ABSTRACT
The Tea Party movement in the United States emerged as a potent force on the political landscape within a brief 18-month period. The conservative movement surfaced nationally convening rallies and demonstrations in dozens of American cities by Tax Day (April 15) in 2009 (Rafail et al. 2011). The movement continued to gain momentum through the summer of 2009 as it mobilized against the Democratic Party’s health care reform program. In the movement’s early days, many in the mass media and the Democratic Party leadership labeled the Tea Party protests “astroturf,” as opposed to grassroots, due to the heavy involvement of the Republican Party and associated think tanks in their mobilization. Journalists like Rachel Maddow exposed how Tea Party protests have been promoted and sponsored by Republican Party operatives. The involvement of the Republican Party in public protest actions is a fairly unique phenomenon. In fact, of¿cial Republican Party participation in protest actions has been virtually absent from the social movement landscape in the United States for almost 40 years, with the exception of anti-abortion protests in some parts of the country such as annual rallies in Washington DC. In this chapter, we use the tools of social movement scholarship to explore Republican Party involvement in the movement and its contribution to the movement’s mobilization. In particular, we draw from studies that examine the multiple contributing roles political parties play in facilitating large-scale collective action.
