Change They Can't Believe In: The Tea Party and Reactionary Politics in America – Updated Edition: The Tea Party and Reactionary Politics in America

“Offers valuable empirical data on the Tea Party, and its focus on supporters’ antagonism toward Obama is critical to understanding the movement.” —Michael O’Donnell, The New Republic

Winner of the Best Book Award, Race, Ethnicity, and Politics Section of the American Political Science Association

Are Tea Party supporters merely a group of conservative citizens concerned about government spending? Or are they racists who refuse to accept Barack Obama as their president because he’s not white? Change They Can’t Believe In offers an alternative argument—that the Tea Party is driven by the reemergence of a reactionary movement in American politics that is fueled by a fear that America has changed for the worse. Providing a range of original evidence and rich portraits of party sympathizers as well as activists, Christopher Parker and Matt Barreto show that the perception that America is in danger directly informs how Tea Party supporters think and act.

In a new afterword, Parker and Barreto reflect on the Tea Party’s recent initiatives, including the 2013 government shutdown, and evaluate their prospects for the 2016 election.

“A scathing analysis of the Tea Party movement, linking it in spirit to the Ku Klux Klan and the John Birch Society. . . . Based on research and interviews, they suggest racism, desire for social dominance . . . drives the Tea Party.” —Publishers Weekly

© 2014 Princeton University Press (E-bog): 9781400852314

Release date

E-bog: 26. oktober 2014