I wonder if it's true that wealthy, well-educated Republicans are the ones seen at Tea Partysan events bearing signs equating Obama with Hitler, etc. On the one hand, if it is true, then we should be very afraid, because it would show that such extremist forms of political expression are now part of the mainstream Republican thinking of mainstream (i.e., wealthier, better educated) Republican voters. On the other hand, one might be encouraged by the profile of the average person who is an adherent of Tea Partysan activism: it means people who are not male, not identified as a Republican, and who are under age 45 (which would be the majority of all Americans) are not now and are unlikely to be persuaded to drink the Tea.
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"Better educated" usually translates into a measurement of years of schooling (i.e., educational attainment), which does correlate with (but which does not mean causes) different levels of wealth attainment. The Statistical Abstracts of the United States shows this pattern descriptively. The less interesting statistical analysis involves the relationship between educational attainment and wealth (which typically means income, not assets). The more interesting statistical analysis would involve the relationship between educational attainment, wealth, and ideological disposition. In this particular case, the research questions would be: (1) are individuals with higher levels of educational attainment and income more likely to identify with the ideology (inasmuch as one exists) of the Tea Party than individuals with lower levels of educational attainment and income? And: (2) are identification with the Republican party, being a male, being "white," and being over 40 years old, the most significant variables in a statistical model that includes educational attainment, income, and Tea Party ideology? A reasonable guess is that Republican Party identification, being male, being "white", and being over 40 carry more weight than educational attainment and income as a predictor of identification with Tea Party ideology.
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Despite all of the claims that the Tea Party is comprised of political independents, the Tea Partysans have always pursued their prey on the happy hunting grounds of the Republican tribe. It is no accident that the Tea Partysans target Democratic politicians for defeat and support candidates whose platform is indistinguishable from Republicans or candidates who are Republicans. The Tea Party demographic is basically Republican voters of a certain age, gender, race, educational attainment level, and income level who are facing a decline in their economic status (due to macro-economic trends and the financial crisis of 2008), which has implications for their social status. This reasonable economic and social status anxiety is exaggerated (i.e., raised to a fever pitch) by the presence of a liberal President with a strange name and a democratically-elected Democratic majority in both Houses of Congress. Hence, despite Ross Douthat’s fantasies, the Tea Party activists are nothing more than the shock troops of the Republican party, a new set of shock troops who will replace deployments of aging, economically less successful and less educated social conservative shock troops who have manned the barricades against secular liberalism (read godless socialism) since the mid-1970s. In other words: the Tea Party phenomenon is the Newest New Right, following in the footsteps of McCarthyite Anti-Communism, Goldwater Conservatism, and Moral Majoritarianism.
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