Local leaders in national social movements: The Tea Party

2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 373-390
Author(s):  
George Ehrhardt
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Tea Party ◽  
Local Leaders

scholarly journals Comment: American Civilization, Catholic Social Thought, and the Populist-Oriented Social Policy of President Donald J. Trump

2019 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
pp. 255-263
Author(s):  
Joseph A. Varacalli ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
Social Thought ◽  
Tea Party ◽  
Social Policies ◽  
Catholic Social Thought ◽  
The Social ◽  
Primary Focus ◽  
The Relationship

This Comment concerns itself with the relationship between the social policies of U.S. President Donald J. Trump and, respectively, American civilization and Catholic social thought. Also included are discussions of two recent American populist social movements, the Tea Party and that one generated by a commitment to the Trump Presidency, insofar as the latter relates to the primary focus of this Comment.

Foundational Invocations

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angélica Maria Bernal
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Radical Change ◽  
Tea Party ◽  
Founding Fathers ◽  
Normative Authority ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Us ◽  
Constitutional Thought

This chapter examines appeals to the authority of original founding events, founding ideals, and Founding Fathers in contemporary constitutional democracies. It argues that these “foundational invocations” reveal a window into the unique, albeit underexamined function that foundings play: as a vehicle of persuasion and legitimation. It organizes this examination around two of the most influential visions of founding in the US tradition: the originalist, situated in the discourses of conservative social movements such as the Tea Party and in conservative constitutional thought; and the promissory, situated in the discourses of social movements such as the civil rights movement. Though they might appear radically dissimilar, this chapter illustrates how these two influential conceptualizations of founding together reveal a shared political foundationalism that conflates the normative authority of a regime for its de facto one, thus circumscribing radical change by obscuring the past and placing founding invocations and their actors beyond question.

Can You Hear Us Now? Why Republicans Are Listening to the Tea Party

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher S. Parker ◽  
Matt A. Barreto
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Social Movements ◽  
Political Participation ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Political Mobilization ◽  
Tea Party ◽  
Public Officials ◽  
Political Success

This chapter evaluates the proposition that the Tea Party promotes political mobilization beyond other factors known to promote activism. It appears as though the Tea Party and its supporters have the potential to convert their sentiments into public policy. The principal vehicle for doing this is through political mobilization, pressuring public officials to represent one's interests. Social movements exist not just to bring attention to their issue, but also to capture the attention of public officials, often by promising to elect or eject from office key allies and opponents. Based on their activism and political success in 2010, the Tea Party appears to be the most recent exemplar of the type of social movement capable of sparking political participation.

Who Is the Tea Party and What Do They Want?

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher S. Parker ◽  
Matt A. Barreto
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Social Movements ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Economic Freedom ◽  
Tea Party ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Fiscal Responsibility ◽  
The Real ◽  
Conventional View

This introductory chapter considers how people are driven to support the Tea Party from the anxiety they feel as they perceive the America they know is slipping away, threatened by the rapidly changing face of what they believe is the “real” America: a heterosexual, Christian, middle-class (mostly) male, white country. The Tea Party's emergence is the latest in a series of national right-wing social movements that have cropped up in America since the nineteenth century. This chapter argues that support for the Tea Party is motivated by something beyond the more conventional view of conservatism in which economic freedom and small government, as well as social and fiscal responsibility, are prized. Instead, people who are attracted to the Tea Party are reactionary conservatives: people who fear change of any kind.

DENIAL, DEFLECTION, AND DISTRACTION: NEUTRALIZING CHARGES OF RACISM BY THE TEA PARTY MOVEMENT*

2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 137-156
Author(s):  
Malaena J. Taylor ◽  
Mary Bernstein
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Collective Identity ◽  
Political Efficacy ◽  
Identity Work ◽  
Tea Party ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Tea Party Movement ◽  
Racist Ideology ◽  
The U.S

This article integrates theory on contentious movements and racism to develop what we call the “stigma neutralization model,” which explains how activists challenge stigmatizing identities in order to build a positive collective identity. Using original ethnographic research, we examine the response of a local Tea Party group to charges of racism. If a social movement is seen as racist, their political efficacy may be damaged. By analyzing backstage identity work, we illustrate that the strategies involved in distancing both activists and the movement from charges of racism reflect broader cultural understandings of the U.S. as being a post-racial or “colorblind” society. Our stigma neutralization model illustrates how activists deny, deflect, and distract from charges that activists are racist, thus maintaining and reproducing racist ideology, while reconstituting both individual and movement identities as unspoiled and racially tolerant. We discuss the implications of our findings for antiminority majority social movements more generally.

scholarly journals Activists and Non-Activists: Differential Activist Identification in the Tea Party and Occupy Movements

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jesse Klein
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Identity Politics ◽  
Collective Identity ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Tea Party ◽  
Wall Street ◽  
Identity Negotiations ◽  
Short And Long Term

Semantically, “activist” and “activism” are convenient descriptors for participants in social movements and are commonly used by social movement scholars. This study demonstrates, however, that these labels obscure the complex decisions participants make in negotiating their involvement. Few researchers examine the importance of deconstructing traditional assumptions of activist identities and the nuances in activist negotiation and identification. Using qualitative research methods, this paper explores whether social movement participants engage in complex identity negotiations wherein they interactionally situate and critically assess their involvement. This research draws on in-depth interviews conducted with 58 social movement participants from two local-level, contemporary social movements: The Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street Movements. Respondents provided complex narratives about their activist and non-activist identities, which became apparent through analyzing the interviews using thematic coding. The findings show that respondents do negotiate their identities along a spectrum from activist to non-activist through interaction with other participants and critical assessment of their own involvement. These findings also reveal that the process of differential activist identification has short- and long-term implications for participant involvement and collective identity where disagreements over the activist label can fracture the organization and sustainability of a movement. By assessing the ways movement participants identify with activism and how they use their identification through interaction to promote or deconstruct group solidarity, we can begin to explore the consequences of this type of identity politics for contemporary social movements.

scholarly journals Unconventional protests: Partisans and independents outside the Republican and Democratic national conventions

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 205316801667413
Author(s):  
Michael T. Heaney
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Tea Party ◽  
Occupy Wall Street ◽  
National Party ◽  
Wall Street ◽  
Presidential Candidates ◽  
Black Lives Matter ◽  
Micro Level

Protests at national party conventions are an important setting in which political parties and social movements challenge one another. This article examines the motivations of participants in these events. Drawing upon data from surveys of protesters outside the 2008 national party conventions, it focuses on how partisan and independent political identifications correspond with the reasons that individuals give for protesting. The results demonstrate that there are some conditions under which independents place a greater focus on issues than do partisans and under which partisans place a greater focus on presidential candidates than do independents. However, there are also conditions under which independents are inclined to work alongside partisans, such as trying to stop the election of a threatening candidate and in championing an issue outside their opposing party’s convention. The article argues that micro-level partisan identifications are thus likely to affect the broader structure of party coalitions. These considerations promise to become increasingly relevant as social movements – such as the Tea Party, Occupy Wall Street, and Black Lives Matter – launch new campaigns against or within established parties.

MOVEMENT-COUNTERMOVEMENT DYNAMICS AND MOBILIZING THE ELECTORATE*

2018 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 285-305
Author(s):  
Burrel Vann
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Empirical Support ◽  
Tea Party ◽  
Voter Mobilization ◽  
Political Candidates ◽  
Independent Voters

Social movements draw attention to how their goals align with political candidates but also intensify tensions in local settings. These tensions can take the form of oppositional voter mobilization when the movement is perceived as a formidable threat. In this article, I argue that protest signals the potential for electoral victory, and that the mobilization of opposing voters results when countermovement organizations frame the potential for victory as threatening to voter's interests. I provide empirical support by examining Senate voting outcomes in the 2010 midterm election and show that increases in Democratic voting were most pronounced in counties with high Tea Party rally activity. In complementary analyses, I find that Independent voters are more likely to oppose the Tea Party in counties with higher rally activity, and this opposition increased their likelihood of voting for Democrats.

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