logo
Donate
    • Magazine
    • Membership
    • Donate
  • Racial Justice
  • Economic Justice
    • Collections
    • Glossary
  • Climate Justice
  • Health Justice
  • Leadership
  • CONTENT TYPES
  • Magazine
  • Webinars
  • Membership
  • Submissions

Tea Party: Disparate and Powerful

Rick Cohen
October 26, 2010

October 24, 2010; Source: Washington Post | Having just completed a three-part series on the Tea Party as a social movement (read Part I, Part II, and Part III), we were struck by the Washington Post‘s article based on interviews with hundreds of local voluntary Tea Party groups that the Tea Party “is not so much a movement as a disparate band of vaguely connected gatherings that do surprisingly little to engage in the electoral process.”

The Post discovered that the Tea Party groups may be much smaller in number than the 2,300 listed by the Tea Party Patriots—more in the order of 1,400—and most are tiny, without money, and not particularly engaged in the political process. We aren’t surprised that the Post wasn’t able to scrounge up hundreds of the Tea Party groups listed by the Patriots. If you check the Patriots website, many of the groups are listed with their membership totals—scads of them in the low end of single digits.

The Tea Party reality is that a handful of people having a coffee or drink and complaining about “socialist” Obama and Pelosi could decide, “Hey, let’s call ourselves a Tea Party organization!” (Or a 912 group or any of the other typical nomenclature that the various Tea Party Patriots groups use.) The money behind the Tea Party isn’t in these coffee (or tea) klatsch gatherings, but in the national organizations such as FreedomWorks and the Tea Party Express, which can capitalize on the Tea Party sentiment even if many of the actual organizations don’t have a lot of juice.

Sign up for our free newsletters

Subscribe to NPQ's newsletters to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

By signing up, you agree to our privacy policy and terms of use, and to receive messages from NPQ and our partners.

Does the disparate nature of their political and social beliefs and their lack of a leader relegate them to less than a movement? No. In this hyper-connected Internet age, political life is speeded up. The Tea Party, such as it is, only popped up less than two years ago, originating in a televised rant against the government’s attempts to help people brought low by the subprime mortgage crisis. To have reached the stage of the infrastructure that we described in our review of the headless, leaderless Tea Party movement in such a short period of time is not to be sniffed at, even if some of the Tea Party groups don’t have much oomph.

Watch what happens after the elections. As it always happens, as the nation gets closer to Election Day, the polling gaps are narrowing. If the Tea Party candidates in the end fail to upend as many “Obama socialists” as they imagine they could have, let’s see what the next stage of evolution might be for the unorthodox, speeded up political movement.—Rick Cohen

About the author
Rick Cohen

Rick joined NPQ in 2006, after almost eight years as the executive director of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP). Before that he played various roles as a community worker and advisor to others doing community work. He also worked in government. Cohen pursued investigative and analytical articles, advocated for increased philanthropic giving and access for disenfranchised constituencies, and promoted increased philanthropic and nonprofit accountability.

More about: Nonprofit NewsOrganizational CulturePolitics

Our Voices Are Our Power.

Journalism, nonprofits, and multiracial democracy are under attack. At NPQ, we fight back by sharing stories and essential insights from nonprofit leaders and workers—and we pay every contributor.

Can you help us protect nonprofit voices?

Your support keeps truth alive when it matters most.
Every single dollar makes a difference.

Donate now
logo logo logo logo logo
See comments

You might also like
As Neoliberalism Crashes, What Comes Next?
Steve Dubb
Beyond Wishful Thinking: How to Build Lasting Youth Political Infrastructure
Katie Kirchner
US Nonprofit Sector Documents Its Own Powerlessness, but What Will We Do?
Tom Tresser
Saving AmeriCorps: What’s at Stake and Why We Must Act Now
Hillary Kane
When Academic Freedom Falls, Civil Society Is Next
Zane McNeill
Federal Jobs, Science, and Anti-Intellectualism: Climate Scientists Speak Out
Matthew Rozsa

Upcoming Webinars

Group Created with Sketch.
May 27th, 2:00 pm ET

Ask the Nonprofit Lawyer

Register
Group Created with Sketch.
June 26th, 2:00 pm ET

From Performance Management to Mutual Commitment

Fostering a Culture of Joyful Accountability

Register

    
You might also like
Street protest with a young woman holding a sign above her head that reads “If you’re not angry, you’re not paying attention
As Neoliberalism Crashes, What Comes Next?
Steve Dubb
US Capitol Building
Tax Provision Would Give Trump Administration Unilateral...
Rebekah Barber and Isaiah Thompson
Beyond Wishful Thinking: How to Build Lasting Youth...
Katie Kirchner

Like what you see?

Subscribe to the NPQ newsletter to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

See our newsletters

By signing up, you agree to our privacy policy and terms of use, and to receive messages from NPQ and our partners.

  • About
  • Advertise
  • Careers
  • Contact
  • Copyright
  • Donate
  • Editorial Policy
  • Funders

We are using cookies to give you the best experience on our website.

 

Non Profit News | Nonprofit Quarterly
Powered by  GDPR Cookie Compliance
Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.

Strictly Necessary Cookies

Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.

If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.