The Tea Party movement takes its name and direction from the American colonial period. Using mottoes like “Don’t tread on me,” Tea Party groups hope to draw parallels between early American opposition to British “taxation without representation” and contemporary federal spending and budget deficits. The historical Boston Tea Party took place December 16, 1773 when members of the Sons of Liberty destroyed nearly 35,000 pounds of tea.
Historian Christopher Hibbert argues that the men most responsible were not everyday, ordinary Americans, but “…smugglers who brought in foreign tea, as well as the merchants who were making fortunes from its distribution…” Gregor Peter Schmitz, writing in Spiegel (July 29, 2011) unwittingly makes the historical tea party connection: “They see themselves as outsiders, even as they sit in Congress and enjoy the kinds of job benefits they would like to strip from their fellow Americans.”
The Tea Party Movement as Post Modern Populism
Michael Crowley estimates that approximately twenty-five percent of Americans support the Tea Party movement (Time, August 15, 2011). Further, the movement is made up of many smaller groups. Unlike the dominant political parties, there is no centralization in the movement although various candidates identify with it and with Tea Party goals. Texas Governor Rick Perry, for example, opposes Social Security, a view many tea partiers agree with.
The pre-Revolutionary War Tea Party was aimed at the British government’s taxes on tea. The contemporary Tea Party opposes the existing government, claiming it is out of control and refuses to address unlimited spending on entitlements. The movement seeks a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution and refuses any higher taxes on the wealthy, referring to this as wealth redistribution. Tea partiers also oppose federal bailouts of banks and big business. Sarah Palin referred to the business tradeoff as “crony capitalism.”
But how “populist” is the Tea Party movement? Historians of the colonial era view the December 1773 event in Boston as a non-violent but reactionary event that may not have reflected the views of many Americans (one third of all colonial American, according to John Adams, were loyalists during the conflict). British historians view the action as “premeditated piracy.” In the same vein, Lee Harris writes in Policy Review, “…the Tea Party movement is not about ideas. It is all about attitude.” Walter Russell Mead comments that, “The Tea Party movement is best understood as a contemporary revolt of Jacksonian common sense against elites perceived as both misguided and corrupt.” (Foreign Affairs, March/April 2011)
Learning the Wrong Lessons from History
Tea Party supporters want to dismantle much of contemporary America. This includes moving away from public education, weakening unions, and defunding federal entitlement programs. Supporters, however, favor a strong defense, which means that military budget cuts are anathema. Mead writes that, “When the United States is attacked, they believe in total war leading to the unconditional surrender of the enemy.”
The movement believes in “American exceptionalism…and an American world mission” (Mead). Although this is certainly not new in American history, the disdain of internationalism and cooperative global ventures in the 21st Century impacts views of American sovereignty. The fusion of an America First policy with evangelicalism leads to charges of Dominionism. The ruinous post 9/11 wars have added four trillion dollars to the federal debt (NPR, June 29, 2011 – Brown University study).
In 1937, Franklin Roosevelt ended his New Deal policies too early and considered a balanced budget but then the economy slumped, threatening the nation’s economic progress. This led to the recession of 1937. Today’s Tea Party movement offers solutions very similar to opponents of FDR’s New Deal. The movement, however, never goes beyond rhetoric; there are no clear, workable alternatives presented. As the Sons of Liberty sang in 1773, “Bring your axes…we’ll pay no taxes…”
Let Them Eat Cake
Marie Antoinette never actually said “let them eat cake” when told that there was no bread for the ordinary, everyday French. But that was before television and the internet. During the GOP presidential debate at the Reagan Library in California, moderator Wolf Blitzer referenced a young man dying because he had no health insurance: “…society should just let him die?” Astoundingly, many in the audience shouted “yes!” This is the Tea Party answer.
The Tea Party movement sees itself as an extension of the Sons of Liberty, fed up with taxes, big government, and federal interference into the everyday lives of Americans. That was fine in 1773, even though taxes were not burdensome and generally impacted wealthy city merchants or smugglers like John Hancock. But 2011 is a different time and Americans are a different people. Over two hundred years of freedom have taught Americans that everyone deserves consideration, from the sick without affordable health care to people on death row that might be innocent.
References:
- Nate Blakeslee, “Tea For Texas,” Texas Monthly, February 2011, Vol. 39, Issue 2
- Michael Crowley, “The Tea Party’s Triumph,” TIME, August 15, 2011, Vol. 178, Issue 6
- Lee Harris, “The Tea Party vs. the Intellectuals,” Policy Review, June/July 2010, Issue 61
- Christopher Hibbert, Redcoats and Rebels (Avon Books, 1990)
- Walter Russell Mead, “The Tea Party and American Foreign Policy,” Foreign Affairs, March/April 2011, Vol. 90, Issue 2
- William Rivers Pitt, “The Cult of Death,” Truthout, September 13, 2011
- Tom Roberts, “Tea Party reality, and its dangers,” National Catholic Reporter, August 3, 2010
- Gregor Peter Schmitz, “Annihilating Democracy with the Tea Party,” Spiegel, July 29, 2011
