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The Tea Party movement is a populist^[1] United States protest movement focused on fiscal conservatism. The movement, originating in anti-tax protests, emerged in early 2009, partially in response to the 2009 stimulus package^[2][3] as well as the 2008 bailouts^[4]. It has been most visible through a series of Tea Party protests, which have occurred ever since early 2009. Protesters have also utilized the social networking outlets Facebook, Twitter and MySpace as well as blogs and conservative media outlets^[5] in promoting Tea Party events.^[6]

The name "Tea Party" is a reference to the historic Boston Tea Party of 1773, which was a protest by American colonists against taxation by the British government when the colonists had no representation in the British Parliament.^[7] Tea Party protests have sought to evoke similar images, slogans and themes to this period in American history.^[8][9][10]

The Tea Party Movement is

• for Constitutionally-limited government generally,^[11][12] and more specifically
  • anti-stimulus,^[13]
  • anti-deficit,^[14]
  • anti-bailout,^[15]
  • anti-health reform.^[16]
  • Some demonstrators have also opposed federal support for the ailing automobile industry.^[17]

Dan Gerstein, a former Democratic Party political advisor, argued in Forbes that the protests could have tapped into real feelings of disillusionment by American moderates but the protesters had too many incoherent messages being put forth.^[18] Bridgett Wagner of The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, has compared the protests to the tax revolts of the 1970s and 1980s, which included the successful Proposition 13 in California that capped property taxes.^[19] Jeremi Suri, a history professor at the University of Wisconsin, viewed them as "not dissimilar from what we had in 2003 with the anti-war protests, where a lot of people were uncomfortable with the war, but also uncomfortable with the anti-war position, recognizing there are terrorists out there."^[20]

Ned Ryun, President of American Majority, an organization which offers training for many Tea Party activists, believes this movement is not about political parties stating, "It's very much anti-establishment at both parties....They don't care about party labels." He has also said that "I think we're getting to the point where you can truly say we're entering a post-party era. They aren't going to be necessarily wed to a certain party -- they want to see leadership that reflects their values first.....They don't care what party you're in; they just want to know if you reflect their values -- limited government, fixing the economy."^[21]

An article by Thomas B. Edsall in The New Republic concludes that the findings of Robert D. Putnam that diversity has resulted in a withdrawal of many from varied community life provides valuable insight into the Tea Party movement's "explosive growth".^[22]

The theme of the Boston Tea Party, an iconic event of American history, has long been used by anti-tax protesters with libertarian and conservative viewpoints.^[23][24][25] It was part of Tax Day protests held throughout the 1990s and earlier.^{[26][27][28][29]} The libertarian theme of the "tea party" protest was previously used by Republican Congressman Ron Paul and his supporters as a fundraising event during the primaries of the 2008 presidential campaign to emphasize Paul's fiscal conservatism, which they later claimed laid the groundwork for the modern-day Tea Party movement.^{[30][31][32][33]}

The dominant theme seen at some of the earliest anti-stimulus protests was "pork" rather than tea.^[34] The term "porkulus" was coined by radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh on his January 27, 2009, broadcast^[35] in reference to both the 2009 "stimulus" bill, which was just introduced to the House of Representatives the day before, as well as to pork barrel spending and earmarks^[36]. This proved very popular with conservative politicians and commentators^[37], who began to unify in opposition against stimulus spending after the 2008 General Election.

Even earlier, on January 19th, one day before Obama took office, someone on FedUpUSA posted an invitation "to a Commemorative Tea Party" protest in Boston on February 1st.^[38] On February 11th, talk radio host and Fox Business Network personality Dave Ramsey appeared on Fox and Friends, waving tea bags and saying "It's time for a Tea Party."^[39]

According to FreedomWorks state and federal campaigns director Brendan Steinhauser^[40][41], activist Mary Rakovich^[42] was the organizer of a February 10, 2009 protest in Fort Myers, Florida, calling it the "first protest of President Obama's administration that we know of. It was the first protest of what became the tea party movement."^[43]

However, although it was not the first protest of the Obama administration or of the stimulus, New York Times journalist Kate Zernike reported that some leaders within the Tea Party credit Seattle blogger and conservative activist Keli Carender with organizing the first Tea Party in February of 2009, although the term "Tea Party" was not used.^[44] Other articles, written by Chris Good of The Atlantic^[45] and NPR’s Martin Kaste^[46], credit Carender as "one of the first" Tea Party organizers and that she “organized some of the earliest Tea Party-style protests”.

Carendar first organized what she called a "Porkulus Protest" in Seattle on Presidents Day, February 16, the day before President Obama signed the stimulus bill into law^[47]. Carender said, "Without any support from a national movement, without any support from any official in my city, I just got fed up and planned it." She said 120 people participated.

Carender had contacted conservative author and Fox News contributor, Michelle Malkin in order to gain her support and publicize her event. Malkin promoted the protest in several posts on her blog, saying that "There should be one of these in every town in America," and that she would be supplying the crowd with a meal of pulled pork. Malkin encouraged her readers to stage similar events in Denver on February 17 where President Obama planned to sign the stimulus bill into law.

Carender then held a second protest on February 27, 2009. "We more than doubled our attendance at this one."^[44]. By Tax Day six weeks later, 1,200 people gathered for a Tea Party protest.^[48]

On February 19, 2009,^[37] in a broadcast from the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, CNBC Business News editor Rick Santelli loudly criticized the government plan to refinance mortgages, which had just been announced the day before. He said that those plans were "promoting bad behavior"^[49] by "subsidizing losers' mortgages". He then raised the possibility of putting together a "Chicago Tea Party in July"^[50][51]. A number of the derivative traders around him cheered on his proposal, to the apparent amusement of the hosts in the studio.

In response to Santelli, websites such as ChicagoTeaParty.com (registered in August 2008 by Chicago radio producer Zack Christenson) were live within twelve hours.^[9] About 10 hours after Santelli's remarks, reTeaParty.com was bought to coordinate Tea Parties scheduled for July 4 and, as of March 4, was reported to be receiving 11,000 visitors a day.^[9] Santelli's outburst was called "a rant heard 'round the world"^[52]. It quickly went viral after it received a "red siren" headline on the popular conservative blog drudgereport.com.^[53]

According to The New Yorker writer Ben McGrath^[37] and New York Times reporter Kate Zernike^[44], this is where the movement was first inspired to coalesce under the collective banner of "Tea Party." By the next day, guests on Fox News had already begun to mention this new "Tea Party." ^[54]

As reported by The Huffington Post, a Facebook page was developed on February 20 calling for Tea Party protests across the country.^[55] Soon, the "Nationwide Chicago Tea Party" protest was coordinated across over 40 different cities for February 27, 2009, thus establishing the first national modern Tea Party protest.^[56][57]

According to political correspondent Liz Sidoti of the Associated Press, the Tea Party movement "an ideological mix of libertarianism and conservativism with the common denominator being lower spending and smaller government."^[58] The general consensus within the Tea Party is that "big" government, along with big spending, is to be avoided.^[58]

The tea party movement also includes several more formal entities^[59], with slightly different approaches to their advocacy:

• The Tea Party Patriots are a national organization that claims to have over 1000 local chapters, run with the help of Freedomworks, a conservative nonprofit led by former Republican House Majority Leader Dick Armey.^{[60][61][62][63][64]}

• The Tea Party Express is a national bus tour run by Our Country Deserves Better PAC, a conservative Political Action Committee created by Sacramento-based GOP consulting firm Russo, Marsh, and Associates.^{[62][65][66][67]}

• Tea Party Nation held a National Convention February 4–6, 2010. The event featured Sarah Palin as keynote speaker, but was criticized for charging $549 per ticket,^{[68][69][70][71]} as well as the fact that Palin was apparently paid $100,000 USD for her appearance.^[72] In the face of criticism by Tea Party activists, Palin has said she plans to donate the fee to unspecified conservative causes.^[73] Former Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo at the Tea Party convention in Nashville stated to applause, "People who could not even spell the word 'vote' or say it in English put a committed socialist ideologue in the White House..his name is Barack Hussein Obama."^[74]

The Tea Party movement has also attracted some followers of fringe organizations such as the LaRouche Movement, the white separatist Council of Conservative Citizens, and the John Birch Society. In a February 19, 2010 column in the Wall Street Journal, Republican strategist Karl Rove suggested that, to improve its effect on policy, the Tea Party movement dissociate itself from the militia movement, 'birthers', 9/11 deniers, cranks and conspiracy nuts.^[75]

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich's political activist group American Solutions supports the protests, saying on its website that they are "our chance to communicate our anger and opposition to the irresponsible policies of politicians in Washington who have failed to solve problems." Gingrich spoke at the New York City protest on April 15.^[76]

Republican Texas governor Rick Perry attended a Tea Party rally in Austin, Texas. He has also discussed the protests on YouTube.^[77] Perry fielded a question at the rally about Texas secession, answering: "There's a lot of different scenarios. We've got a great union. There's absolutely no reason to dissolve it. But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, you know, who knows what might come out of that? But Texas is a very unique place, and we're a pretty independent lot to boot."^[78]

The Tea Parties also drew the praise of some Republican officials. Congressman Tom Price (R-GA) said the protests showed that "this land is still owned by the people." Congressman Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) called the Tea Party movement "helpful" and "genuine."^[79]

Talk show host Leslie Marshall has remarked, in reference to the original Boston Tea Party, that "You have to look at our history. The reason these people revolted is they didn't want to pay taxes that were not presented by elected officials... Last time I checked, Obama's not taxing you to death — he is spending to stimulate the economy and he is an elected official."^[80] Political commentator Bob Cesca commented that "your neighbor's mortgage is your problem. Just watch your property values plummet as soon as there's just one foreclosure on your block." Historian Bruce Bartlett, a former U.S. Treasury Department official in the Bush administration, argued in Forbes magazine that higher taxes may not be as bad as they seem, writing that "Higher taxes may pay for services that people value and thus are not as burdensome as they might appear at first glance."^[81]

Many political candidates who are outside of "establishment" politics are gaining traction in their campaigns due to support from the Tea Party movement. US Senator from Massachusetts Scott Brown's support from the Tea Party movement made him a contender in what turned out to be an upset election.^[82] Many politicians in the 2010 election cycle are riding on grassroots support from the Tea Party movement, including Republican Pennsylvania gubernatorial contender Sam Rohrer, Texas gubernatorial contender Debra Medina and US Senate candidate Rand Paul.^[83][84][85]

The leaders of labor union centers such as the AFL-CIO and Change to Win Federation have labelled the Tea Party protests as corporately funded astroturfing operations and have advocated for nonviolent counter-protests against Tea Party protest events, particularly during the string of townhall events at which many of the protests took place.^[86]

A December 7, 2009 poll made by Rasmussen found, in a three-way generic ballot test featuring a hypothetical "Tea Party" candidate, Democrats attracted 36% of the vote, the Tea Party candidate picked up 23%, and Republicans finish third at 18%. Among independent voters, the Tea Party bested both Democrat and Republican candidates, with 33% of all independent voters preferring the Tea Party candidate.^[87] In a December 16, 2009 Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, the Tea Party movement fared better than both the Republican and Democratic parties, with 41% of respondents saying they had a "favorable" or "somewhat favorable" view of it.^[88]

A late-January 2010 poll made by CNN/Opinion Research Corporation found that "one-third of Americans have a favorable view of the Tea Party movement," while "26 percent of the public has an unfavorable view." 40 percent either "have not heard of the movement or don't know enough to form an opinion."^[89] A Fox News poll of 900 registered voters from early February 2010 showed that 35 percent of voters view the Tea Party movement favorably, 22 percent view it unfavorably, and 42 percent don't know or have never heard of the movement.^[90]

A poll by CBS News/New York Times taken Feb 5-10, 2010, found that only 2% of Tea Party supporters were aware that President Obama had cut taxes.^[91]

A CNN poll^[92] of 1023 adult Americans (with a sampling error of +/- 3%), conducted on February 12–15, 2010, found that:

• 35% of the sample either strongly or moderately supported the Tea Party
• 19% strongly or moderately opposed the Tea Party
• 16% would vote for a Tea Party candidate for Congress
• 2 to 7% participated in or gave money to the Tea Party movement

In surveying only those who had participated in Tea Party activities (with a sampling error of +/- 9%), the CNN poll found that:

• 80% were white^[93], compared to 71% of all respondents
• 60% were men, compared to 50% of all respondents
• 40% were college graduates, compared to 28% of all respondents
• 4% described themselves as Democrat, compared to 32% of all respondents.

A Bloomberg News poll found that Tea Partiers are not against increased government action in all cases. Seventy percent want the federal government to aid in job creation, although this may be more a reflection of a desire for the government to help by helping less than any sort of government program. Also, nearly half think the government should limit Wall Street bonuses, according to the nationwide poll which was conducted between March 19 and March 22, 2010.^[94]

On April 29, 2009, Obama commented on the Tea Party protests publicly during a townhall meeting in Arnold, Missouri, saying: "(When) you see folks waving tea bags around, let me just remind them that I am happy to have a serious conversation about how we are going to cut our health care costs down over the long term, how we're going to stabilize Social Security ... But let's not play games and pretend that the reason is because of the Recovery Act, because that's just a fraction of the overall problem that we've got. We are going to have to tighten our belts, but we're going to have to do it in an intelligent way. And we've got to make sure that the people who are helped are working American families, and we're not suddenly saying that the way to do this is to eliminate programs that help ordinary people and give more tax cuts to the wealthy. We tried that formula for eight years, and it did not work, and I don't intend to go back to it."^[95]

On April 19, 2009, Senior White House Advisor David Axelrod, asked about the Tea Party protests on CBS News, said "I think any time that you have severe economic conditions, there is always an element of disaffection that can mutate into something that’s unhealthy." and "The thing that bewilders me is this President just cut taxes for ninety five percent of the American people. So I think the tea bags should be directed elsewhere, because he certainly understands the burden that people face."^[96]

The news networks have covered the Tea Party movement in vastly different ways. Journalist Howard Kurtz commented that "much of the media seems to have chosen sides." He says that Fox News portrayed the protests "as a big story, CNN as a modest story, and MSNBC as a great story to make fun of."^[97]

The protests have been derided by commentators such as Rachel Maddow,^[98] Keith Olbermann,^[98] David Shuster,^[98] talk show host Leslie Marshall,^[80] New York Times columnist and Nobel prize winning economist Paul Krugman,^[99] conservative author Andrew Sullivan,^[100] liberal public policy advocacy group MoveOn.org,^[19] political satirist Jon Stewart,^[101] and Thomas Frank.^[102] Conversely, the protests attracted support from and been promoted by conservative commentators such as Sean Hannity, Michelle Malkin, Glenn Beck,^[103] and Glenn Reynolds,^[104] former House Majority Leader Dick Armey,^[105] rock guitarist and political activist Ted Nugent,^[106] country musician John Rich,^[107] Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee,^[108] and conservative radio host Neal Boortz.^[109]

Prior to the Tax Day protests, Fox News ran 20 or more segments about the protests, over 100 commercial promotions of its coverage, directed viewers to a "virtual tea party" on FoxNation.com, and repeatedly described the protests as "FNC Tax Day Tea Parties" in their television coverage.^[110][111] US News and World Report reported that the nature of the coverage of the protests has become part of the story.^[97]

On April 12, Howard Kurtz said on CNN's Reliable Sources, "Fox News gets on board in a big way with this week's tea party protests" and "The folks at Fox News ... are firmly in favor of tea parties."^[112] On April 15, he said, "I don't think I've ever seen a news network throw its weight behind a protest like we are seeing in the past few weeks with FOX and these tea parties."^[112] Political commentator Rachel Maddow said, "The unofficial Republican Party media outlet, Fox News Channel, has explicitly endorsed these events."^[113] Political commentator Keith Olbermann said, "Despite claiming neutrality on those policies and the teabag movement itself, FOX has whipped up excitement for the parties, recruiting viewers to come out, guaranteeing huge outdoor gatherings, spilling into the streets, choking off traffic with all their teabagging."^[114] On April 14, ABC World News described the protests as "[c]heered on by Fox News and talk radio".^[97] CNN reporter Susan Roesgen echoed this during the 2009 Tea Party protest in Chicago when she said, "I think you get the general tenor of this. It's anti-government, anti-CNN, since this is highly promoted by the right wing conservative network, Fox."^{[112][115][116]}

James Rainey of The Los Angeles Times said MSNBC's attacks on the tea parties paled compared to Fox's support, but Olbermann, Maddow and Matthews were hardly subtle in disparaging the movement.^[117] Howard Kurtz has said that, "These [FOX] hosts said little or nothing about the huge deficits run up by President Bush, but Barack Obama's budget and tax plans have driven them to tea. On the other hand, CNN and MSNBC may have dropped the ball by all but ignoring the protests."^[112]

Eric Burns, president of Media Matters for America, a self-described progressive media watchdog organization, wrote an open letter to Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace asking him to "publicly address recent actions by Fox News personalities that unambiguously cross the line separating news and legitimate commentary from political activism and demagoguery." The Los Angeles Times noted that both Fox News hosts and MSNBC hosts had "prejudged the tea parties."^[117]

On the April 16 edition of The Daily Show, Jon Stewart observed, "So, in our new world order, Fox are the hippies [for promoting anti-government protests] and CNN is The Man. What does that make MSNBC?" He then played a montage of clips of MSNBC anchors using the "teabagging" terminology and concluded, "Hours of scrotum-based humor. Oh my God! MSNBC is us! They're The Daily Show! Well what the fuck am I supposed to do?"^[118]

On July 28, Fox Nation posted a promotional ad for the Tea Party Express using the headline, "Will You Join the Tea Party Express?"^[119] Griff Jenkins was the field reporter for Fox's coverage of the Tea Party Express tour. Greta Van Sustern clarified for viewers that Jenkins was not part of the bus tour.^[120]

Following the September 12 Taxpayer March on Washington, Fox News then controversially ^[121] claimed it was the only cable news outlet to cover the emerging protests and took out full-page ads in The Washington Post, the New York Post, and The Wall Street Journal with a prominent headline reading, "How did ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, and CNN miss this story?" CNN news anchor Rick Sanchez disputed Fox's claim pointing to various coverage of the event.^{[122][123][124]} CNN, NBC, CBS, MSNBC, and CBS Radio News provided various forms of live coverage of the rally in Washington throughout the day on Saturday, including the lead story on CBS Evening News.^{[122][124][125][126]}

Following the election of Scott Brown in the January 19, 2010 Massachusetts Senate Race, the British magazine The Economist said "America’s most vibrant political force at the moment is the anti-tax tea-party movement."^[127] In January 2010, New York Times columnist David Brooks, after reciting a number of recent opinion polls and other sources, suggested that the coming decade of 2010-2019 has the potential to become "The Tea Party Teens" in U.S. political history.^[128] Brooks has also characterized the Tea Party movement as "radically anticonservative."^[129] In an interview several months after his "rant", CNBC news editor Rick Santelli, credited as source of inspiration for the Tea Party movement,^[44] said "I think that this Tea Party phenomenon is steeped in American culture and steeped in American notion to get involved with what’s going on with our government. I haven’t organized. I’m going to have to work to pay my taxes, so I’m not going to be able to get away today. But, I have to tell you — I’m pretty proud of this."^[130]

The label "teabagging" has been applied to Tea Party protests in general,^[131] and to the specific protest gesture of mailing a tea bag to the White House.^[132][133] The appellation emerged after protesters displayed placards using the words "tea bag" as a verb.^[134][135] The label has prompted puns by both commentators and protesters^[136] based on pre-existing use of the word to denote oral–scrotal contact as a sex act or prank. Tea Party activists have stated that they find the term to be dismissive and insulting.^[137]

This "criticism" or "controversy" section may compromise the article's neutrality. Please help integrate negative information into other sections or remove undue focus on minor criticisms and controversies. (March 2010)

Allegations of "astroturfing" appeared in a New York Times editorial^[138] as well as a Playboy article by Mark Ames and Yasha Levine in February 2009. The article was removed after libel claims, but no legal action materialized. The authors repeated and elaborated their allegations elsewhere—that the tea party protests were a "carefully organized and sophisticated PR campaign . . . for some of the craziest and sleaziest rightwing oligarch clans this country has ever produced," including the Koch family, Dick Armey and FreedomWorks.^[139][140] On October 3, 2009, David H. Koch said the tea party protests fulfilled "the vision" of the board of directors of the conservative political advocacy group Americans for Prosperity when it was founded in 2004.^[141]

On April 9, 2009, the liberal blog Think Progress claimed that most of the 2009 protests were conservative lobbyist-created "astroturf" projects and not spontaneous grassroots protests. They argued that the protests were nationally coordinated and organized by conservative lobbyist organizations Americans for Prosperity and FreedomWorks.^[142] The story was picked up in a New York Times op-ed column by liberal economist Paul Krugman, writing that "the tea parties don't represent a spontaneous outpouring of public sentiment. They're AstroTurf (fake grass roots) events, manufactured by the usual suspects. In particular, a key role is being played by FreedomWorks, an organization run by Richard Armey."^[99] On April 15, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi agreed, saying "it's not really a grassroots movement. It's astroturf by some of the wealthiest people in America to keep the focus on tax cuts for the rich instead of for the great middle class."^[143] On the same day, liberal MSNBC pundit Rachel Maddow commented, saying that "corporate-funded PR shops and lobbying groups have done a lot of the organizing and promotion for these events. That's controversial because it's astroturfing. It's disguising a formal top-down organized paid for things as if it's some spontaneous grassroots event."^[144]

A December 28, 2009 article in the liberal Talking Points Memo detailed that Our Country Deserves Better (OCDB), the political action committee (PAC) behind the Tea Party Express, directed almost two thirds of all its funding to the Republican-affiliated political consulting firm that created the PAC in the first place. According to FEC filings, from July through November 2009, OCDB spent around $1.33 million, and of that sum, $857,122 went to a Sacramento-based GOP political consulting firm named Russo, Marsh, and Associates, or people associated with it. The article went on to detail that Tea Party Patriots, a rival faction of conservative activists denounced Tea Party Express as a creature of Republican political professionals that lacks grassroots authenticity, with one TPP member, who had examined the FEC filings asking: "What would the true grassroots people think if they knew their money is being spent in this manner?"^[65] The Los Angeles Times later confirmed the money paid to Russo, Marsh, and Associates went mostly to vendors and advertising, with about $100,000 going to the political consultants for fees and salary.^[145]

Participants vehemently deny the astroturfing charge. According to Atlantic Monthly, the three main groups that provide guidance and organization for the protests FreedomWorks, dontGO, and Americans for Prosperity state that the demonstrations are an organic movement.^[146] Law professor and conservative commentator Glenn Reynolds, best known as author of the Instapundit political blog, argued in The New York Post that: "These aren't the usual semiprofessional protesters who attend antiwar and pro-union marches. These are people with real jobs; most have never attended a protest march before. They represent a kind of energy that our politics hasn't seen lately, and an influx of new activists."^[147] Conservative political strategist Tim Phillips, now head of Americans for Prosperity, has remarked that the Republican Party is "too disorganized and unsure of itself to pull this off."^[8]

In February 2010, an outcry from Tea Party activists erupted when a Tea Party protest sign, based on a photo^[148] taken by journalist David Weigel, was added to a comic panel proclaiming "Tea Bag the Libs before they tea bag you!" in an issue of Captain America.^[149][150] The comic drew criticism from Tea Party leaders, and Marvel Comics editor Joe Quesada later apologized for specifically identifying characters as associated with the Tea Party movement. Quesada said the edition will be changed in further printings and the trade paperback.^[151][152]

• 9-12 Project
• Coffee Party
• Patriot movement
• Producerism

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Media related to 2009 Tea Party protests at Wikimedia Commons

• "12 Tea Party leaders to watch", National Journal, February 4, 2010
• "The Wal-Mart Hippies", by David Brooks, The New York Times, March 5, 2010
• "Tea Party Lights Fuse for Rebellion on Right", David Barstow, The New York Times, February 15, 2010 with image slideshow'