Crashing the Tea Party: Mass Media and the Campaign to Remake American Politics

by Street,Paul

• ISBN13: 9781594519451
• ISBN10: 1594519455
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 2011-05-30
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Crashing the Tea Partychallenges conventional dogmas related to the most recent 'œmovement' of choice of conservative America and the mass media. This book undertakes a critical journalistic and scholarly examination of the Tea Party at the national and local level. Through firsthand observation of local Tea Party chapters, Street and DiMaggio uncover details about the Tea Party that have remained largely unexplored. Is the Tea Party a genuine social movement or a top-down interest group created largely by the mass media, Republican Party, and corporate funding? Street and DiMaggio explore this question systematically, closely documenting their results. They show how mass media reporting and commentary affect public opinion of the Tea Party and its preferred policy whipping boy, health care reform, in particular. This book fills the gap in public understanding of how social movements fit within the larger political ideologies on the left and right, and the growing role of media in influencing public opinion on major issues of the day.

Author Biography

Paul Street is an independent journalist, policy adviser, and historian. He has published widely in popular and scholarly media and is author of numerous books including, most recently, The Empire's New Clothes: Barack Obama in the Real World of Power (Paradigm 2010). Anthony Dimaggio is the author of When Media Goes to War (Monthly Review 2010) and Mass Media, Mass Propaganda (Lexington Books 2008). He teaches U.S. and Global Politics at Illinois State University.

Table of Contents

Prologue Making Tea from the Top Down	p. vii
The Tea Party Does Not Exist Reflections on a Not-So-New "Movement" and the Deeply Conservative Essence of U. S. Political Culture	p. 1
"Turning the World Upside Down" From the Original Tea Party to the Current Masquerade	p. 27
Tea Party "Super Republicans" Who They Are, What They Believe	p. 41
Tea Party Racism	p. 75
Return of "the Paranoid Style in American Politics" Authoritarianism and Hyperignorance in Tea Party Nation	p. 101
Astrorurf to the Core Reflections on a Mass-Mediated "Movement"	p. 127
Elections 2010 The Democrats' Midterm Disaster, the Tea Party, and the Challenge to Progressives	p. 145
Prospects for a Progressive Revival	p. 167
Notes	p. 183
Acknowledgments	p. 229
Index	p. 231
About the Authors	p. 239
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