The Tea Party and the Religious Right Movements
The Tea Party and the Religious Right Movements
Frenemies with Benefits
This chapter takes up the question of the relations between the religious right and the Tea Party. In its split between libertarianism and social conservatism, the Tea Party is writing a new chapter in the history of the division between fiscal conservatism and social issues like abortion and gay marriage that has long been a point of antagonism between the religious right and the establishment Republican Party. The chapter shows how new lines of ideological thinking, such as an emphasis on “American exceptionalism” and “socialism,” allow the religious right and the Tea Party to support the same goals based on divergent premises. Besides ideological overlap, key individuals and local and national connections help bridge this gap, though now, once in Congress, Tea Party representatives have taken this contradiction to a new level.
Keywords: Tea Party movement, Republican Party, religious right, fiscal conservatism, American exceptionalism, socialism
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