Welcome to the Tea Party: A new social movement

The modern Tea Party movement emerged following the famous Rick Santelli speech in February of 2009. Santelli called for a new Tea Party in response to the Washington policymakers who were funneling trillions of dollars into the bailout following the financial crisis of 2008. The emergence and coalescence of the movement happened at a rapid pace in large part due to the local grassroots level of the movement. The modern Tea Party movement is made up of six large national Tea Party groups and hundreds of smaller local Tea Party groups. The organization of the social movement is loosely organized and is successful in due part to the people who make up the grassroots. This research focuses on the Flagstaff Tea Party as a case study in order to investigate the social movement as a whole. The Flagstaff Tea Party was one of the many grassroots groups that helped in the immediate coalescence of the movement. The New Social Movements theory suggests that the modern Tea Party movement is both socially and politically driven. The modern Tea Party movement is a loosely organized social movement that allows for both national and local level autonomy. Findings suggest that this group autonomy within the movement has resulted in a well-organized and marginally successful social movement.