Theda Skocpol, Vanessa Williamson -- The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism
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This book gives a careful analysis of the confluence of a number of
features of current political and economic life in the U.S.: (1) The
creation of a small class of extremely rich individuals, individuals
who are so rich that spending tens of millions of dollars is small
change and even spending 100s of millions is not that significant a
portion of their wealth. (2) A reasonably large set of people who,
while they may have somewhat diverse interests, have enough in
common to form a cohesive whole and are very highly motivated and
politically active.  (3) Organizations and organizers etc who
specialize in channeling funds from the first group (the
super-wealthy) to the second (Tea Party activists) in order to
promote and influence their activism.  (4) Enabling
factors, for example Supreme Court decisions that allow the use of
campaign funding, Web sites, Twitter, email (esp. email/address
lists that effectively enable anyone to become a publicist at low
cost), etc.  (5) A media and news media that is willing to actively
cooperate in encouraging and amplifying some of these forces.  When
these factors come together, as they have now in the U.S., their
influence and effect can be huge.

One significant effect of these forces is the "purification" of the
Republican party.  For a Republican politician currently in the
U.S., it is not good enough to be conservative; only radical
conservatism or extreme conservatism will do.  Funders and funding
organizations as well as the Tea Party demand that their politicians
be hard-liners on issues such as small government, low taxes,
reduced regulations, free-market .  If you are a Republican
politician and you are not hard-core on these issues, you can expect
some very heavy funders to be willing to spend lots to block your
election or to get you un-elected if you are an incumbent.

Those who consider themselves to be Tea Partiers are very emotional,
but can also be very well informed on some issues and very
mis-informed on others.  Often, the authors report, Tea Partiers
have done extensive "home work" on issues.

Tea Partiers believe what they want to believe and they can find and
listen at extreme length to those who tell them what they want to
believe.  The news media echo chamber really works.  Our wide
choices of sources for news and opinion enable us, Tea Partiers and
the rest of us too, to choose sources that we already agree with.
Having those sources means never having to listen to someone who
tells you that you're wrong.

In the U.S., we are going through a period of ideological sorting of
our political participants.  What are and will be left standing are
those who will not or cannot, if they want to keep their jobs,
compromise.  Compromise has become the dirty word of Republican,
conservative politics.  This has happened to some extent on the
left, but it is extreme on the right.

Funders and funding organizations on the right have decided that it
is better to support a "pure" conservative who has a low chance of
winning election than it is to support a moderate conservative who
has better odds.  It's as if they are thinking, "Why support someone
who will not give me (all of) what I want?"  This has led to support
for some disastrous candidates, but it has also produce a dramatic
shift to the political right for many of those in our legislative
bodies, both at the Federal and the state levels.

07/30/2012

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