Tea Party=Angry American Populists

John Judis makes some important points about the Tea Party movement in a short article in the New Republic, saying basically that they are not primarily racist, that they are a political movement though without central organization, that they are not a 'fascist' organization (though they do look backward to an idealized American past), and finally, that they are not just a Republican group funded by big business. 

Having made those four points, Judis points out that, paradoxically, they will probably end up helping big business and the wealthy much more than themselves.  And he points us to this article by historian Sean Wilencz for more understanding of the Tea Party.

Finally, he defines the Tea Party this way:

[the Tea Party movement] fits above all into the framework of American populism, which has always had right-wing and left-wing variants, and which is rooted in a middle class cri de coeur—that we who do the work and play by the rules are being exploited by parasitic bankers and speculators and/or by shiftless, idle white trash, negroes, illegal immigrants, fill in the blank here. What’s important is that these movements, which gather strength in the face of adversity, can go either right or left. During the 1930s, they tended left rather than right. During Obama’s first term, they have gone primarily to the right.