The Rise, Fall, and Influence of the Tea Party Insurgency

Uses extensive evidence to examine the Tea Party and its impacts from its infancy, through to its decline.

Patrick Rafail (Author), John D. McCarthy (Author)

9781009423731, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 21 December 2023

266 pages
23 x 15 x 1.5 cm, 0.4 kg

'Rafail and McCarthy's book employs a variety of data sources and research methods to offer the most thorough analysis of the Tea Party to date … The vast amount of data and the authors' application of a diverse set of methods to understand one of the quintessential movements of the twenty-first century make it an essential read for anyone hoping to understand the broader field of social movements.' Christopher Stout, Mobilization: An International Quarterly

Emerging in 2009, the Tea Party movement had an immediate and profound impact on American politics and society. This book draws on a decade's worth of original, extensive data collection to understand why the Tea Party emerged, where it was active, and why it disappeared so quickly. Patrick Rafail and John McCarthy link the Tea Party's rise to prominence following the economic collapse that came to be known as the Great Recession. Paying special attention to the importance of space and time in shaping the Tea Party's activities, Rafail and McCarthy identify and explain the movement's disappearance from the political stage. Even though grassroots Tea Party activism largely ceased by 2014, they demonstrate the movement's effect on the Republican Party and American democracy that continues today.

1. Introduction: A Fragile, Grassroots Insurgency
2. Toward a Theoretical Account of the Tea Party's Rise and Fall
3. The Birth of the Insurgency: The 2009 Tea Party Protests and the Groups that Staged Them
4. Tea Party Supporters, Activists, and Mobilizing Structures
5. The Trajectory of the Tea Party Insurgency: Local Activism and its Rapid Decline
6. Threat, Political Integration, and the Disappearance of Local Tea Party Groups
7. Moving Off Message: The Discursive Demobilization of the Tea Party
8. How Tea Party Activism Polarized the House of Representatives
9. From Ridicule to Unbridled Enthusiasm: The Tea Party's Slow Embrace of Trumpism
10. Conclusion
Appendix: Research Design and Methodology.

Subject Areas: Sociology [JHB]