Tea Party Fairness: How the Idea of Proportional Justice Explains the Right-Wing Populism of the Obama Era
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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Tea Party Fairness: How the Idea of Proportional Justice Explains the Right-Wing Populism of the Obama Era A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science by Emily Elisabeth Ekins 2015 ©Copyright by Emily Elisabeth Ekins 2015 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Tea Party Fairness: How the Idea of Proportional Justice Explains the Right-Wing Populism of the Obama Era by Emily Elisabeth Ekins Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science University of California, Los Angeles, 2015 Professor John Zaller, Chair In this dissertation I argue that the main impulse underlying the tea party movement is a conviction that activist government helps the undeserving at the expense of the truly productive members of society. I say main impulse because racial resentment and other illiberal attitudes also contribute to tea party involvement. But illiberal motives do not play the dominant role that much existing research suggests. When tests are properly conducted, preference for limited government is the strongest and most consistent predictor of tea party support. Further, I show that the movement catalyzed as a protest against the “bailouts” of undeserving Wall Street banks, other financial institutions, and automakers in 2008, before it acquired the famous tea party moniker from journalist Rick Santelli in February 2009. With repeated fast-paced government interventions in response to the Great Recession and with ii increasing publicity of the tea party brand early in the administration of President Barack Obama, the movement grew into a heterogeneous coalition, consisting of three distinct groups. I find the largest of these subgroups has a strongly libertarian flavor and scarcely a whiff of racial animus. Social conservatives comprise another significant group, with strong preferences for limited government and moral traditionalism, and some racially conservative attitudes. Racial conservatives are a substantial subgroup too, but my analysis shows that they are no less motivated by the issue of limited government than others in the movement. These groups are different from one another but came together in the same movement largely because they shared a belief that the federal government had violated basic fairness in its response to difficult economic times. I go on to argue that tea partiers’ preference for limited government is itself primarily driven by a “reap what you sow” conception of economic justice, rather than, as much tea party rhetoric proclaims, a desire for individual liberty. In the psychological literature on fairness, this conception is called “proportional justice”—the idea that everyone should be rewarded in strict proportion to their achievements and failings, and that government should not shield people from the consequences of their decisions. In sum, I contend the tea party impulse is at its core a demand for what its members see as basic economic fairness. iii The dissertation of Emily Elisabeth Ekins is approved. Kathleen Bawn Jonathan Haidt Lynn Vavreck Lewis John Zaller, Committee Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2015 iv To Justin and my parents v TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Tables .............................................................................................................vii List of Figures ............................................................................................................ix Abbreviations .............................................................................................................xi Acknowledgments ......................................................................................................xii Vita .............................................................................................................................xv Preface ........................................................................................................................1 Chapter 1: What the Tea Party is, What it Wants, and Why it Matters .....................5 Chapter 2: In the Beginning, There Was TARP ........................................................30 Chapter 3: The Tea Party Coalition: Some Racial Resentment, Lots of Economic Resentment .............................78 Chapter 4: The Tea Party In Its Own Words .............................................................114 Chapter 5: The Tea Party Divide: Quantifying the Activists .....................................168 Chapter 6: Deconstructing Fiscal Conservatism: Proportionality, Liberty, Individualism, and Race .........................................200 Concluding Thoughts .................................................................................................250 Appendices .................................................................................................................258 Bibliography ..............................................................................................................276 vi LIST OF TABLES 2.1 TARP-Related Votes Predicting Republican Congressperson’s Leaving the House by 2010 ...............................................................42 2.2 TARP-Related Votes Predicting Democratic Congressperson’s Leaving the House by 2010 ...............................................................42 2.3 Knowledge About TARP: By Tea Party Support ....................................44 2.4 TARP Related Votes Predicting Joining Tea Party Congressional Caucus .......................................................45 2.5 Predicting Opposition to TARP: Regressions on Measures of Racial Resentment and Preference For Limited Government ...................................................................50 3.1 Beliefs about Entitlements and Entitlement Reform by Tea Party Support .........................................................................84 3.2 Predicting Tea Party Support: Regressions on Measures of Preferences for Limited Government, Racial Attitudes, and Immigration Anxiety (CBS/NYT) ..................91 3.3 Predicting Tea Party Support: Regressions on Measures of Preference for Limited Government, Racial Attitudes, and Immigration Anxiety (ANES EGSS 2) ...........96 3.4 Predicting Tea Party Subgroups: Regressions on Measures of Preference for Limited Government and Racial Attitudes (CBS/NYT) ......................................................100 3.5 Tea Party Clusters: Demographics, Political Identification Tea Party Engagement (CBS/NYT) ...................................................104 3.6 Political Beliefs Across Tea Party Clusters and Non-Tea Party Groups (CBS/NYT) ...................................................106 3.7 Predicting Tea Party Cluster Membership: Regressions on Measures of Limited Govt Preferences and Racial Attitudes (CBS/NYT) ......................................................111 4.1 Shares of Tea Party Protest Signs by Category at the 9/12 2010 Tea Party March on Washington D.C. ....................120 vii 5.1 Tea Party Activist Demographics ............................................................182 5.2 Tea Party Activists’ Ranked Issue Concerns ...........................................187 5.3 Top Ranked Issue Concerns of Activist Tea Party Clusters ....................195 5.4 Predicting Tea Party Cluster Membership Among DC Activists: Regressions on Economic, Social, and Foreign Policy Issue Concern Indices ................................................197 6.1 Endorsement of Items Measuring Moral Foundations Tea Party Supporters and Non-Supporters ........................................211 6.2 Mean Endorsement of Moral Foundations Among Tea Party Social Conservatives And Tea Party Libertarians ................................................................217 6.3 Comparison of MFQ Cluster 1: Tea Party Social Conservatives and MFQ Cluster 2: Tea Party Libertarians (Clustering Method 2) ........................................................................221 6.4 Predicting Tea Party Support, Tea Party Who Desire Small Govt, and Tea Party Who Desire Active Govt: Regressions on Moral Foundations ....................................................227 6.5 Endorsements of Proportionality and Economic Individualism: Comparison of Tea Party Supporters and Non-Supporters ................233 6.6 Factor Loadings of Proportionality and Standard Individualism Items ............................................................236 6.7 Predicting Support for Limited Government: Regressions on Measures of Proportionality and Individualism .......238 6.8 Predicting Tea Party Support: Regressions on Measures of Principled Conservatism and Racial Attitudes ...........................................................................242 6.9a Predicting Tea Party Support for Limited Government: Regressions on Measures of Principled Conservatism And Racial Attitudes ..........................................................................245 6.9b Predicting Tea Party Support for Active Government: Regressions on Measures of Principled Conservatism and Racial Attitudes ...........................................................................246 viii LIST OF FIGURES 2.1 Public Reaction to TARP: By Partisanship and Tea Party Support .........44 2.2 Google Trends for Search Term: Socialism .............................................47 2.3 Number of Mentions of “Socialism” in New York Times 2005-2013 ...............................................................48 3.1 Predicted Probability of Tea Party