A new Cato Institute study finds the Tea Party movement “has been
dominated by a strong ‘functionally libertarian’ flavor since its
inception, downplaying social issues such as gay marriage in favor of
reforming entitlements, taxes and reigning in the scope of government,”
Red Alert Politics reports.
It establishes that the Tea Party movement grew out of
libertarian frustration with former President George W. Bush’s fiscal
policies, particularly the TARP bank bailouts and their frustration with
the subsequent bailouts – issues polls cited by the study found that
libertarians were angrier about than many conservatives.
Even Christian Broadcasting Network political correspondent David Brody conceded in his recent book “Teavangelicals” that
evangelical activists and other social conservatives who are active in
the Tea Party act like libertarians and have mostly downplayed social
issues for the sake of the cause, according to the study.
“[S]ince the Tea Party was “founded on economic bedrock issues,
evangelicals typically gloss over these differences for the sake of
standing in unison to fight a worthy, fiscally disciplined cause,” the
Cato report says.
Study authors David Kirby and Emily Ekins contend that the movement
shows that the center of American politics has moved in a more
libertarian direction. They cite numerous polls showing that Tea Party
members say that economic issues are more important than social issues.
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