When the American colonists dumped tea into the Boston Harbor in 1773, they had no idea how their tea party would affect the course of American history. They could not have been able to foresee the role that conservative populist frustration would play in reviving their name — and ideals — to serve a whole new world of politics in 2010.
The new Tea Party movement has gained a spot center stage in discussions about the Nov. 2 Congressional midterm elections but is such a widespread and inclusive movement that many people struggle to define it.
President Barack Obama told Rolling Stone magazine last month that he sees the Tea Party as "an amalgam, a mixed bag of a lot of different strains in American politics that have been there for a long time," including Libertarians, fundamentalist Christians and long-time Republicans frustrated with the state of their party in the years following the Bush presidency.
While the Tea Party is not clearly defined in terms of its electorate and does not have a party-consistent platform on many issues, there is certainly a common thread that ties its members together.
"The Tea Party is two things," James Glaser, professor of political science and dean of academic affairs for arts and sciences, said. "It's a mass movement of frustrated conservative citizens, and they see an opportunity to have an impact on the political system through agitation. It's also a vehicle for certain political entrepreneurs who are trying to harness this broad-based sentiment in the electorate, frustration and unhappiness, and turn it into something that's politically meaningful."
Some of these entrepreneurs are people like Dick Armey, former majority leader of the House of Representatives and chair of an organization called FreedomWorks, which sponsors and arranges Tea Party rallies, and David Koch, a philanthropist who ran for vice president on the Libertarian ticket in 1980 and is executive vice president of Koch Industries, the Forbes-ranked, second-largest private company in America. It is with the help of these wealthy conservatives that the Tea Party has been able to gain the attention, and make the impact, that it has.
However, some argue that the influence of rich and powerful conservatives and mainstream Republican leaders has, and will continue, to hinder the Tea Party's grassroots appeal.
"The reason I think the Tea Party is so successful is because it's just people," junior Seth Rau, president of Tufts Democrats, said. "When the attack ads ran about Christine O'Donnell [Republican candidate for Senate in Delaware] that she had trouble finishing college and was in so much debt, she could say, ‘Doesn't that make me an average American? I've had my share of problems. I'm you.' People felt sympathy for Christine O'Donnell and her debt. Never underestimate human sympathy."
The Tea Party's everyman appeal has certainly helped the movement gain traction across the country and, according to senior Mike Hawley, former president of Tufts Republicans, has given the mainstream Republican Party a wake-up call.
"I think the Tea Party has been good for the Republican Party," he said. "It's been just those sort of establishment figures who have presided over the vast loss of trust the American people had in the Republican Party, and the Tea Party has pulled the party back toward its roots, its foundational principles, allowing them to reclaim their role as the party of fiscal discipline and not of profligate spending."
Hawley said that due to the explosion of government spending in the Bush years, the current and near-future Republican Party will have a hard time making a case for itself as the party of economic responsibility.
"This is a movement to throw the bums out of the party, the Republicans who spent like Democrats," he said. "I think it's a pretty impressive revitalization — the party got absolutely whomped in 2006 and 2008, and Obama started with enormous goodwill from a vast majority, and the country seemed to be moving to the left. Now you're looking at perhaps a 1994-style takeover of both houses of Congress."
While it's still hard to gauge how far and wide the movement has spread just before the mid-term elections, polls indicate that it is likely the Democrats will lose their majority in Congress on Nov. 2.
Rau sees a destructive future for American politics if the race is to distribute power so evenly to opposing parties.
"I think the Republicans will get the House but not the Senate," Rau said. "Picking up 40 seats in the House is easier than picking up 10 seats in the Senate, and if each party controls a house, the majority leader will still be a Democrat. And nothing will get done for the next few years. There could be devastating effects on this country if the government shut down, and that's what I think the Republicans are threatening to do."
Glaser, however, is more optimistic and explained that if the Republicans regain control of either house of Congress, President Obama will have to adjust his priorities and perhaps achieve the bipartisan leadership to which he has aspired.
"Obama's foreign policy agenda will probably have a more friendly Congress with Republicans in larger numbers, perhaps in the majority," he said. "While I'm sure he'd rather have two Democratic majorities, he will have to adjust strategies accordingly. Obama is left of center, but I think his foreign policy has a chance of being well-received, particularly with regard to Afghanistan and Pakistan."
If the Tea Party gains a large presence in Congress, as it looks like it will, the question then becomes, what is the future of the Tea Party? As a movement often referred to as reactionary, how will it sustain a presence in American politics down the line? Commentators have discussed the chances of Tea Party candidates in the 2012 presidential election, but if the economy improves and fed-up conservatives' anger subsides, will the movement dissipate?
Sophomore Catey Boyle, a member of the nonpartisan organization No Labels, said that she imagines the Tea Party will eventually dissolve.
"I see the Tea Party as a reactionary fringe wave rather than a political movement," she said. "It's hard to say whether they're going to go away after this election. There have been groups that have popped up when there's a big problem at hand, when people are in fear about their job security, but I don't think it's going to be lasting. It really depends how the economy shapes up."
More important than speculating on the future of the party, however, is to think about its place in history, Glaser said. He hopes that is what the Tufts community will do.
"I would encourage students to think about the Tea Party and this election in historical perspective," he said. "You can't understand them in isolation. This is yet another chapter in American history, and it's important to understand the context within which this election and this group are taking place. That is basically a plug for more education — you're in a school; learn about history. Don't just stop at the newspaper or with the cable news."
