The Tea Party Meets Its Maker
AUG 15, 2016 10:41 AM EDT
By Francis Wilkinson
The Tea Party was always tragically miscast. The angry oldsters who formed its white-hot core fancied themselves tax protesters. Their self-image was informed, inflamed and more than occasionally exploited by conservative operations ranging from Fox News to FreedomWorks and a phalanx of right-wing grifters who dealt themselves into the action.
There is a long tradition of supporting state spending on yourself (hands off my Medicare) while opposing the allocation of tax dollars to someone else (Obamacare is tyranny). The Tea Party covered this mundane transaction in a powdered wig.
Until Donald Trump came along.
Trump, whose genuine populist instincts appear unconscious of, and unencumbered by, American history, dispensed with the tri-corner hats. His offer required no validation from neo-colonials, no resort to hallowed principles of limited government. Trump's deal was straight up: He would secure the government programs -- Social Security, Medicare -- that benefit older, whiter Tea Party voters while chasing younger, browner Americans away from the public trough. He would even clear out of the country anyone who failed to prove citizenship.
The Tea Party is now indistinguishable from the Trump Party. Liberals have had a rollicking good time watching Trump peel the Indian paint off the erstwhile rebels. Brian Beutler of the New Republic routinely responds to racist outbursts among Trump supporters with a mock lament for the "economic anxiety" purportedly driving their allegiance to Trump.
Competing arguments that Trump supporters are motivated by declining economic prospects versus racial resentment are not mutually exclusive. But a deep analysis of Trump supporters released last week by Gallup shows that the economic angle is the more convoluted and uncertain one.
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https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-08-15/the-tea-party-meets-its-maker