Deconstructing the Tea Party

For a Tea Party sympathizer who lost his job, is unnerved by immigrants moving into the neighborhood and doesn't feel comforted by a black president with a foreign-sounding name, patriotic appeals to an idealized past anchored by Christian values resonate in powerful ways. This emotional, cultural identity appeal is far more potent than calls for smaller government or lower taxes - even as those principles fit easily with a vaguely defined "liberty" agenda.