Has the Tea Party Radicalized the Political Conversation? Suggestions from the 2012-2016 Republican Primary Debates

• In Event: 147 - Regular Session. Political Sociology 2

Abstract

The success of Donald Trump’s candidacy for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination has defied conventional political wisdom. Trump has made several highly controversial statements which, instead of hurting his popular support, seem to have caused it to rise. How did Donald Trump go from a “joke candidate” in 2011 to the consistent top polling candidate in the 2016 Republican primaries? I contend that Donald Trump’s success is a symptom of a normative shift in the acceptability of radical discourse in American politics that might be driven by the influence of the Tea Party. Thus I ask three questions. Has there been an increase in radicalism within mainstream conservative politics? If so, is this increase reflective of a normative shift in acceptable public political discourse? If this is the case, what role has the Tea Party played in this normative shift? To explore radicalism in mainstream conservative politics, I conduct a comparative qualitative content analysis of the Republican presidential primary debates in 2011and 2015. Comparisons of this data to polling numbers for particular candidates suggests a normative shift in the acceptability of radical political discourse. However, qualified adoption of radical Tea Party positions by primary candidates suggests only a limited influence of the Tea Party in this process.

Author

• David R. Dietrich, Texas State University