3 - The Birth of the Insurgency

Summary

On April 15, 2009, 1,022 Tax Day Tea Party rallies took place across the US. These rallies were transformative for the Tea Party and served to put the insurgency on the national stage. Soon after April 15, local Tea Party groups began appearing across the country. By the end of 2009, 743 local Tea Party chapters had come into existence. This chapter develops an explanatory account of the earliest wave of Tea Party protests and the early risers that followed. We emphasize the dual importance of material threats brought about by the Great Recession, and status threats linked to a perceived decline in social power among White conservative Christians. Our results show that the Tea Party was set in motion by powerful, well-resourced conservative groups. The groups honed the Tea Party’s message and built an online infrastructure allowing any potential activist to stage a rally or form a local Tea Party group. The grassroots expansion of the Tea Party took off and became the public face of the insurgency. Tea Party activism was most intense in communities with higher levels of both material threats and status threats.