By Mary Solberg
Does the Tea Party matter? If you ask Vanessa Williamson, she’d say yes and no. OK, so maybe that’s not as definitive an answer as political pundits would hope for, but it pretty much sums up the complexity of the movement.
Williamson, co-author of the forthcoming book The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism (Oxford University Press), told a packed audience at Quigley Hall, Allegheny College, that while the Tea Party’s popularity is declining now, it has had a lasting impact on American politics.
“The Tea Party motivated older conservatives to vote, it helped move the Republican Party to the right, and it reinvigorated the Republican Party at a time of crisis,” Williamson said at the Sept. 22 lecture.
Conversely, though, the Tea Party’s popularity has declined from September 2009 when 70,000 activists converged on Washington, D.C., Williamson added, saying, “That was really the peak of Tea Party activism. But as more people have become aware of what the Tea Party is, its popularity began to decline.”
In 2010, the Tea Party did not elect conservatives in moderate areas, and may not even have increased the Republican landslide in the midterms, Williamson said. Nevertheless, the movement has had an impact, particularly in light of the emergence of Tea Party candidates, ongoing news coverage and its prevalence in major polls and surveys. Perhaps the most significant acknowledgement of its impact was this fall when CNN joined the Tea Party in hosting a Republican primary debate in California.
Williamson, a doctoral candidate in government and social policy at Harvard University, captivated her audience—ironically—with her straightforward discussion of the Tea Party. Instead of presenting a pro or con presentation on the controversial organization, Williamson’s viewpoint as an academic came off as refreshing. She discussed what it was like to interview Tea Party members throughout the country.
Audience members asked Williamson about the makeup of Tea Party activists and what she thought of them. The people she interviewed reminded her of kindly grandparents.
“The Tea Party is made up of mostly older white people who own their own homes and have pensions. They weren’t hit hardest by the Great Recession, but there’s a real element that the American dream was betrayed for some of them,” Williamson said.
Unfortunately, she maintains that many Tea Party members, while educated, are misinformed on issues. Williamson blamed an intense polarization of values in America today, where people seek like-minded people and groups that espouse only what they believe in. No one has to prove a point, in other words.
“They believe in things that are just not facts,” Williamson said, adding, “There is no accountability.”
Herb Klions, a retired psychology professor from Allegheny, was in the audience and asked Williamson if she thought the Tea Party would have taken a different direction had Hillary Clinton, now secretary of state, beat Obama in the 2008 presidential election.
“I think the Tea Party would have been a little different. The symbolism would not have been as potent, but conservatives still would have been upset,” Williamson said.
Williamson, whose primary research interest is the politics of taxation, co-wrote her Tea Party book with Theda Skocpol of Harvard. Before studying at Harvard, she served as the policy director for Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. She received her bachelor’s degree in French language and literature from New York University, and her master’s from NYU’s Institute of French Studies.
To pre-order The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism, go online to Oxford University Press or Amazon.com.
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