The Tea Party: Defying the Lessons of History?

FORT LAUDERDALE-DAVIE, Fla. – When the Tea Party movement arose in 2010, the lessons of history suggested two likely but opposing futures. The first was that the established leaders of the Republican Party, who would ignore or give at most token support to the movement’s agenda, would co-opt its energy, enthusiasm and voters. The second was that the Tea Party would take over the Republican Party, displacing its established leadership and imposing its conservative-libertarian political agenda.

Charles L. Zelden, Ph.D.

Of these two possible futures, the first option seemed much more likely. American history teems with examples of insurgent movements, such as the abolitionists in the 1850s, the Populists in the 1890s, or the American farm labor movement led by Cesar Chavez in the 1960s and 1970s, that saw their radical political agendas softened, narrowed or diluted as they became more closely tied to one of the major political parties. The Tea Party, too, seemed doomed to organizational disintegration and absorption by the political party closer to its values, with its agenda left unfulfilled or only partly achieved.

Yet, contrary to the odds, political developments over the last six years raise the possibility that the second option will define the futures of the Tea Party and the GOP. Rather than seeing its organization fall apart and its membership absorbed into the Republican Party with its political agenda unmet, the Tea Party has largely imposed its low-tax, anti-government policy agenda and its leadership on the GOP. True, the Republican establishment still has its leadership role inside and outside Congress, but GOP leaders increasingly have danced to the Tea Party’s tune. Afraid of facing Tea Party challengers in the primaries, and with the GOP base increasingly adopting the Tea Party’s policy preferences, the Republican establishment is unwilling or unable to advocate policies clashing with the Tea Party’s wishes. As a result, the Tea Party seems poised to defy history and take over leadership of the Republican Party.

Recent losses by most Tea Party candidates in GOP primaries may seem to call this pattern into question. In primary race after primary race, establishment candidates have thrashed their Tea Party challengers. With these battles lost, has the Tea Party’s war for the heart of the Republican Party ended?

The answer is largely no. Although many Tea Party candidates in recent GOP primaries have failed to displace establishment candidates, the victorious candidates, backed by the Republican establishment, prevailed largely by stealing the Tea Partyers’ ideological clothing. True, voters picked GOP candidates with a chance of winning the election, thus seeming to reject the old cry of “purity over electability.” However, this slogan actually turns out to be a false choice. With establishment candidates forced to blend ideological purity with claims of electability to defeat Tea Party amateurs – in essence, winning by stealing the losers’ ideological message – how can we say that the Tea Party “lost”?

Concluding that these Tea Party primary defeats mean that the GOP’s establishment is poised to recapture control of the Party’s agenda and organization is a mistake. The establishment candidates are much more conservative than they would have been six years before. In fact, the entire GOP has become much more conservative since the Tea Party’s emergence. The movement’s conservative-libertarian message still resonates with rank-and-file Republican voters, even as candidates emerging from Tea Party ranks no longer win the support of GOP primary voters.

So though it is true that the Tea Party is losing its current electoral battles with the Republican establishment, the movement still may have won the war, defying the weight of history and successfully establishing control over the GOP’s future.

About the Author: Charles L. Zelden, Ph.D., Professor of History at Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, FL., is the author of  Bush v. Gore: Exposing the Hidden Crisis in American Democracy and Thurgood Marshall: Race, Rights, and the Struggle for a More Perfect Union.

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