Looks at the rapid rise of the American Tea Party and the large affect it has had on American politics.

Enjoy life. Drink tea. Celebrate often. Tracy Stern is passionate about tea. She has created wildly popular lines of teas and tea-based beauty products and has hosted hundreds of stylish tea parties to celebrate all sorts of occasions. She has introduced a new generation to the pleasures of tea without any of its traditional stuffiness. In Tea Party, she encourages everyone to make their next gathering that much more special by incorporating tea into the menu. Starting with tips on choosing and brewing teas–from white and green teas to herbal rooibos and different black teas–Tea Party then shares more than seventy-five recipes, both savory and sweet, as part of twenty themed tea parties. Stern features classic tea accompaniments such as Scones with Clotted Cream and Cucumber-Mint Tea Sandwiches as well as novel recipes that use flavorful and healthful tea as an ingredient, including Homemade Potato Fries with Ceylon Tea Salt and Tea-Scented Chocolate Truffles. Above all, the focus is on fun, not fuss. The party suggestions are perfect for afternoons with friends, bridal and baby showers, cocktail and dinner parties, picnics, and brunches. A Mad Hatter’s Tea Party–for a birthday or an unbirthday–will delight kids and adults alike with tea sandwiches made with edible flowers followed by Eat Me! Cupcakes. Chai Breakfast Tea reveals a fantastic recipe for the sweetly spiced irresistible drink along with recipes for chai-scented pancakes and candied almonds. Ideas and inspirations abound for fabulous, easy, and affordable invitations, decorations, table settings, and charming party favors that tie into each party’s theme. Featuring beautiful color photography throughout, Tea Party is a hip, up-to-date slant on a beloved tradition, inspiring everyone to drink a little more tea, celebrate a little more often, and enjoy life a whole lot more.

The Tea Party showed its strength in the 2010 mid-terms. Despite the opposition of leading Republicans like Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, and Lindsey Graham, 140 Tea Party candidates ran for Congress. Of the sixty House seats which moved from Democratic to Republican control, twenty-eight were won by Tea Party candidates. At the movement’s height, 29 percent of Americans had “some ties” to the Tea Party, while 2 percent identified themselves as active members. The Tea Party first attracted the media spotlight with Rick Santelli’s televised rant against the government’s bailout of mortgage borrowers on February 19, 2009, which instantly went viral as a video. As the authors document, however, “tea parties” associated with the Ron Paul movement had already been gathering momentum for more than a year. Beginning as a protest against government spending sprees and ballooning deficits, the Tea Party’s sudden fame forced it to define itself on many issues where the membership was seriously divided. The Tea Party is a coalition of different outlooks, united only by belief in small, debt-free government and low taxes. Fiscal conservatives, who were usually liberal on social issues and against American military interventions, battled social conservatives, in an uneasy series of maneuvers which continues unresolved and is described in the book. The Tea Party Explained, written by two Tea Party activists who know the movement inside and out, is aimed at the intrigued and curious reader who wants to find out more about this unique phenomenon. The book gives a well-documented account of the Tea Party, its origins, its evolution, the bitter squabbles over its direction, its amazing successes in 2010, and its electoral rebuff in 2012. Maltsev and Skaskiw analyze the demographics of the Tea Party, the many organizations which have tried to represent, appropriate, or infiltrate the movement, and the ideological divisions in its ranks. The authors evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the Tea Party and its likely future impact. A movement with strong local roots in many cities, firmly supported by a quarter of the US population, will not evaporate after one big defeat, and can be counted on to influence events for decades to come.

Unlike previous books on the Tea Party, this work looks at the second phase of party growth to show that what was once considered a monolithic movement is truly a collection of different opinions. Since the Tea Party exploded onto the American political scene, it has matured and changed, but the differences that now exist within the movement are largely unacknowledged. A more nuanced understanding is called for. Previous treatises have sought explanations for the rise of the movement and focused primarily on its early days. This book, in contrast, focuses on understanding the diversity within the party, challenging the notion that the Tea Party is a homogeneous political movement defined mainly by its ultra-conservatism, regionalism, and rigid political orthodoxy. To accurately depict the Tea Party as it exists today, the book explores how the party evolved from its first phase to its second, examining important distinctions in terms of who has joined and who has served in Congress and other offices. Differences in Tea Party organizations around the country are examined and their funding sources considered. The book also explores the political positions taken by Tea Party members, looking at the voting records of party legislators to see if they've adhered to stated movement objectives. Finally, and perhaps most intriguingly, the author speculates on what this all means and suggests possible futures for the diverse Tea Party strands.

What to make of the Tea Party? To some, it is a grassroots movement aiming to reclaim an out-of-touch government for the people. To others, it is a proto-fascist organization of the misinformed and manipulated lower middle class. Either way, it is surely one of the most significant forms of reaction in the age of Obama. In this definitive socio-political analysis of the Tea Party, Anthony DiMaggio examines the Tea Party phenomenon, using a vast array of primary and secondary sources as well as first-hand observation. He traces the history of the Tea Party and analyzes its organizational structure, membership, ideological coherence, and relationship to the mass media. And, perhaps most importantly, he asks: is it really a movement or just a form of “manufactured dissent” engineered by capital? DiMaggio’s conclusions are thoroughly documented, surprising, and bring much needed clarity to a highly controversial subject.

Hailing themselves as heirs to the American Revolution, the Tea Party movement staged tax day protests in over 750 US cities in April 2009, quickly establishing a large and volatile social movement. Tea Partiers protested at town hall meetings about health care across the country in August, leading to a large national demonstration in Washington on September 12, 2009. The movement spurred the formation (or redefinition) of several national organizations and many more local groups, and emerged as a strong force within the Republican Party. Self-described Tea Party candidates won victories in the November 2010 elections. Even as activists demonstrated their strength and entered government, the future of the movement's influence, and even its ultimate goals, are very much in doubt. In 2012, Barack Obama, the movement’s prime target, decisively won re-election, Congressional Republicans were unable to govern, and the Republican Party publicly wrestled with how to manage the insurgency within. Although there is a long history of conservative movements in America, the library of social movement studies leans heavily to the left. The Tea Party movement, its sudden emergence and its uncertain fate, provides a challenge to mainstream American politics. It also challenges scholars of social movements to reconcile this new movement with existing knowledge about social movements in America. Understanding the Tea Party Movement addresses these challenges by explaining why and how the movement emerged when it did, how it relates to earlier eruptions of conservative populism, and by raising critical questions about the movement's ultimate fate.