ABSTRACT
For the last five years the Tea Party has made a lot of noise. It helped the GOP regain the House in 2010. Further, from the debates over the debt ceiling to immigration reform, the Tea Party has forced the GOP to take very conservative positions and caused a rift in the Republican Party. The success of the Tea Party movement has roused media types and academics alike to better understand from whence it came. They wonder how and why it’s come to dominate the political landscape. These are worthy, even necessary, questions. However, we believe that gaining traction on those questions requires placing the Tea Party in historical context because we don’t believe the Tea Party is something new.
