5 - The Trajectory of the Tea Party Insurgency

Summary

Despite the initial high-profile burst of public protest in 2009, Tea Party activism declined quickly and never returned to its initial level or ferocity. At its peak, the insurgency turned out more than one million supporters at protests staged on April 15, 2010. This chapter utilizes a systematic sampling of 19,758 Tea Party gatherings between 2009 and 2014. We distinguish between protests, meetings, awareness events, and political events, and analyze the rise and rapid decline of the Tea Party’s patterns of local activism. The Tea Party quickly moved away from staging public protests, and instead, focused their efforts on hosting what we call maintenance events, especially monthly or biweekly chapter meetings. We link the swift decline of Tea Party protest to three factors. First, we emphasize the role of activist burnout and activist disillusionment with protest’s effectiveness. Second, we identify an astounding decline in media attention to Tea Party protests after 2009. Last, we highlight the widespread belief held by many Tea Party activists that the Internal Revenue Service had directly targeted local groups.