The Rise, Fall, and Influence of the Tea Party Insurgency

Book excerpt: Emerging in 2009, the Tea Party movement had an immediate and profound impact on American politics and society. This book draws on a decade's worth of original, extensive data collection to understand why the Tea Party emerged, where it was active, and why it disappeared so quickly. Patrick Rafail and John McCarthy link the Tea Party's rise to prominence following the economic collapse that came to be known as the Great Recession. Paying special attention to the importance of space and time in shaping the Tea Party's activities, Rafail and McCarthy identify and explain the movement's disappearance from the political stage. Even though grassroots Tea Party activism largely ceased by 2014, they demonstrate the movement's effect on the Republican Party and American democracy that continues today.