The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism

Many questions and much misinformation surround the recent Tea Party movement. Skocpol (government, Harvard Univ.; Reaching for the New Deal) and Williamson (PhD candidate, Harvard Univ.) conducted interviews with Tea Party members to explain the forces giving rise to the movement and its impact on the GOP and the U.S. political system. The book examines the development and motives of the movement at both the grassroots level and through the self-appointed Tea Party advocates who are largely members of the media and financial elite. Aptly demonstrated are the Tea Party's overriding desires to remove President Obama from office and, as important, move the GOP, seen by the Tea Party as too moderate, to the extreme right. The authors also offer possible implications of Tea Party influence on the American political scene in 2012 and beyond.