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Inside Tea Party America
Times Books
September 2010
On Sale: September 14, 2010
256 pages
ISBN: 0805093486
EAN: 9780805093483
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction Political
>A surprising and revealing look inside the Tea Party
movement—where it came from, what it stands for, and what it
means for the future of American politics They
burst on the scene at the height of the Great
Recession—angry voters gathering by the thousands to rail
against bailouts and big government. Evoking the Founding
Fathers, they called themselves the Tea Party. Within the
year, they had changed the terms of debate in Washington,
emboldening Republicans and confounding a new
administration's ability to get things
done. Boiling Mad is Kate Zernike's eye-opening
look inside the Tea Party, introducing us to a cast of
unlikely activists and the philosophy that animates them.
She shows how the Tea Party movement emerged from an unusual
alliance of young Internet-savvy conservatives and older
people alarmed at a country they no longer recognize. The
movement is the latest manifestation of a long history of
conservative discontent in America, breeding on a distrust
of government that is older than the nation itself. But the
Tea Partiers' grievances are rooted in the present, a
response to the election of the nation's first black
president and to the far-reaching government intervention
that followed the economic crisis of 2008-2009. Though they
are better educated and better off than most other
Americans, they remain deeply pessimistic about the economy
and the direction of the country. Zernike introduces
us to the first Tea Partier, a nose-pierced young teacher
who lives in Seattle with her fiancé, an Obama supporter. We
listen in on what Tea Partiers learn about the Constitution,
which they embrace as the backbone of their political
philosophy. We see how young conservatives, who model their
organization on the Grateful Dead, mobilize a new set of
activists several decades their elder. And we watch as
suburban mothers, who draw their inspiration from MoveOn and
other icons of the Left, plot to upend the Republican Party
in a swing district outside Philadelphia. The Tea
Party movement has energized a lot of voters, but it has
polarized the electorate, too. Agree or disagree, we must
understand this movement to understand American politics in
2010 and beyond.
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