# Anyone still believe the Tea Party is not a social conservative/RR organization? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 28, 2014, 6:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-still-believe-the-tea-party-is-not-a-social-conservative-rr-organization/682495 "2014-02-28T06:36:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2014, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-still-believe-the-tea-party-is-not-a-social-conservative-rr-organization/682495/41 "2014-03-01T20:54:36Z")
> [@Steely\_Dan\_Fan](#): > > There was never anything libertarian about it. > > _Laissez-faire_ capitalism is about as anti-libertarian as it gets. In fact, it’s what libertarianism is expressly opposed to. News to me. You must be thinking of Anarchism. ---
**Author:** ![Steely\_Dan\_Fan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9de053/32.png) [@Steely\_Dan\_Fan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steely_Dan_Fan)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2014, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-still-believe-the-tea-party-is-not-a-social-conservative-rr-organization/682495/42 "2014-03-01T20:56:23Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > News to me. You must be thinking of Anarchism. [They’re the same thing.](http://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/150-years-of-libertarian) ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2014, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-still-believe-the-tea-party-is-not-a-social-conservative-rr-organization/682495/43 "2014-03-01T21:03:13Z")
Explain why Rand Paul is now the most popular Republican politician within the Tea Party? The truth is, the Tea Party attracted libertarians and social conservatives, and there is constant friction between them. Go to any Republican message board these days and you’ll see heated exchanges over SSM and abortion. There is definitely a rift in the party over social issues. The social conservatives are the ones feeling defensive and complaining that those evil libertarians are taking over the party. In response, the libertarians are saying that the social conservatives have already lost the argument in the public square and if they don’t learn to accept where the culture is there will eventually be no party to fight over. The libertarians are right. And polls have shown that the Tea Party is the most libertarian-leaning faction on the right. But that doesn’t mean that every Tea Partier is a libertarian. And it certainly doesn’t mean that every group calling itself a Tea Party group is libertarian. Social convervatism is not dead - it’s just on the ropes. The religious right has lost a huge amount of power and influence since the days of the ‘Moral Majority’. That’s why some of them are yelling so loudly. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2014, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-still-believe-the-tea-party-is-not-a-social-conservative-rr-organization/682495/44 "2014-03-01T21:32:22Z")
Rand Paul is as much a social conservative as he is a libertarian, if not more so. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2014, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-still-believe-the-tea-party-is-not-a-social-conservative-rr-organization/682495/45 "2014-03-01T22:08:34Z")
FTR: [The American religious right is dying and knows it.](http://www.salon.com/2014/02/28/the_dying_right_why_christian_fundamentalists_are_in_panic_mode_partner/) Everything they’re doing can be seen as a panicked rearguard action. ---
**Author:** ![DMC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dmc/32/18049_2.png) [@DMC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMC)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2014, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-still-believe-the-tea-party-is-not-a-social-conservative-rr-organization/682495/46 "2014-03-01T23:15:57Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Rand Paul is as much a social conservative as he is a libertarian, if not more so. In fact, he thinks it’s his opponents who insist he is libertarian, not himself. [QUOTE=Rand Paul] My opponents call me a libertarian but I want to assure you that I am pro-life. I do not apologize for believing there is too much government involvement in the private lives of Americans. Trying to portray me or my father as not pro-life–or saying I want to legalize heroin, or prostitution, or making other outlandish claims-- are smears Republican establishment types have always attempted. This race would be no different. One could make the argument that if sincerity is measured by proposed legislation, my dad is arguably the most pro-life member of the House. [/QUOTE] ---
**Author:** ![Stringbean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Stringbean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stringbean)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2014, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-still-believe-the-tea-party-is-not-a-social-conservative-rr-organization/682495/47 "2014-03-02T01:44:07Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Yeah, we got that already. Could you point us in the right direction? A site, maybe? What was the impetus to the fomenting of the Tea Party Movement? Was it not a liberal president’s agenda to reform a mostly private healthcare system into one in which private insurers are to compete against a “public option?” I do not recall such a president saying or doing anything with regard to religion or abortion to have fueled such a grassroots uprising of _libertarian_ sentiment. Again, they were hijacked. Call it a No True Scotsman if you wish. I remember how and where it started and where it went, and social conservatism was back-of-the-burner. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2014, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-still-believe-the-tea-party-is-not-a-social-conservative-rr-organization/682495/48 "2014-03-02T01:53:26Z")
> [@Stringbean](#): > > What was the impetus to the fomenting of the Tea Party Movement? > > Was it not a liberal president’s agenda to reform a mostly private healthcare system into one in which private insurers are to compete against a “public option?” Well, [the first Tea Party protest was on April 15, 2009,](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Tea_Party_Movement) and [the first health-care reform bill was not introduced until July of that year.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidency_of_Barack_Obama#Health_care_reform) The impetus seems to have been just a general discontent with high taxes and biggummint. [However:](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_Party_movement#Commentaries_on_origin) > [@](#): > > **Commentaries on origin** > > Fox News Channel commentator Juan Williams argues that the Tea Party movement emerged from the “ashes” of Ron Paul’s 2008 presidential primary campaign.[70] Jane Mayer has argued that the Koch brothers were essential in funding and strengthening the movement, through groups such as Americans for Prosperity.[71][72] In 2013, a study published in the journal Tobacco Control concluded that organizations within the movement were connected with non-profit organizations that the tobacco industry and other corporate interests worked with and provided funding for,[73][74] including groups Citizens for a Sound Economy (founded by the Koch brothers).[75][76] Al Gore cited the study and said that the connections between “market fundamentalists”, the tobacco industry and the Tea Party could be traced to a 1971 memo from tobacco lawyer Lewis F. Powell, Jr. who advocated more political power for corporations. Gore said that the Tea Party is an extension of this political strategy “to promote corporate profit at the expense of the public good.”[77] IOW, at the beginning the TP was economic-policy-focused yes, and partly grassroots, but less grassroots than astroturf, and less economic-populist than pro-biz. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2014, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-still-believe-the-tea-party-is-not-a-social-conservative-rr-organization/682495/49 "2014-03-02T01:58:26Z")
If the TP were economic-populist, its rhetoric would be a lot more [producerist](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Producerism) than it is; see Pat Buchanan. ---
**Author:** ![Stringbean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Stringbean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stringbean)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2014, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-still-believe-the-tea-party-is-not-a-social-conservative-rr-organization/682495/50 "2014-03-02T17:00:42Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > If the TP were economic-populist, its rhetoric would be a lot more [producerist](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Producerism) than it is; see Pat Buchanan. It wasn’t economic-populist; many Tea Partiers are small business owners. They replaced fear of big business with fear of big government. If it was fear of big business, it would resemble OWS. I have always believed OWS and the Tea Party were two sides of the same coin. Anger and fear just placed in two different directions. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2014, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-still-believe-the-tea-party-is-not-a-social-conservative-rr-organization/682495/51 "2014-03-02T18:59:27Z")
> [@Stringbean](#): > > What was the impetus to the fomenting of the Tea Party Movement? > > Was it not a liberal president’s agenda to reform a mostly private healthcare system into one in which private insurers are to compete against a “public option?” > > I do not recall such a president saying or doing anything with regard to religion or abortion to have fueled such a grassroots uprising of _libertarian_ sentiment. > > Again, they were hijacked. Call it a No True Scotsman if you wish. I remember how and where it started and where it went, and social conservatism was back-of-the-burner. And knowing how Rome was built doesn’t tell me who is in political power there today. I believe the OP is about what the Tea party is _today_, and I would like to see a cite pointing towards the Tea Party of _today_ that is more concerned with fiscal conservatism and not political conservatism. ---
**Author:** ![Kolak\_of\_Twilo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kolak_of_twilo/32/73_2.png) [@Kolak\_of\_Twilo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kolak_of_Twilo)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2014, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-still-believe-the-tea-party-is-not-a-social-conservative-rr-organization/682495/52 "2014-03-02T19:23:00Z")
> [@DMC](#): > > In fact, he thinks it’s his opponents who insist he is libertarian, not himself. That quote from Randy Paul was pretty funny. Particularly how when denying he supports drug legalization the example he used was heroin, not marijuana. I know his Dad supported that in the past. And of course he seems to have forgotten the name of the only party to ever nominate his father for President. Yep, Randy is always good for a few laughs when he panders to the RR. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2014, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-still-believe-the-tea-party-is-not-a-social-conservative-rr-organization/682495/53 "2014-03-02T20:33:46Z")
> [@Stringbean](#): > > It wasn’t economic-populist; many Tea Partiers are small business owners. They replaced fear of big business with fear of big government. > > If it was fear of big business, it would resemble OWS. **Or** Pat Buchanan’s America First Party. Paleoconservatives – nativist, populist, producerist, social-conservative, and isolationist in both military and economic terms – hate and fear Wall Street’s elite no less than Washington’s. If the TP were that kind of movement, we would hear **something** from them about protective tariffs and an end to offshoring. Instead we get stuff like the [Contract from America](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contract_from_America) (and, again, to what extent Ryan Hecker could be said to speak for the TP as a whole is open for debate if you want to debate it): > [@](#): > > 1.Identify constitutionality of every new law: Require each bill to identify the specific provision of the Constitution that gives Congress the power to do what the bill does (82.03%). > 2.Reject emissions trading: Stop the “cap and trade” administrative approach used to control pollution by providing economic incentives for achieving reductions in the emissions of pollutants. (72.20%). > 3.Demand a balanced federal budget: Begin the Constitutional amendment process to require a balanced budget with a two-thirds majority needed for any tax modification. (69.69%) > 4.Simplify the tax system: Adopt a simple and fair single-rate tax system by scrapping the internal revenue code and replacing it with one that is no longer than 4,543 words – the length of the original Constitution. (64.9%) > 5.Audit federal government agencies for constitutionality: Create a Blue Ribbon taskforce that engages in an audit of federal agencies and programs, assessing their Constitutionality, and identifying duplication, waste, ineffectiveness, and agencies and programs better left for the states or local authorities. (63.37%) > 6.Limit annual growth in federal spending: Impose a statutory cap limiting the annual growth in total federal spending to the sum of the inflation rate plus the percentage of population growth. (56.57%). > 7.Repeal the health care legislation passed on March 23, 2010: Defund, repeal and replace the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. (56.39%). > 8.Pass an ‘All-of-the-Above’ Energy Policy: Authorize the exploration of additional energy reserves to reduce American dependence on foreign energy sources and reduce regulatory barriers to all other forms of energy creation. (55.5%). > 9.Reduce Earmarks: Place a moratorium on all earmarks until the budget is balanced, and then require a 2/3 majority to pass any earmark. (55.47%). > 10.Reduce Taxes: Permanently repeal all recent tax increases, and extend permanently the George W. Bush temporary reductions in income tax, capital gains tax and estate taxes, currently scheduled to end in 2011. (53.38%). I see nothing there that can be viewed as hostile to business big or small; except perhaps that a smaller federal budget/government in general means fewer and smaller sweetheart contracts to corporations and fewer and smaller bailouts and subsidies. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2014, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-still-believe-the-tea-party-is-not-a-social-conservative-rr-organization/682495/54 "2014-03-02T20:42:20Z")
N.B.: The paleocons are not at all hostile to **small** business. Once again, they’re [producerists](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Producerism) (which the OWSers are not): > [@](#): > > **Producerism** is a term used in academic circles to describe a minority viewpoint within political conservatism as well as by some liberals who stake out a “radical center” or “Third Way” course, which views a strong middle class as the productive element in society. This middle class is seen as under threat from both above - big business and unregulated capital - and below, from what are viewed as “non-productive” elements in society (which may include illegal immigration, crime, classes on welfare, or to use a Marxist concept, the _lumpenproletariat._) Note that this class-based world-view appears to make no allowance for a productive working class distinct from the all-important middle class. ---
**Author:** ![Rhythmdvl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/85f322/32.png) [@Rhythmdvl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhythmdvl)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2014, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-still-believe-the-tea-party-is-not-a-social-conservative-rr-organization/682495/55 "2014-03-02T20:51:24Z")
The original astroturfing of the TP relied on many Fox News/talk radio tactics to create a large audience as quickly as possible. More importantly, it meant appealing to the passions of that LCD so as to get them to participate in rallies, disrupt town hall meetings, etc.; basically activating the vocal minority. That meant pandering, in part, to religious and social extremism. This in turn gave these elements a louder voice and higher exposure than they would have had were the TP an actual grass-roots, organic movement. The OP harkens back to a similar question I asked a short while ago: [When did the teaparty become a subset of the Republicans?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=704529) They were created by a team who wanted strong influence over the GOP (and by extension, general US policy). Although they initially made a thin pretense that it was a broad-based group, they targeted traditional Republican constituents; religious and social conservatives, etc. The upthread analogy to atheists is very good, but it overlooks the essence of the teaparty’s creation as an astroturfed campaign. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2014, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-still-believe-the-tea-party-is-not-a-social-conservative-rr-organization/682495/56 "2014-03-02T21:02:51Z")
> [@Steely\_Dan\_Fan](#): > > There was never anything libertarian about it. > > _Laissez-faire_ capitalism is about as anti-libertarian as it gets. In fact, it’s what libertarianism is expressly opposed to. Coming from you - and not anyone else - that makes perfect sense. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2014, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-still-believe-the-tea-party-is-not-a-social-conservative-rr-organization/682495/57 "2014-03-03T18:38:10Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > Coming from you - and not anyone else - that makes perfect sense. . . . Something to do with Steely Dan’s politics? ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2014, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-still-believe-the-tea-party-is-not-a-social-conservative-rr-organization/682495/58 "2014-03-03T22:00:42Z")
The Tea Party didn’t start over Obamacare. My recollection of when the Tea Party movement really got going was after CNBC’s Rick Santelli protested the mortgage refinancing plan on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. That speech went viral, and soon after that the right blogosphere was awash with calls for organizing protests. The key events triggering the Tea party were the original financial bailouts, followed by the stimulus plan. Around that time the first new deficit estimates showing trillion dollar deficits as far as the eye could see panicked a lot of fiscal conservatives. Obamacare simply inflamed an already-growing movement. As for it being started through an astroturf campaign, I think that’s laughable. Go back and look at images from those early Tea Party protests. What you won’t see are professionally printed signs, large groups marching under a single banner, and all the other hallmarks of left-wing protests that usually seem to have significant funding behind them. Instead, you see a lot of cantankerous old coots with signs drawn in magic marker. There’s not a lot of evidence of any kind of funding behind those protests. Besides, I was reading those blogs back then, and I saw plenty of organizing activity, and it was all small-ball stuff, like a small-time blogger asking readers to show up at a certain place, or requests for people to bring food and water along. And plenty of people talking about car-pooling to protests, or trying to get volunteers to help keep order. No Koch brothers in sight. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2014, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-still-believe-the-tea-party-is-not-a-social-conservative-rr-organization/682495/59 "2014-03-03T22:15:13Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > The Tea Party didn’t start over Obamacare. My recollection of when the Tea Party movement really got going was after CNBC’s Rick Santelli protested the mortgage refinancing plan on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. That speech went viral, and soon after that the right blogosphere was awash with calls for organizing protests. > > The key events triggering the Tea party were the original financial bailouts, followed by the stimulus plan. Around that time the first new deficit estimates showing trillion dollar deficits as far as the eye could see panicked a lot of fiscal conservatives. Obamacare simply inflamed an already-growing movement… Yep, although I think it’s more accurate to say that Obamacare galvanized a movement that would probably have run out of steam if it had been all about TARP and such. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2014, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-still-believe-the-tea-party-is-not-a-social-conservative-rr-organization/682495/60 "2014-03-03T22:24:25Z")
Yeah, I could buy that. Obamacare certainly lit a fire back under it. But it’s not clear it would have run out of steam. There was lots going on that was angering the conservative side of the aisle. And the midterm election cycle also revved it up. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-still-believe-the-tea-party-is-not-a-social-conservative-rr-organization/682495.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-still-believe-the-tea-party-is-not-a-social-conservative-rr-organization/682495.md?page=4)