog posts are available as of May 26, 2011.) In explaining the Tea Party's origins, Malkin featured the story of Keli Carender, who held an anti-Porkulus protest in Seattle in early February 2009. Malkin's framing of the Tea Party's origins was apparently quite successful; Carender later appeared prominently in New York Times reporter Kate Zernike's book. Kate Zernike, Boiling Mad: Inside Tea Party America (New York: Times Books, Henry Holt, 2010), pp. 1319. Like Malkin, Zernike credits Carender with organizing the original Tea Party protest. This is in tune with Zernike's overall emphasis on young libertarians as central to Tea Party activities. We find the origins story unconvincing, however, because there is no reason to believe that "Tea Party" activities would have spread like wildfire without persistent promotion from conservative media-and without a catchy name. "Anti-Porkulus" was not an electrifying rallying cry.

10. Video of the Santelli "rant" can be found at CNBC's website, available at http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=1039849853 as of May 21, 2011.

11. The historical facts of the Boston Tea Party are not actually entirely in keeping with the common perception of the Tea Party as an anti-tax protest. For more information, see Joseph J. Thorndike, "A Tax Revolt or Revolting Taxes?" Tax History Project, December 14, 2005. Available at http://www.taxhistory.org/thp/readings.nsf/ArtWeb/1BC5839831CD15EE852570DD0061D496?OpenDoc.u.ment as of May 26, 2011.

12. Mark Lloyd, "Why the Left Will Never Understand the Tea Party," Tea Party Review 1(1) (March 2011), p. 7. Note the grand-parental perspective from which Lloyd writes. He is speaking of the feelings of a movement mostly made up of older Americans worried that things will not be the same as they depart the scene.

13. Several Tea Party members we spoke to referred to this promise made by President Obama during his campaign for the presidency. See Angela Galloway, "Obama: We'll 'transform America,'" Seattle Post-Intelligencer, December 11, 2007.

14. Conservatives involved in the original February 27th Tea Parties hailed from the online networks Top Conservatives on Twitter and Smart Girl Politics; long-standing anti-tax campaigners including American Spectator, the Heartland Inst.i.tute, and Americans for Tax Reform; as well as veterans of the mid-2008 "Don't Go" campaign that urged members of Congress to stay in session to lift the moratorium on offsh.o.r.e drilling. Instrumental to this early mobilization were loose networks organized around certain Twitter "hashtags"-the keywords Twitter users apply to tag the subject matter of their online comments-which allowed activists from a variety of different conservative networks to connect and combine forces.

15. Estimating the total crowd size of many protests held across the country is a difficult task. Data a.n.a.lyst and New York Times contributor Nate Silver came up with an estimate of "300,000+" on April 16th, 2009. You can see his calculations and data sources at http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/04/tea-party-nonpartisan-attendance.html as of May 26, 2011.

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

17. See "Government Restraint Group Forms in Mathews," Gloucester-Mathews Gazette-Journal, June 19, 2009. The article has a picture of the founding members of the local Tea Party meeting around picnic tables, and ends with information on how others could get more information at the Peninsula Patriots website on Meetup.com. Another picture of larger numbers of Peninsula Patriots and others from the area preparing, signs in hand, to board two buses to travel to the national Tea Party protest march on September 12, 2009, in Was.h.i.+ngton DC, appears in the Gloucester-Mathews Gazette-Journal, Thursday, September 17, 2009, p. 22A.

18. The figure comes from ABC News, citing the Was.h.i.+ngton DC fire department. Russell Goldman, "Tea Party Protesters March on Was.h.i.+ngton," ABC News, September 12, 2009. Some conservative activists, including Matt Kibbe of FreedomWorks, dramatically inflated this number. For an a.n.a.lysis, see Nate Silver, "Size Matters; So Do Lies," available at http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/09/size-matters-so-do-lies.html as of May 26, 2011.

19. More details and references on Tea Party Express are included in Chapter 3.

20. More details and references appear in Chapter 3. Journalist Kate Zernike does a good job of telling about the efforts of FreedomWorks to stoke the Tea Party. See her Boiling Mad: Inside Tea Party America (New York: Times Books, Henry Holt, 2010), chapter 2.

21. Lloyd, "Why the Left Will Never Understand the Tea Party," p. 7.

22. Taki Oldham, "The Billionaires' Tea Party: How Corporate America is Faking a Gra.s.sroots Revolution," DVD doc.u.mentary distributed by the Media Education Foundation, Northhampton, Ma.s.sachusetts, starting in March 2011.

23. This disconnection is doc.u.mented and a.n.a.lyzed in Theda Skocpol, Diminished Democracy: From Members.h.i.+p to Management in American Civic Life (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2004).

24. Andrew Crutchfield and Will Eger worked for many hours to visit and catalogue the websites of every Tea Party group in the country.

25. The results are reported in Amy Gardner, "Gauging the Scope of the Tea Party Movement in America," Was.h.i.+ngton Post, October 24, 2010. We have had the chance to compare our findings to the dataset compiled by the Post team.

CHAPTER 1.

1. As we explained in the Introduction, pseudonyms will be italicized the first time we use them in each chapter.

2. A more detailed discussion of survey research appears in Vanessa Williamson, Theda Skocpol, and John Coggin, "The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism," Perspectives on Politics 9 (1) (March 2011). We also look at polling in relation to media storylines in Chapter 4 of this book.

3. Nate Silver includes a figure with trends in favorable and unfavorable views in "Poll Shows More Americans Have Unfavorable Views of Tea Party," FiveThirtyEight, New York Times, March 30, 2011.

4. Alan I. Abramowitz, "Grand Old Tea Party: Partisan Polarization and the Rise of the Tea Party Movement," paper prepared for delivery at the Conference on the Tea Party Movement, University of California, Berkeley, October 2010, p. 12.

5. Larry J. Sabato, "Pendulum Swing," in Pendulum Swing, edited by Larry J. Sabato (Boston: Longman, 2011), p. 40.

6. For indications of basic active support, see evidence from the April 2010 New York Times/CBS poll summarized in Kate Zernike and Megan Thee-Brenan, "Poll Finds Tea Party Backers Wealthier and More Educated," New York Times, April 14, 2010; and evidence from a June 2010 NBC/Wall Street Journal poll discussed in Abramowitz, "Grand Old Tea Party," p. 12.

7. Our dataset, a tally of all local groups in all fifty states with any presence on the Internet, was last updated in the late summer of 2011.

8. The meetings we attended in the first half of 2011 fell in this range. In 2010, the Was.h.i.+ngton Post found that over half of Tea Parties had fewer than fifty partic.i.p.ants at their last meeting, by their own count. Amy Gardner, "Gauging the scope of the tea party movement in America," Was.h.i.+ngton Post, October 24, 2010.

9. The very active Jefferson Area Tea Party in Charlottesville, Virginia, has about 100 members on its list, about half of whom tend to show up at any given meeting, according to our observations and reports from the group leader.

10. In Chapter 3, we will have more to say about the more particular life-circ.u.mstances and skills of men and women who founded local groups and provide ongoing leaders.h.i.+p. In this chapter we stick to the characteristics broadly shared by Tea Party people.

11. CBS/New York Times poll, April 512, 2010.

12. The CBS/New York Times poll from April 512, 2010, found that three-quarters of Tea Party supporters are 45 or older. The Winston Group poll from April 1, 2010, found that 70% of Tea Party supporters are 45 or older.

13. NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, June 1721, 2010.

14. "The Tea Party and Religion," report from the Pew Research Center, February 23, 2011.

15. CBS/New York Times poll, April 512, 2010.

16. John Green, political scientist at the University of Akron, was interviewed by phone by Theda Skocpol on April 8, 2011. He reported seeing both minorities and younger people at the Akron meeting, adding up to about a dozen out of 70 people in attendance. Green also attended a meeting near Columbus where all Tea Partiers were older-the youngest 55, he estimated.

17. Noted on the Greater Phoenix website in May 2011.

18. This point is ably elaborated and doc.u.mented in Abramowitz, "Grand Old Tea Party."

19. Website accessed in March 2011.

20. For examples, see: Zachary Courser, "The Tea Party at the Election," The Forum, 8 (4), article 5; Sean J. Miller, "Survey: Four in 10 Tea Party Members are Democrats or Independents," The Hill, April 4, 2010; and Andrew Malcolm, "Myth-Busting Polls: Tea Party Members are Average Americans, 41 Percent are Democrats, Independents," Los Angeles Times, April 5, 2010.

21. In addition to polls cited here, see Stanley B. Greenberg, James Carville, Jim Gerstein, Peyton M. Craighill, and Kate Monninger, "Special Report on the Tea Party Movement," Democracy Corps, July 19, 2010. Available at http://www.democracycorps.com/strategy/2010/07/special-report-on-the-tea-party-movement/ as of May 21, 2011.

22. See, for example, the Quinnipiac Poll, March 1621, 2010 and Stanley B. Greenberg, James Carville, Jim Gerstein, Peyton M. Craighill, and Kate Monninger, "Special Report on the Tea Party Movement."

23. Frank Newport, "Tea Party Supporters Overlap Republican Base," Gallup Survey Report, July 2, 2010. Available at http://www.gallup.com/poll/141098/tea-party-supporters-overlap-republican-base.aspx as of May 21, 2011.

24. NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, June 1721, 2010.

25. "Tea Party's Hard Line on Spending Divides the GOP," Pew Research Center Publications, February 11, 2011. Ekins, "Character and Origins" also pulls together evidence from multiple surveys to doc.u.ment att.i.tudinal differences between Tea Partiers and nonTea Party Republicans. Similarly, 69% of "active Republicans" rated Obama negatively in 2008, for example, but 91% of Tea Partiers rated him negatively in mid-2010. Abramowitz, "Grand Old Tea Party,' Tables 2 and 3.

26. "Most Want Budget Compromise but Split on Who's to Blame for a Shutdown," Pew Research Center Publications, April 4, 2011.

27. The collapse of the construction industry is a major reason that white unemployment, for the first time in recorded data, was more than half that of blacks. Data from: Anna Turner, "Jobs Crisis Fact Sheet," Economic Policy Inst.i.tute, March 8, 2010.

28. Dannis Jacobe, "Nearly Half of Small-Business Owners May Never Retire," Gallup, October 1, 2010.

29. Peter Goodman, "Fuel Prices s.h.i.+ft Math for Life in Far Suburbs," New York Times, June 25, 2008. Conor Dougherty, "In the Exurbs, the American Dream is Up for Rent," Wall Street Journal, March 31, 2009.

30. Matt Nesvisky, "The Career Effects of Graduating in a Recession," National Bureau of Economic Research, November 2006.

31. "Most Want Budget Compromise but Split on Who's to Blame for a Shutdown," Pew Research Center Publications, April 4, 2011.

32. CBS/New York Times poll, April 512, 2010.

33. Emily McClintock Ekins, "The Character and Origins of the Tea Party Movement," unpublished working paper delivered at the Midwest Political Science a.s.sociation, Chicago, Illinois, April 2011, p. 17.

34. In interviews in 2010 and 2011, Tea Partiers did not explain the Great Recession as a market failure. It is the result, in their view, of too much government interference, not too little. One example frequently cited by interviewees is the Community Reinvestment Act, which they believe created an unstable boom in homeowners.h.i.+p among irresponsible people. We discuss Tea Party views of government in more detail in Chapter 2.

35. "Tea Party sign threatens gun violence if health care pa.s.ses," Think Progress, March 20, 2010, available at http://www.thinkprogress.org/2010/03/20/code-red-gun/ as of March 14, 2010. An interesting a.n.a.lysis of the racial dynamic in the public response to violent rhetoric can be found in Tim Wise, "What if the 'Tea Party' were black?" Alternet, April 25, 2010, available at http://www.alternet.org/story/146616/what_if_the_tea_party_were_black as of May 26, 2010.

36. Andy Barr, "Tea Partiers told to 'drop by' Tom Perriello's home," Politico, March 22, 2010.

37. Ibid. and Andy Barr, "FBI investigates Virginia incident," Politico, March 24, 2010.

38. Ian Urbina, "Beyond Beltway, Health Care Debate Turns Hostile," New York Times, August 7, 2009.

39. Justine Sharrock, "Oath Keepers and the Age of Treason," Mother Jones, March/April 2010.

40. David Barstow, "Tea Party Lights Fuse for Rebellion on the Right," New York Times, February 10, 2010.

41. "Oath Keepers Battered by Members' Arrests," Intelligence Report, Southern Poverty Law Center, Fall 2010, p. 139.

42. The John Birch Society advertis.e.m.e.nt that includes this description of the Civil Rights movement appeared on page A10 of the Palm Beach Post-Times on October 31, 1965, and can be seen at http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=u4syAAAAIBAJ&sjid=ZbcFAAAAIBAJ&pg=4291,7598936 as of May 21, 2011. John Birch Society opposition to fluoridation has been widely reported, including on the December 23rd episode of the Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC. In their response to the Maddow program, the John Birch Society claimed that they had opposed fluoridation as "a precedent for the socialized medicine" and "part of the Soviet communist state." See http://www.jbs.org/jbs-news-feed/5785-rachel-maddow-recycles-falsehoods-against-the-john-birch-society, available as of May 21, 2011.

43. CBS News/New York Times poll, April 512, 2010.

44. "The Tea Party and Religion," The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, a.n.a.lysis published February 23, 2011.

45. Ekins, "Character and Origins," especially Figure 2, p. 30.

46. One of our Virginia interviewees told us about this, after hearing the story on a Tea Party Patriots national conference call.

47. CBS News/New York Times poll, April 512, 2010.

48. Brian Kates, "Tea Party Convention's Racial Brouhaha," New York Daily News, February 5, 2010. "About Dr. Scarborough," available at: http://www.visionamerica.us/about-us/about-dr-scarborough/ as of March 14, 2010.

49. CBS News/New York Times poll, April 512, 2010.

50. The question on political activity asked by the CBS/New York Times poll is an unusual one, but by any comparison, the Tea Party is an active group. In 1994, only 14% of American adults reported having worked for a party or candidate in the past three or four years. Gallup/CCFR Survey of American Public Opinion and U.S. Foreign Policy 1995, October 725, 1994: "Some people are quite active in politics, while others prefer not to take an active part. During the last three to four years have you done any of the things listed on this card? Just call off the number in front of any of the things you have done ... voted in the Presidential election, voted in a local or state election, worked for a political party or candidate, gone to a political meeting to hear a candidate speak, asked someone to vote for your party or candidate, worn a campaign b.u.t.ton or displayed a campaign poster, written or spoken to a public official about some personal need or problem, or written or spoken to a public official about some political issue or problem?" (Voted in Presidential election, 73 percent; Voted in local or state election, 68 percent; Worked for party or candidate, 14 percent; Gone to a political meeting, 22 percent; Asked someone to vote, 25 percent; Worn a campaign b.u.t.ton or displayed poster, 25 percent; Written or spoken to a public official about personal need or problem, 23 percent; Written or spoken to a public official about political issue or problem, 25 percent; None of these, 20 percent.) 51. David Riley, "Holliston woman leads Boston Tea Party," MetroWest Daily News, February 22, 2010.

52. Sidney Verba, Kay Lehman Schlozman, and Henry Brady, Voice and Equality: Civic Voluntarism in American Politics (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995). Robert D. Putnam, "Bowling Alone: America's Declining Social Capital." Journal of Democracy 6(1) (1995), p. 6578.

53. Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals (New York: Vintage, 1971).

54. Emily Ekins' breakdown of differences between social conservatives and libertarians in the Tea Party finds no gender difference. Both camps were tilted toward men in the surveys she a.n.a.lyzed. Emily Ekins, "The Character and Origins of the Tea Party Movement."

55. Theda Skocpol, Protecting Soldiers and Mothers: The Political Origins of Social Policy in the United States (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1995).