Tea Party's roots

Las Vegas Sun: "The Tea Party's (old) paranoia"

Beck and the Tea Party movement of which he is a central figure are often portrayed as a new and exotic political phenomenon. Pollsters treat the Tea Party movement like a third political party, and indeed, it is especially popular at the moment among unaffiliated voters new to politics.

For voters — most recently in last week’s Massachusetts special election — who believe big government and big business are engaged in a corrupt marriage, the movement feels like a refreshing voice for average people who aren’t in those backrooms and so aren’t getting cut in on the deals, like during health care reform negotiations.

Indeed, Kay Lawrence, a retired art gallery manager who attended a Tea Party event in Las Vegas recently, voices this complaint: “We’re sick of these sweetheart deals.”

For all its apparent freshness, however, the Tea Party movement is neither new nor novel, historians and political scientists say.

It is firmly rooted, in its ideology, rhetoric and — there’s no polite word for it — its paranoia, in the post-World War II American right.

Connecting them back to the Birchers and others.