ABSTRACT
What is the Tea Party moment? When relatively privileged people rise up with economic grievances and reactionary solutions, can they be called populist, a happy word that suggests action for “the people” against robber barons? How can it be populist when beltway political entrepreneurs and economic royalists ally with local activists to short circuit weakened party structures in ways that elevate the role of big money in elections? Or is it a rebellion of elite individualists, secular and Christian, objecting to an administered society who want to be left alone; or of whites who feel blacks and Latinos get all the bene¿ts of government? What about the small numbers of working-class supporters who feel unmoored from stable jobs and a predictable future, abandoned by government, and wondering why the big guys get the bailouts?
