David E. Campbell and Robert D. Putnam explore the secret origin of the Tea Party in today’s NYT:

So what do Tea Partiers have in common? They are overwhelmingly white, but even compared to other white Republicans, they had a low regard for immigrants and blacks long before Barack Obama was president, and they still do.

More important, they were disproportionately social conservatives in 2006 — opposing abortion, for example — and still are today. Next to being a Republican, the strongest predictor of being a Tea Party supporter today was a desire, back in 2006, to see religion play a prominent role in politics. And Tea Partiers continue to hold these views: they seek “deeply religious” elected officials, approve of religious leaders’ engaging in politics and want religion brought into political debates. The Tea Party’s generals may say their overriding concern is a smaller government, but not their rank and file, who are more concerned about putting God in government.

This inclination among the Tea Party faithful to mix religion and politics explains their support for Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota and Gov. Rick Perry of Texas. Their appeal to Tea Partiers lies less in what they say about the budget or taxes, and more in their overt use of religious language and imagery, including Mrs. Bachmann’s lengthy prayers at campaign stops and Mr. Perry’s prayer rally in Houston.

This article appears in Aug 11-17, 2011.

Getting hassled by The Man Mild-mannered reporter

11 replies on “Dissecting the Tea Party: Guess Who Really Makes Up Its Base?”

  3. You hit the nail on the head! They say they support the Constitution, but exclude the first amendment and others that conflict with their ideology.

  4. Even If I thought my own experiences were untrustworthy, I still wouldn’t buy anything here, for one simple reason – no proof. All we have here are conclusions. I like to make up my own mind and to do that I need some actual information. Yeah, I could click the link but the author of this little article believes that I won’t. That’s why they have only provided the conclusions, which conveniently fit their ideas of the Tea Party. Now that irks me. Hell, he may be right, but I’d love the freedom to decide for myself. Is that too much to ask? Apparently.

  5. Sadly, based on my observations, Mr. Nintzel’s comments are a very accurate description of TP’ers. For point of reference, I’m a hard core independent and I don’t care much for hard righties or lefties.

  6. Gotta those tea partiers, even here on this thread. It’s “la, la, la, fingers in my ears, I don’t hear you, I don’t believe you”. If you want to see the background info and credentials from the original article that these conclusions were derived from, click the damn link. Jim didn’t put it there betting you won’t, he put it there specifically so you could. Sheesh, you guys are ridiculous- if he hadn’t put it there you’d be complaining and accusing him of hiding something… Here’s another tidbit from the NYTimes article: the Tea Party ranks lower than any of the 23 other groups we asked about — lower than both Republicans and Democrats. It is even less popular than much maligned groups like “atheists” and “Muslims.” You guys AREN’T the “real” Americans, not even MOST Americans, you’re just another small but loud demographic with an agenda, one that happens to get a disproportionate amount of coverage from a fawning press and the ear of the current GOP that is desperate to build a base.

  7. If you were to ask anyone why he or she is involved in the tea party (not capitalized as it is not an organized group, or even controllable for that matter) I think it would be difficult to get a reasonable or intelligent answer.

  8. There are far more members of PDA (Progressive Democrats of America, an organized and officially recognized group with officers) than there are people claiming to be tea partiers. However, they receive constant attention by the media whereas you hear little or nothing at all about PDA. Also The People’s Budget submitted by Rep. Raul Grijalva, chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, which even Paul Krugman said was the best proposal he has seen did not get any coverage. I guess if we want to be noticed we would have to be as outrageous and controversial as the tea partiers.

  9. If you go to the NYT site, you can read that they are basing these conclusions on data they collected in 2006. The Weekly reporter is just repeating the NYT article…

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