The Tea Party

I first want to make this clear: I don’t believe that anyone has any clear or definite answers regarding the Tea Party. That being said, I do think that the recession has had a great deal to do with the rise of the Tea Party because of the amount of disillusionment that many people have felt losing jobs, financial security, homes and facing a declining standard of living. There is no question of the influence that the Tea Party has had on politics and the media in the United States as of late: according to the Hoffington Post, they are even launching their own print media as a “conservative-insurgent response to the ‘lamestream’ media,” (Tea Party to Launch New Magazine at CPAC, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/09/tea-party-review-magazine-cpac-launch_n_820980.html). Tea Party supporters may not have been directly influenced by economic hardship (only 6% report being out of work in the CBS-NYT survey) but this does not mean that the recession has not affected people’s distrust in politicians and general disillusionment and fear.

It really struck me reading the story in Zernike (starts on page 30) of a woman who was a disillusioned voter and stumbled upon a Tea Party rally and felt automatically attracted, she felt at home. “She was struggling to find leaders she could embrace,” (Zernike 31). I think that the recession has been largely responsible for the great percentage of Americans who feel they cannot trust politicians and blame them for the economic problems this country has been facing. I see the Tea Party as being almost a support group for disillusioned Americans who feel they have nowhere else to turn. I think it is

My primary source is my (future) father-in-law who is an avid supporter of the Tea Party. He is personally very distraught with the “direction that the country” has gone in for the last 12 years. He is angry with the system and with inequalities that he sees but doesn’t really have answers. The Tea Party speaks to him because the Tea Party is very solutions based: they provide direct solutions to complicated problems. They also provide a direction for his anger and disillusionment: its the liberals, the illegal immigrants, large government, unions, black people, the welfare state.

I see a number of connections with the Tea Party and Howard Beale in Network. Howard Beale was someone who voiced what the population was feeling- anger. “Given a choice to describe themselves as ‘dissatisfied but not angry,’ 53 percent opted for ‘angry’- angry about health care, about government spending, about government ‘not representing the people,” (Zernike 7). Yelling out your window that “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore” is a way to not only feel like you are part of something, but that you have agency to do something about your anger. I feel that the Tea Party allows people to voice their anger and disappointment and feel that they have more agency within government and their own lives.