The central tension for the Tea Party grass roots... | Still Not Going To Do This Every Day

Monday, July 18 2011

“The central tension for the Tea Party grass roots isn’t between the Big Brother state and the freedom-loving individual, or between inefficient government spending and effective free markets. Instead, Ms. Skocpol and her fellow investigators argue that “Tea Partiers judge entitlement programs not in terms of abstract free-market orthodoxy, but according to the perceived deservingness of recipients.” The fundamental distinction for them is not state vs. individual, it is the division of the United States into “workers” vs. “people who don’t work.” Some of those “people who don’t work” are the young. Deficit hawks on the think tank circuit like to talk about ballooning government spending on Social Security and Medicare— programs that benefit the elderly — as “generational theft.” But the Tea Party rank and file, 70 percent to 75 percent of whom are over 45, are concerned about a very different generational struggle. This is a revolt of the grandparents’ generation — at least the conservative grandparents — and they are worried the feckless youth are taking over the country and emptying the state’s coffers. These young “freeloaders” include the Tea Partiers’ own relatives. “Charles” told the researchers, “My grandson, he’s 14 and he asked, ‘Why should I work, why can’t I just get free money?”’ “Nancy” complained about a nephew who had “been on welfare his whole life.” “The conditions for young adults to establish themselves have changed radically,” Ms. Skocpol told me. “It is harder for young adults. They may live at home longer. And that manifests itself in ways that are easy to condemn morally. The older generation is having a little trouble understanding what is happening to their children and especially grandchildren.”

Chrystia Freeland, on some fascinating research into what the Tea Party people want.