Crashing the Tea Party

Paul Street is an urban social policy researcher and teacher in Chicago. He writes regularly for Z Magazine and Black Commentator. His books include Barack Obama and the Future of American Politics (2009) and Empire and Inequality (2005). Anthony DiMaggio is the author of the newly released When Media Goes to War (2010) and Mass Media, Mass Propaganda (2008). He teaches US and Global Politics at Illinois State University.

• Chapter 1 The Tea Party Does Not Exist; Chapter 2 “Turning the World Upside Down”; Chapter 3 Tea Party “Super Republicans”; Chapter 4 Tea Party Racism; Chapter 5 Return of “the Paranoid Style in American Politics”; Chapter 6 Astroturf to the Core; Chapter 7 Elections 2010; Chapter 8 Prospects for a Progressive Revival;

“This acute and highly informed analysis of the Tea Party phenomenon brings to light the reality that lies behind excited media portrayals, crucially distinguishing the ‘movement’ itself from the far larger and more significant popular sectors that are misled into believing that it responds to their authentic grievances, which are unaddressed in the mainstream political system. It is a dangerous mix, as history reveals. This lucid and careful study could hardly be more timely.” —Noam Chomsky “Essential reading for anyone concerned about the changing nature of American politics and the emergence of diverse authoritarian ideologies and political orthodoxies at the heart of the current Tea Party movement. Street and DiMaggio are two of America’s most important social and political critics, and this book goes a long way in reflecting their insights and understanding of the politics of siege and anger now gripping the United States.” —Henry A. Giroux, McMaster University "Paul Street and Anthony DiMaggio wouldn’t dispute the Tea Party’s impact, but they aren’t buying the media spin. Their Crashing the Tea Party: Mass Media and the Campaign to Remake American Politics systematically dismantles the notion that the Tea Party represented a genuine independent political movement. And they document the role of the major media in nurturing the Tea Party’s growth and promoting its mythology." -Lance Selfa, socialistworker.org “Crashing the Tea Party reminds me of the kind of work Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman did with the Propaganda Model in Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media (1988). It explodes the popular narrative and is academic in its research and presentation to the point that they really have crashed the Tea Party and it’s undeniable.” –Michael McGehee, www.znet.com “The strength of the Tea Party’s populist base has been greatly exaggerated, as Paul Street and Anthony DiMaggio persuasively argue in their book, “Crashing the Tea Party.” –The Progressive October 14, 2011