3.3.3 Conservative Republican Politicians

Structurally speaking, the node in the tea party oratorical network consisting of conservative Republican politicians was a loose cloud of separate orator complexes surrounding individual candidates. There was, however, significant mirroring and matching of rhetorical strategies and structures among tea party-affiliated politicians. Particularly in 2009 and prior to the midterm elections in 2010, politicians that wanted to affiliate themselves with the movement acted independently from one another, making individual decisions to rhetorically “join” the movement by mirroring the polarizing rhetoric of tea party protesters, conservative media figures, and political action groups.419 In the run up to the 2010 elections, the Tea Party Caucus was founded in the House of Representatives to coordinate messaging between elected politicians and new tea party-affiliated candidates for office. This move was criticized by some in the tea party as an attempt by establishment Republican politicians to co-opt the movement’s energy, and some elected Republicans who supported the tea party even refused to join the congressional group.420

Politicians who sought to align themselves with the tea party network can be divided into two groups: those who were already in government prior to the movement’s emergence in 2009, and those who sought (and in many cases won) election in the 2010 midterms and 2012 elections. Prominent examples from the former group included Representatives Bachmann (MN), Paul Ryan (WI), Trent Franks (AZ), Mike Pence (IN), Tom Price (GA), and Sarah Palin (AK). The latter group included now prominent Republicans such as Marco Rubio (FL), Rand Paul (KY), Ted Cruz (TX), and Nikki Haley (SC). In total, the New York Times counted 138 tea party candidates in the 2010 elections—all of them Republicans.421

Politicians who were already in Congress found themselves in a precarious position within the tea party oratorical network. Many of them were actually the targets of polarizing tea party rhetoric; indeed, a central goal of tea party protests and activism was to “loudly tell Republican office holders to do what they want,” to “remake” the party “into a much more uncompromising and ideologically principled force,” and to “spur movement of the Republican Party ever further to the right.”422 In this sense, the polarizing makers vs. takers framework served as a rhetorical measuring stick for other tea party members to evaluate the ideology and actions of Republican politicians.

Many conservative Republican politicians gladly and quickly assumed the tea party mantle and the polarizing rhetoric that went along with it. Those who didn’t, in fact, were quickly declared to be part of the “establishment” that was complicit in the government handouts to takers—and thus became part of the out-group targeted by more pure tea party candidates. From the perspective of the tea party as an oratorical network, polarizing strategies such as those expressed by the makers vs. takers dichotomy helped divide the Republican Party itself into two camps—the tea partiers and the establishment—and very clearly marked which side would have the financial and organizational support of affiliated political action groups, which would receive more airtime and positive attention from conservative media outlets, and which would ultimately earn the votes of grassroots activists. Indeed, even relatively early on in the movement, support from tea party organizations and activists was pivotal in electing Republican Senator Scott Brown in the Democratic stronghold of Massachusetts in early 2010.423

But Republican politicians were not merely passive targets of tea party polarization. After the 2010 midterm elections at the latest, tea party-affiliated Republican politicians also clearly belonged to the oratorical network as a separate and active node. Many of the reelected and newly elected Republican members of the 112th Congress explicitly identified with the tea party and integrated the same polarizing rhetorical strategies (and the makers vs. takers framework) into their communication. More importantly, they also actively sought to implement the ideological agenda supported by other groups within the tea party movement. In this way, politicians served a critical function in the oratorical network: they were responsible for actually making the policies advocated by other tea party orators a reality. Whether in the fight against Obamacare, or in support of deregulation, or in the push to drastically cut government spending—tea party affiliated politicians were on the front lines. Many of them felt that they were representatives of their constituents in the truest sense of the word, and other tea party orators were also quick to hold them accountable. Although the real-world goals of different nodes in the tea party network were not always aligned with one another, tea party-affiliated representatives gave them a direct political lever in the federal government and statehouses around the country.

Because rhetorical mirroring and matching was an important way to signal their affiliation with the tea party network, many examples of the makers vs. takers dichotomy can be found in the communication of conservative Republican politicians. By infusing their speeches, television appearances, and campaign communications with the polarizing framework, they directly appealed to audience members and voters with favorable opinions of the movement. Perhaps most infamously (and although he was not considered closely affiliated with the tea party), in 2012, presidential candidate Mitt Romney was recorded at a fundraiser describing what he saw as his main obstacle to winning the election:

Well, there are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. There are 47 percent […] who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe that government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name it […] These are people who pay no income tax; 47 percent of Americans pay no income tax […] And so my job is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.424

The release of the video set off a political firestorm and did “real damage” to Romney’s election campaign, as the candidate himself later put it.425 Indeed, public opinion polling after the incident “found a fair amount of negative shift in opinion toward the Republican nominee.”426

But such rhetoric was actually extremely common elsewhere in the Republican Party, and indeed within Romney’s own campaign. One of the most prominent proponents of the makers vs. takers framework was in fact Romney’s vice-presidential candidate, Representative Paul Ryan from Wisconsin. From the early stages of the tea party movement (and even prior to the emergence of the tea party), Ryan closely associated himself with the ideology of a society threatened by takers.427 A few months before his September 2010 appearance on John Stossel’s show discussed earlier, Ryan made an appearance on “Washington Watch,” where he asserted that “right now, about 60 percent of the American people get more benefits in dollar value from the federal government than they pay back in taxes. So, we’re going to a majority of takers vs. makers in America and that will be tough to come back from that.”428 In an October 28, 2011, town hall meeting with some of his constituents, Ryan declared that the country was threatened by “two tipping points”:

One is we could quickly become a country of a net majority of takers versus makers where more and more people who are able bodied become net dependent upon the government for their well-being and their livelihood than upon themselves. That stagnates society, that atrophies creativity, imagination, innovation, entrepreneurship and society. It slows society down.429

Just three days later, Ryan gave the keynote address at a gala held by The American Spectator, a conservative monthly magazine:

It doesn’t really matter what generation you are in, this is the most precarious moment in your lifetime […] Before too long, we could become a society where the net majority of Americans are takers not makers […] Today, 70 percent of Americans get more in benefits back in dollar value from the government than they pay back in taxes.430

Indeed, Ryan utilized the makers vs. takers framework so often that the website Mother Jones put together a supercuts-style montage of Ryan using the phrase after 2009.431

At a textual level, Ryan’s polarizing language checks all of the necessary boxes, from the explicit use of the dichotomous, makers vs. takers formulation to his repeated invocation of the “two tipping points for America.” With vivid positive and negative imagery (“stagnates society, that atrophies creativity” vs. “seventy percent of Americans want the American dream”), Ryan clearly distinguished the in-group from the out-group and highlighted the moral stakes of his distinction.432 His apocalyptic visions of the future provoked his audiences to confront the flag issues he highlighted on his terms.

Other tea party-affiliated candidates and politicians who rose to prominence in 2010 and 2012 also integrated this polarizing framework. Some of the more provocative formulations of the makers vs. takers dichotomy could be found in the 2010 election campaign of Senator Rand Paul (“The end is coming, the times are growing short to fix the situation […] when they promise you things, they are promising you something they don’t have to give,”) and Governor Paul LePage’s (R-ME) 2013, where he claimed that “about 47% of able-bodied people in the state of Maine don’t work.”433

But while the makers vs. takers dichotomy was common in the rhetoric of Republican politicians—and some were more direct than others—many of them were wary of using language considered too provocative for politicians. As Romney perhaps learned in the 2012 presidential election, while media figures and grassroots activists could get away with more inflammatory language, such rhetoric was often frowned upon by the broader swath of voters needed to win national elections. In a similar fashion to the rhetoric of libertarian political action groups, Republican politicians instead often sought to couch the polarizing framework in somewhat less-provocative terms. One formulation that found widespread use in campaign communication and public comments was a distinction between “dependent vs. independent” Americans. In an interview with Reason magazine prior to the 2012 election, Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) discussed the idea of government dependence across a wide range of issues, and utilized language very similar to Ryan:

Almost half of Americans are getting something from government, and the other half are paying for it. And we’re on a track where 60 percent are getting something from government and 40 percent are paying for it. You can’t sustain a democracy with that mix […] It’s hard to win elections when you’re talking about limited government if the constituents want more from government […] We’ve got to understand we’re in trouble, that we don’t have much time.434

At the Republican National Convention in 2012, Texas senatorial candidate Ted Cruz used the same framework:

Government is not the answer. You are not doing anyone a favor by creating dependency, destroying individual responsibility. Fifty-five years ago, when my dad was a penniless teenage immigrant, thank God some well-meaning bureaucrat didn’t put his arm around him and say let me take care of you. Let me give you a government check and make you dependent on government […] That would have been the most destructive thing anyone could have done.435

And in a 2013 speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), Governor Scott Walker (R-WI) referred to government dependence eleven times in a thirteen-minute speech:

You know this president and his allies measure success in government by how many people are dependent on the government. We measure success in government by just the opposite, by how many people are no longer dependent on the government […] You see in America, people don’t grow up dreaming they’re going to be dependent on the government.436

Indeed, after taking over as Speaker of the House in 2015, Ryan even explicitly renounced his use of the makers vs. takers dichotomy. In a congressional speech on March 23, 2016, Ryan stated:

There was a time when I would talk about a difference between “makers” and “takers” in our country […] But as I spent more time listening, and really learning the root causes of poverty, I realized I was wrong. Takers wasn’t how to refer to a single mom stuck in a poverty trap, just trying to take care of her family […] And to label a whole group of Americans that way was wrong. I shouldn’t castigate a large group of Americans to make a point. So, I stopped thinking about it that way—and talking about it that way.437

In an interview on the nightly news show “Face the Nation,” Ryan directly acknowledged the polarizing nature of his rhetoric and also took (partial) responsibility for driving partisan polarization in America:

Well look, I think I was wrong. When you do something that is wrong you should call up to it […] Sure, some people are going to exploit the system, some people are just you know, choosing to live on the dole and not work because they prefer that […] But most people don’t want to be poor, most people don’t want to be dependent. And if we speak as if everybody is in this category, that’s wrong. And so that’s what I did, and I was wrong to do that.438

Instead, Ryan sought to shift his rhetoric toward a softer distinction between those who “don’t want to be dependent” and those who “choose to live on the dole.” While ideologically similar, this less simplified, exaggerated, and provocative formulation helped Ryan moderate his political views for a broader electorate.

Despite this shift by one prominent politician, it is clear that the rhetorical strategy of polarization around the makers vs. takers framework helped many conservative Republican politicians meet their real-world goals. This is an important point to emphasize. Not only were Republican politicians a target of tea party polarization, they themselves utilized polarizing strategies to achieve a clear set of goals independent of the tea party network as a whole. First and foremost was getting elected or reelected to Congress. By mirroring the rhetoric (and polarizing structures) of other tea party orators, Republican politicians sought to associate themselves as closely as possible with the rising energy of the movement. Those who that were accepted by other tea party orators as part of the in-group could hope to tap into voter and activist energy during elections, to garner more interviews and appearances in conservative media outlets, and to gain the financial backing and organizational support of tea party political action groups. Those who distanced themselves from the movement, or were seen as too moderate, were branded as “the establishment,” i.e. as part of the out-group, and soon faced challenges from within the tea party. In this sense, integrating polarizing rhetorical strategies found in the tea party network became a matter of political survival for some Republicans: they could either get with the rhetorical program or lose their standing in the party (and maybe their job altogether).

At the same time, the fundamental distinction made by the makers vs. takers dichotomy also fit neatly with the political ideologies of many conservative Republican politicians anyway. In this sense, (some) politicians did not just rhetorically associate themselves with the tea party; instead, they saw themselves as active members whose job it was to implement conservative and libertarian policies. By emphasizing the makers vs. takers framework (and the less provocative dependent vs. independent distinction), tea party-affiliated politicians could argue for their chosen policies in a way with which their voters and viewers would identify. The apocalyptic and provocative images of doom and destruction that sometimes accompanied their warnings against “government dependency” and becoming a “majority taker nation” heightened the stakes for their voters and supporters and helped increase solidarity within the tea party network.439

This solidarity, and the motivation provided by the dire threats in candidates’ polarizing rhetoric, moved conservative voters to the polls in the 2010 and 2012 elections. The direct electoral results were massive Republican gains in Congress in 2010 and a large number of new tea party-affiliated politicians. Indeed, as research has shown, “the ideological shift from the 111th to the 112th Congress was extraordinary [...] larger than any previous shift from one House to the next.”440 This newly elected, highly conservative Congress then proceeded to implement conservative polices and block President Obama’s political agenda. In short, the use of polarizing rhetorical strategies around the makers vs. takers framework helped Republican politicians shift American political discourse to frames of their choosing and helped them take back political power after suffering heavy losses in 2008.

3.3.4Grassroots Activists

While the tea party movement was often criticized as a top-down, “astroturf” political phenomenon, by 2010, there were tens of thousands of tea party activists around the country and millions of tea party supporters. Many of these individuals gathered together to form local tea party groups which met more or less regularly to discuss political developments, to listen to presentations by invited speakers, and to organize activities. By 2012, a

nationwide survey of local tea parties turned up about 1000 groups spread across all fifty states […] Overall, a generous assumption is that approximately 800 active local tea parties have, on average, 200 members apiece […] That multiplies out to 160,000 very active grassroots participants in tea parties across the United States.441

These individuals were not “astroturf,” or fake activists—they were engaged citizens who proactively sought to participate in the democratic system by collectively raising their voices to be heard by the public and by politicians. These relatively few—but highly engaged—activists and their organizations became orators and orator complexes in the grassroots node of the tea party network.

As described at the beginning of this chapter, some of these individuals and local tea party groups were actively supported by political action groups that provided activist training, while others emerged spontaneously. Many of the speakers invited to local tea party meetings were affiliated with other nodes in the network as well, and they traveled from one local group to the other around the nation. As Skocpol and Williamson relevantly conjecture:

These outside speakers, we think, are one way for politically consequential ideas […] to circulate among local tea parties. They are also how ideological organizations such as Americans for Prosperity form closer links with local citizens.442

Such local groups also met one another at larger rallies and demonstrations, and in some cases coordinated with one another to organize events. Thus, while local tea party groups were organized and operated largely independently from one another, they were still connected by the sympathizers they shared, the activist training they received, the speakers they invited to their events, and the public demonstrations and actions they took together.

The broad demographics and political leanings of tea party activists were also touched on briefly in the introduction to this chapter. Taken as a whole, tea party activists were whiter, older, wealthier, more religious, more conservative, and more educated than the average American.443 Citing polling data from the Pew Research Center, DiMaggio finds “that the strongest factors influencing support for the tea party […] include party, ideology, race, and evangelism.”444 And a New York Times poll in 2010 found that

supporters of the tea party movement are more likely to be men, over the age of 45, white, married, and either employed or retired […] They are more affluent and more educated than most Americans. Almost all said they are registered to vote, and most are Republicans.445

Skocpol and Williamson confirmed such survey findings in their own analysis, but placed them in a broader context:

Given the disproportionate number of older whites, it is not surprising that tea party activists […] have somewhat higher incomes than typical Americans. Most are not truly wealthy, however. Comfortably middle-class might be the best way to describe grassroots tea partiers.446

They go on to note that “nearly all the tea party people we met had at least some college education,” and that “many tea party participants are comfortably well-off senior citizens.” Indeed, “although quite a few of the group leaders we met were women in their forties, the bulk of those in attendance were unmistakably in their fifties, sixties, seventies, and even older.”447

In fact, they make the case that the demographic characteristic of age is critical to explaining the political worldview of grassroots tea party activists, and particularly their acceptance of the polarized makers vs. takers dichotomy at the core of tea party ideology. As the sociologists describe it:

In everyday human terms, the tea party perspective resembles how grandparents routinely look at those following them through life: there is hope for the grandkids, who may respond to education, but younger adults are unseasoned and often irresponsible. The generational perspective of most tea partiers is unmistakable. The vast majority are looking at society and politics with the expectations, hopes, and fears of long-standing staunch conservatives.448

Or as one tea party meeting attendee bluntly explained the generational gap: “twenty-eight-year-olds are not paying the bills.”449 Partially as a result of this demographic skew, tea party activists were significantly more conservative than even other Republican voters: “what distinguishes tea party supporters more precisely are their very right-wing political views.” Despite their rejection of the GOP establishment and political elites, tea party activists overwhelmingly supported Republican candidates, and 62 percent considered themselves conservative Republicans.450

In this sense, it is little wonder that tea party activists shared many of the same ideological preferences and categories as other nodes within the tea party oratorical network, including an openness to polarizing strategies and the makers vs. takers dichotomy. Tea party activists saw themselves as the makers of society; most of them had worked (and paid taxes) for decades. And many were heavily impacted by the economic crisis in 2007/2008. While they “did not […] face the direst blows delivered by the Great Recession,” the rapid drop in both real estate values and the stock market “hit at two seemingly safe investments,” that many had been carefully tending for years: “their home value and their retirement accounts.” “Threats to these investments convinced many tea partiers that hard work is no longer fairly rewarded in America.”451 Indeed, this belief, and their fear of economic uncertainty, directly contributed to a dichotomous worldview pitting their interests against those who may have needed more government assistance:

Older people with some accumulated equity can find an economic downturn very menacing, not only because their retirement accounts and home values take a hit, but because governments at all levels spend more on programs to help working-age families (through programs such as unemployment insurance, Food Stamps, college aid, and publicly subsidized health care) […] Will governments respond by hiking levies on the more economically comfortable? Many tea party people are acutely worried that the answer will be yes.452

Particularly after the election of a Democratic president and Congress, “tea partiers feared government responses orchestrated by a president they despise, who might spend more on the less privileged and hike taxes on people like themselves.”453

From this perspective, the grassroots tea party activists really were a legitimate and independent element within the tea party network. They were not merely manipulated and controlled from above, nor did they simply parrot what they heard on the news. On the contrary: they actively identified with many of the political ideals promoted by other elements within the tea party network, and they had real economic and sociological reasons for doing so. In short, they were protesters using polarizing strategies to try and influence target audiences. At the same time, grassroots tea party activists—like Republican politicians—were also the target of polarizing rhetorical strategies. Both through their active contact with political action groups (in the form of activist training, traveling speakers, and the organization of events) and through their consumption of conservative media, grassroots activists were continually exposed to polarizing rhetoric involving the makers vs. takers dichotomy from other nodes in the network. Because such a worldview already coincided with their own fears and concerns, they readily accepted the rhetorical framework offered by others, and mirrored it in their own communication.

This rhetorical mirroring and matching by local activists served a range of critical functions within the tea party oratorical network. As Abramowitz writes in his analysis of partisan polarization and the tea party movement: “Any successful social movement requires both leadership and organization and a grassroots army of sympathizers to respond to those leaders and organizations, and the tea party movement is no exception.”454 By directly translating the polarizing rhetoric of political action groups, politicians, and conservative media into citizen activism (e.g., by making signs at rallies and protests, asking questions and making statements at public appearances by officials, and by engaging with conservative media), grassroots activists demonstrated public support for the policies that such conservative groups sought to implement. Tea party activists identified themselves explicitly on the side of the makers, and already held negative views of “public spending on the ‘undeserving.’”455 So when they came out to protest in numbers in the spring of 2009, staged loud protests at town hall meetings in the summer of 2009, and attended political rallies during the 2010 midterm elections, they received attention from the mass media (not just conservative media) and lent credibility to the political ideals and philosophies behind their polarized slogans.

Similarly, such activists also provided real electoral support for conservative Republican candidates who appeared to support the tea party, and who successfully and credibly mirrored the polarized makers vs. takers rhetoric of the oratorical network. Especially in the 2010 midterm elections, tea party-affiliated candidates were boosted by grassroots activists who both directly donated money and drove donation drives, volunteered for voter turnout operations, and ultimately voted for their preferred tea party candidates. At the same time, those Republican politicians who were considered part of the out-group often quickly saw local grassroots efforts to defeat them at the ballot box in favor of more conservative candidates who better identified themselves with the tea party network.

Finally, grassroots activists served two important functions for conservative media, and to a certain extent non-partisan media as well: they were both the product and its consumers. On the one hand, and as already illustrated, media outlets devoted incredible amounts of coverage to the tea party, filling their airwaves, pages, and digital screens with news and commentary about the movement.456 Conservative media in particular interviewed activists, covered rallies, and provided commentary on activist activities. In this way, grassroots activists provided such outlets with content they could then pass on to their consumers. At the same time, tea party activists and supporters themselves were the consumers of such media. As discussed earlier, by the time the tea party emerged in 2009, consumers of conservative media already belonged to a relatively closed epistemic community.457 Their ready acceptance of and agreement with the polarized depictions of America broadcast in conservative mass media made them happy and dedicated consumers of such content. Thus, in addition to being the product, the active grassroots tea party activists were also the consumers of conservative media.

It is little wonder, then, that the makers vs. takers dichotomy and the polarizing textual structures used by other tea party orators found their way into grassroots activist communication. In fact, variations of the framework were a common element in the public statements, interviews, and speeches given by grassroots activists, and on the websites, flyers, and protest placards they made. Particularly the latter proved to have significant potential for polarizing slogans and imagery.458 As the authors of an extensive study of 1,331 tea party protest placards note:

In order to ascertain the issues and beliefs that motivate the tea party, signs offer a potent window into what Benford and Snow (2000) call “Collective Action Framing” […] They are written to be viewed by fellow marchers as well as the rest of the public through the prism of the mass media.459

In addition to examples from the first tea party protests discussed at the beginning of this chapter, the makers vs. takers dichotomy was continually present in protest signs. A simple Google image search using the terms “tea party protest placards” turns up myriad examples of signs that incorporated makers vs. takers framing, from “DON’T MAKE OUR KIDS FUND YOUR GREED,” to “REPUBLICANS ARE MAKERS, DEMOCRATS ARE TAKERS,” to “DON’T SPREAD MY WEALTH, SPREAD MY WORK ETHIC”.460 Other examples reported by Skocpol and Williamson include: “REDISTRIBUTE MY WORK ETHIC,” “You are not ENTITLED to What I have EARNED,” and “YOUR FAIR SHARE IS NOT IN MY WALLET.”461 A photo essay by Time magazine also provides plenty of examples, including a placard labeling President Obama the “Parasite-in-Chief” (with a reference to a website called “producerorparasite.com”).462

But placards and protest signs were naturally not the only venues and genres in which grassroots activists incorporated the makers vs. takers dichotomy into their communication. In conversations with journalists, pollsters, and researchers, grassroots activists often expressed their political views and sentiments within the polarized framework. As activist Ralph Sproveer told pollster Scott Rasmussen: “This country was founded on people to create their own wealth, not to live off the redistributed wealth of others.”463 Elsewhere, an anonymous protester from California depicted the makers of society as sandwiched between takers above and below them on the economic scale: “The middle class gets stuck paying for the lower class, while the upper class uses their connections to beat the system. If you’re not on the side with the haves or the have-nots, you’re done.”464 In 2009, Keli Carender (the same activist who organized the Porkulus protest) was filmed at a town hall meeting with Representative Norm Dicks (D-WA) waving a twenty-dollar bill in the air and exclaiming: “If you believe it’s absolutely moral to take my money and give it to someone else based on their supposed needs, then you come and take this twenty dollars!”465 Later, when discussing her position with one of her state representative’s aides, she explained: “It feels like a knife in my heart when I know that I have to pay more revenue to pay somebody else’s salary and somebody else’s benefits.”466

Kate Zernike’s reporting also clearly details how some older activists became more ideologically focused on the makers vs. takers dichotomy over time. While activist Diana Reimer claimed her attendance at her first rally in March 2009 “wasn’t a political thing […] It was a way to get out there and get your frustrations out.”467 By the summer, she had “honed her political arguments.” When describing student supporters of health care expansion, she claimed: “To them, the government is going to take care of us, now we don’t have to worry about it. That’s not America.”468

Skocpol and Williamson found many examples of the same framework from activists across the country. John Patterson from Virginia was “determined to fight against ‘government meddling in the free-market’ and ‘big government folks’ who are ‘taking the struggle out of normal life issues,’ by handing out benefits to people who have not earned them.”469 At a tea party meeting in Massachusetts, Sandra Aismov

explained, “I differentiate between entitlements and welfare.” She and others like her paid into legitimate entitlements, Sandra believes, but welfare recipients have not earned what they receive. Ben Jones described welfare recipients as “generation after generation of people on the public dole.”470

Activist James Rand wrote in an email: “I am not rich, but I am working hard to get there, and when I do, I would prefer that the moocher class not live off my hard work.” Steven Clark “stresses that, ‘we shouldn’t be paying for other people that don’t work.’”471

All of the textual examples cited here mirror the same polarizing structures found in the rhetoric of other tea party orators from elsewhere in the network. Grassroots activists illustrated a polarized worldview consistent with the makers vs. takers dichotomy, and expressed their fears, anger, and frustration in terms of this constructed social distinction. In this respect, grassroots tea party activists began mirroring and matching the rhetorical structures they saw around them because they identified personally with the in-group depicted by the polarizing divide. Whether their initial motivation for taking part in tea party activities was clearly political or more social, the continual exposure to the polarizing framework from multiple channels (e.g., at meetings, on television, at rallies, etc.) reinforced the dichotomous narrative and made disparate individuals more ideologically uniform over time.

It is important to again emphasize that grassroots organizers were not merely manipulated or functionalized by others in the tea party oratorical network, and they were certainly not simply parroting polarizing rhetoric. On the contrary, activists had their own personal and individual motivations for utilizing polarizing strategies. As the movement gained momentum in 2009 and 2010, public identification and support for the tea party reached its apex, and more and more people began to take part.472 Within this context, one of the core functions of the makers vs. takers dichotomy was that it signaled a common political narrative and worldview. In Moore’s words, it functioned as a synecdoche that helped establish a common group identity which held the political movement together.473 In the true sense of Burkeian constitutive rhetoric, by expressing themselves in terms of the makers vs. takers dichotomy, individual activists could signal their membership in, and sympathies with, other individuals and groups in the network.474 This shared worldview became part of what it meant to be an activist member of the tea party movement.

Another explicit motivation for using polarizing strategies overlaps with many of the other nodes in the tea party network: polarization gets attention. By using provocative and exaggerated slogans on their protest signs, activists hoped to get more attention from the media (conservative or not), which would amplify their views even more. Media outlets across the political spectrum that covered the tea party movement between 2009 and 2013 were always happy to provide grassroots tea party activists with coverage, because they were seen as the most politically legitimate element of the tea party movement; after all, these were real voters taking to the streets. By using polarizing language, activists and local groups could stand out from the crowd, loudly illustrate their group affiliation with the tea party, and broadcast their political views to a wider public audience.

Such tactics not only garnered attention from the media, but from politicians as well. Whether they sought to embrace the tea party or merely sought to survive its wrath, politicians of all stripes were forced to react to tea party activists. Perhaps the most direct (and visceral) point of contact between politicians and tea party activists was at town hall meetings, where activists would often stage loud protests, ask provocative questions, and even personally berate the representative making an appearance.475 By utilizing polarizing frameworks in such interactions, activists sought to communicate their political worldviews and priorities to their representatives and to pressure politicians to choose a side. In the same way, polarizing rhetoric in interviews, phone calls to representatives’ offices, at demonstrations, during voter contact drives, etc., was aimed at getting attention for the activists’ political concerns and forcing representatives to take notice.

3.4Real-World Effects of the Tea Party Network’s Polarizing Rhetoric

On the whole, it is safe to say that the polarizing rhetorical strategies of the tea party network were wildly successful in achieving the real-world goals of both individual orators and the network as a whole. Between 2009 and 2013, the tea party proved to be a major force in U.S. American politics, and its polarizing frameworks and narratives drove political discourse, elections, and decision making. While the textual analysis given here has focused on that time frame, it is easy to argue that the tea party’s makers vs. takers dichotomy plays a significant role in American politics even today.476 Although the movement’s public support waned drastically in 2014, many of the most powerful and well-known Republican politicians now in government were closely affiliated with the tea party movement during its peak.477

Before delving deeper into the tea party’s electoral successes, it is important to restate here that from the perspective of rhetorical theory, the parallel use of polarizing rhetorical strategies (particularly those associated with the makers vs. takers framework) actually constituted the tea party as a coherent oratorical network. The shared and consistent use of the makers vs. takers dichotomy imagined an in-group and out-group with which individuals clearly identified or did not identify. The repetition, mirroring and matching, and echoing of this polarizing framework across the network maintained and reinforced in-group identity and solidarity. Such findings parallel those of McGowan (although she admittedly focused on a much smaller oratorical network) and are consistent with the conceptions of constitutive rhetoric discussed in Chapter 1.478 In other words: polarizing rhetoric helped create the common identity known as the tea party, and precisely because of this shared identity, it is legitimate to describe the tea party as an oratorical network that had real-world goals which it sought to realize with rhetorical means.

Even if we focus our gaze simply on the effects that the tea party’s polarizing strategies had on political discourse in the United States, their impact is significant. First and foremost was the attention that such rhetoric garnered the tea party network, particularly in the early stages of 2009 and during the midterm elections of 2010. As public polling and research on the tea party has shown, media coverage of the movement grew rapidly in 2009 and 2010, and with it, so too did public support.479 In this way, the polarizing frameworks, flag issues, and narratives used by tea party orators spread throughout American society and permeated political discourse. To name just one concrete example: the framing of American society into two dichotomous groups of makers vs. takers portrayed the expansion of health care in 2009 as “taking” healthcare away from the middle class and the elderly to give to the undeserving poor.480

Despite its significant influence on political discourse, the real success of the tea party network’s use of polarizing strategies was found in the area of electoral politics. As discussed already in this chapter, the rise of the tea party as a political force in the United States drastically increased public resistance to governmental policies favored by the Obama administration and a Congress controlled by a Democratic majority. The polarizing depiction of an in-group being attacked by those who would “take” their wealth, their health care, their businesses, and their way of life, helped mobilize activists to attend demonstrations and town hall meetings. Such actions put direct pressure on politicians to toe the tea party line and to mirror tea party rhetoric themselves. Once tea party-affiliated candidates took office (at all levels of government), they could even more effectively block anything they considered redistribution from “the deserving” to “the undeserving.”

These developments fit with the overall trend of political polarization throughout American society and government. As discussed in Chapter 2, there is some debate about the extent to which American political attitudes and Congress have grown more polarized over the last thirty-five years.481 But the polarizing rhetoric of the tea party oratorical network certainly helped drive ideological polarization. To cite but one data point, a 2014 survey by the Pew Research Center found that “Republicans and Democrats are more divided along ideological lines—and partisan antipathy is deeper and more extensive—than at any point in the last two decades.”482

Perhaps even more explicit were the effects that tea party polarization had on the Republican Party itself.483 The stark dichotomies presented by tea party orators rapidly crystallized into a choice for Republican politicians—either support the tea party’s highly conservative and libertarian political agenda and rhetorically align themselves with the movement or be branded part of the “establishment” and cast off into the out-group. Especially during the 2010 elections, the influence of the tea party forced GOP candidates farther to the right on political issues. Such polarizing strategies also drove voter turnout during the election, increasing solidarity among the in-group and driving behavior through a perceived shared enemy.484

But the election wasn’t a totally unqualified success. Because the polarizing rhetoric used by the tea party network explicitly divided the Republican Party itself, it led to many primary defeats of more moderate Republican candidates in favor of more conservative tea party candidates.485 As the New York Times reported after the election, out of a “total of 138 races with candidates from the tea party,” the tea party candidate went on to win won only 47, for a success rate just above one in three.486 In many of these losses, a more moderate Republican candidate may have had a higher chance of success, which would have led to an even larger Republican majority in the new Congress. In fact, losing tea party candidates in multiple Senate races likely cost Republicans a chance to take control of the Senate in the 2010 election cycle.487 As discussed earlier, however, the tea party network was not after “mere GOP election victories.” Instead, it actively sought “to cull out moderately conservative Republicans and replace them with ultra-conservatives,” and it was willing to deal with some losses in order to achieve that goal.488 Ultimately, 2010 proved to be a historic election for the Republican Party: its victory in the House was the largest gain for one party since 1938.489 And many of the new wave of lawmakers were extremely conservative. This rightward shift in the GOP led the entire Congress to become more polarized as well.490

The tea party’s makers vs. takers frame also permeated the presidential and congressional elections two years later in 2012. Although the oratorical network’s preferred candidate did not win the presidency, it did force an otherwise moderate Mitt Romney to the right in order to appeal to tea party sympathizers—and his now infamous 47-percent comment was a direct result of such pressure. Below the presidential election, however, the tea party network (and the polarized rhetorical frameworks it used) continued having electoral success: after the election, Republicans continued to hold a historic majority in the House and had taken control of the Senate as well, giving the party complete control of the legislative branch. By that point, many of the rising stars and most prominent members of Congress had been elected with significant support from the tea party, including Representatives Paul Ryan, Mike Pence, and Nikki Haley in the House and the senatorial trio of Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, and Marco Rubio. The tea party also had significant success in electoral races outside of Washington D.C., in 2010 and 2012, capturing seats in statehouses and governorships around the country.491

After the 2012 presidential election, the tea party network and the makers vs. takers framework continued to influence American politics and the Republican Party. In the 2014 midterm elections, “in one of the most stunning primary election results in congressional history,” the Republican House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (considered a front runner to become Speaker of the House) was defeated in the Virginia Republican primary by tea party candidate Dave Brat.492 The next year, tea party-aligned members in the House were able to drive Speaker of the House John Boehner to resign—and to replace him with Representative Paul Ryan.493 Within a year-and-a-half, the political force of the tea party oratorical network had driven the top two leaders of the Republican Party out, and had replaced them with in-group Republicans.

At the same time, by 2015, the tea party network had evolved. After 2014, public support for the tea party label began to wane.494 Grassroots tea party websites went untended and meetings slowed down or stopped altogether. Conservative political action groups shifted their attention to the coming 2016 presidential election and lobbied the already very conservative Congress for their preferred policies. Many of the politicians who had been elected in the tea party wave of 2010 began organizing and preparing for their own campaigns for president (including Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Nikki Haley, and Rick Santorum) or reelection. In Congress, the newly formed “Freedom Caucus” took center stage, led by many Republicans who had been members of the now defunct Tea Party Caucus.