Playlist for Show: Long Waves

The Tea Party and far right activists in the US have resorted to a form of tribalism: small groups of like-minded people who are more concerned with membership in the group and with purity of the group than they are of real change. The show opens with the book,  Change They Can’t Believe In: The Tea Party and Reactionary Politics in America by Christopher S. Parker and Matt A. Barreto. They explore the differences within the tea party movement, particularly whether it is about some basic conservative principles: small government and fiscal responsibility. The one in Idaho appeared to be little more than  an expression of intolerance and bigotry in which President Obama was painted as an alien of some kind.  Racial profiling, exclusion and the willingness to limit freedoms to other ethnic and religious groups characterize the tea party’s small group, terrified conservatism.

A psychological approach to the mentality of tea party was explored using the paper, “Social Dominance Orientation: A Personality Variable Predicting Social and Political Attitudes” by Felicia Pratto, Jim Sidanius, Lisa M. Stallworth, and Bertram F. Malle. Social dominance orientation (SDO), is manifested in one’s degree of preference for inequality among social groups.

American Exceptionalism is also explored as a manifestation of these social and psychological traits.

← All Playlists for Show: Long Waves