Reading Tea Leaves: What 1,331 Protest Placards Tell Us About the Tea Party Movement

Abstract

We use protest signs to identify the main issue concerns, heroes, villains, and symbols of the American Tea Party, as well as to gain some insights into its demographics and its mobilizing frames. Based on a content analysis of 1,331 signs carried by Tea Party demonstrators at one rally in Washington, DC, on April 15, 2010, we conclude that the Tea Party movement is above all concerned with economic issues. It is far closer to a wing of the Republican Party than it is to an independent social movement with bipartisan appeal. Social issues are comparatively insignificant, as is race. The mobilizing frame is a restoration of America to a lost greatness via lower taxes and smaller government.

Note

Notes

¹ The number of Tea Party leaders who have trafficked in racism of the grossest kind is remarkably large. Former Tea Party Express leader Mark Williams, who appeared on national television as a representative of the party, appeared with a sign comparing taxpayers under Obama to “niggers,” labeled the president a “welfare thug,” and finally went too far even for the Tea Party when he wrote a “satirical” letter to Abraham Lincoln in the voice of the NAACP, complaining about how Blacks were better off in slavery (Kennedy, 2010). In California, a local Tea Partier sent around an e-mail depicting Obama as part of a family of monkeys, thus explaining his alleged inability to produce a birth certificate (Sheridan, 2011). Numerous other incidents have been reported since 2009. On the other hand, the collection of racially inflammatory Tea Party signs collected on the NAACP's Web site and elsewhere do not seem to be at all representative of the signs held by Tea Party demonstrators at the rally we studied.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jeremy D. Mayer

Jeremy D. Mayer is an associate professor in the Department of Policy, Government, and International Affairs at George Mason University. Email: [email protected]

Xiaomei Cai

Xiaomei Cai is an associate professor in the Department of Communications at George Mason University. Email: [email protected]

Amit Patel

Amit Patel is an assistant professor in the Department of Public Policy and Public Affairs, McCormack Graduate School, at the University of Massachusetts-Boston. Email: [email protected]

Rajendra Kulkarni

Rajendra Kulkarni is a research instructor in the School of Policy, Government, and International Affairs at George Mason University. Email: [email protected]

Virgil I. Stanford

Virgil I. Stanford is a PhD candidate at George Mason University of Public Policy. Email: [email protected]

Naoru Koizumi

Naoru Koizumi is an associate professor in the School of Policy, Government, and International Affairs at George Mason University. Email: [email protected]