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THE TEA PARTY IN POLITICS:
WHY THE EVENT IN BOSTON HARBOR
KEEPS ON
APPEALING TO AMERICANS
With the Fourth of July, the
Tea Parties are out in force again. Begun in February by a Seattle blogger and
introduced on national television by CNBC commentator Rick Santelli's "rant
heard round the world," the movement is a protest against the stimulus package,
existing and possible future taxes, and, at its broadest, the Obama
administration. Though numbers are contested, it may have held as many as 700
gatherings on April 15, and Tea Party events are planned in over 1,300 cities
for Independence Day. There are, of course, questions about who is behind the
Tea Parties. But whether or not these demonstrators represent a real grassroots,
it is clear that the movement has strong support from conservative organizations
like FreedomWorks, dontGO, and Americans for Prosperity, as well as the Fox News
channel.
One of the most obvious and
striking aspects of the movement is its political use of a historical symbol. In
this long and rich American tradition, the Tea Party has a history as a
conservative symbol. While it has been claimed by different political forces
throughout its history, the conservative claim has been most frequent and
insistent. Radical forces have appeared on the centennials - reformers arguing
for women's suffrage in 1873 and six protestors in colonial dress dumping oil
drums and a tarred-and-feathered Nixon effigy into the harbor in 1973 - while
conservatives have contested those meanings. But those who celebrate the Tea
Party at other times, selecting it from the host of other symbols available,
tend to be conservative.
The major invocations of the
dumping of the tea make this point. The Tea Party was first used to minimize
social disruption in the 1830s, after a long period in which it was not publicly
commemorated; when it did appear, it was depicted as a far tamer event than it
had actually been. The 1830s were a period of intense class conflict, when
journeymen stood on public stages claiming that "the Revolution is yet
unfinished" and demanding new rights. During this time one of the original
participants appeared - now well into his 90s - in Boston. George Robert Twelves
Hewes was feted by the Whigs: featured at a Fourth of July celebration, painted,
interviewed, and chronicled as the subject of two biographies. These Whig
depictions emphasized Hewes's old age and veteran status, portraying him as an
old patriot; a decision which effectively erased the class consciousness that
had inspired his original action.
Conservatives also claimed
the Tea Party at the centennials of 1873 - invoking "the great
principles of Law and Order" - and 1973, in which the speaker questioned the
wisdom of heaving the tea overboard. And they seized on it again in 1998, the
ideological precursor to today's movement. In 1998, two Republican congressmen
appeared on the side of a replica ship, holding a chest labeled TEA and
containing the federal tax code. They threw the chest into the harbor, upon
which two protestors in a life raft fell tipped the water, shouting "Your tax
will sink the working family." This protest was different than the events of the
1830s and the 1873 centennial, which focused on issues of social class. It drew
instead on the issue of taxes. But it was also, incipiently, about rebellion.
Recently, there have been
two more invocations of the event. In 2006, disaffected Libertarians formed the
"Boston Tea Party," a political party dedicated to reducing the size of
government and withdrawing American troops from around the world. And, of
course, there is the Tea Party movement today.
Why is the destruction of
the tea particularly attractive to conservatives? It forms a stark contrast to
other American historical icons, such as the Statue of Liberty, which has been
occupied by Vietnam Veterans Against the War and Puerto Rican nationalists among
others. The Statue has been invoked, again and again, to expand the circle of
those who enjoy American rights and thus accelerate social change. The Tea
Party, by contrast, provides a way to say "stop": it is used as a symbol of
rejection rather than a plea or a demand. In each instance when it has been
invoked, the sitting president has been a Democrat - Andrew Jackson, Bill
Clinton, Barack Obama - and in each case, the Tea Party has been an incipient
rebuke to the sitting administration. And in 1998 and again this spring, the Tea
Party actually worked to invoke a spirit of rebellion against that
administration. By aligning Obama with King George, it offers an instance of
revolt that is threatening - in its invocation of direct action - while
remaining safely patriotic.
The Tea Party has also
attracted Republicans in the last fifteen years because of the way it spotlights
the issue of taxes. Whatever the motivations of the rank and file members, the
historical reference is useful to party operatives: it provides a way to shift
attention away from social issues and re - emphasize the Republican party as the
one holding the line on taxes. And while most Americans will see lower taxes
under Obama, the stimulus package will certainly keep taxes high for generations
to come. So the Tea Party helps to redefine the Republican party, while at the
same time highlighting an American tradition of resistance to taxes.
Finally, the Tea Party
speaks to the broader reason that makes historical symbols politically
effective, whether used by right or left: it invokes a powerful sense of who we
are as a country. In politics, the fact of an appeal to history is
frequently more important than what that history suggests. Certainly,
the historical symbols that appear at the rallies are an eclectic bunch. These
symbols center on the Boston Tea party, with signs saying "Taxed Enough Already"
and "Trouble is Brewing," along with innumerable tea bags. But proponents borrow
freely from other Revolutionary events and beyond. Photographs of the protests
from earlier this year show a lively mishmash of historical references: a man in
colonial garb riding a horse; rattlesnake "Don't Tread on Me" flags; a Statue of
Liberty mask; Marie Antoinette saying "let them eat pork!"; and a copy of the
Pledge of Allegiance. And the American flag came along for the ride, leading
parades, dotting the crowds, and bedecking signs.
Indeed, the flag is the
symbol that best illustrates the political power of this turn to history. It is,
of course, a historical icon that has been invoked far more frequently than the
Tea Party. And it too is seen as conservative, in the sense of an association
with the Republican Party for the last forty years. But it has a wild and
rambunctious political history that spans both right and left. The remarkable
thing about the flag is how little we know of this history - less even, than we
know of the Tea Party. If the destruction of the tea has been flattened and
mythologized, the history of the flag has been even more so: down to the nub of
a myth about Betsy Ross. That lack of knowledge has been key to the flag's
power. It allows the symbol to be our national Rorschach blot: a reflection of
our hopes and fears at any one moment.
As both the flag and the Tea
Party show, politicians who successfully invoke history often rely on public
forgetfulness: they erase the specificity of the original event in favor of a
broad and generalized silhouette. There is an inverse relationship between the
detail of a historical icon and its present-day usefulness: the fewer details,
the more the symbol is open for meaning-making from the present. There is no
question that the historical reference of the Tea Party has been key to the
movement's success. Other movements have done something similar: think of Marian
Anderson at the Lincoln Memorial and Martin Luther King invoking the Declaration
of Independence in his "I have a dream" speech. Our history has a deep-seated
hold on our sense of what it means to be an American. When social movements call
on that history, they invoke that sense of citizenship and nationhood. In
retrospect, it becomes clear just how powerful a political force American
history can be
By Woden Teachout
6/29/2009
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