The Tea Party Movement and Entelechy: an Inductive Study of Tea Party Rhetoric

On February 19, 2009, CNBC journalist Rick Santelli’s fiery outburst against the Obama Administration on national television gave the Tea Party Movement (TPM) its namesake. Soon after rallies were organized across the U.S. under the Tea Party banner. From its inception in 2009, the TPM became an essential player in U.S. politics and pivotal in flipping control of the Senate and House to the Republican Party during the 2010 midterm elections. The movement faced controversy on both sides of the political spectrum for its beliefs and fervent stance against compromising with political adversaries. Researchers argued that the TPM was an example of Richard Hofstadter’s Paranoid Style. Others claimed that the movement’s rhetoric, member demographics, and political success demonstrated it was outside the boundaries of the Paranoid Style. To better understand the nature of the TPM, this project conducted an inductive study of TPM rhetoric from 2009-2013. By using texts from TPM speeches as well as TPM bloggers and commenters online, this study examined the rhetorical development of the movement and its symbolic trajectory. It was found that TPM advocates relied on a myth of return, which portrayed the movement as being the voice of the silent majority and representative of the founding values of America. While the themes and examples used by the movement changed over the years, the overarching message continued to focus on an us versus them mentality. Overall, the symbolic trajectory of the TPM raises questions about the typically adaptive nature of social movements and suggests that the TPM became entelechialized early in its development and throughout 2009-2013.