Tea Party

The Tea Party movement (TPM) emerged in the wake of the Great Recession weeks after the inauguration of the first black president of the United States, Democrat Barrack Obama, in 2009. The TPM was organized as a loose confederation of thousands of local affiliates subsumed under several umbrella operations. Tea Partyers portrayed their movement as a spontaneous “grassroots revolt” of political outsiders fed up with “big government” and “high taxes.” Guided by libertarian principles, they claimed to be regular Americans who just wanted to “take back” America from both the “liberal elites” and the “Republicans in Name Only”—whom they accused of betraying the people—and restore the government and liberty to the common people. While the Tea Party rallies and spokespersons have received mass media coverage, ...