Summary

In Chapter 14, the author attempts to place the Tea Party movement in its historical context, linking it to a number of movements against “secularism, modernity, racial integration, and a culture of experts” (207) in the twentieth century. In particular, she connects it to the 1860s (in other words, the Civil War), and the 1960s (the struggle for civil rights in particular). The relevance of the 1860s to this case, she writes, is that the plantation system not only subjected black slaves to misery but also rendered poor whites excess laborers their wealthier white contemporaries could ridicule as “crackers” and “white trash” (209). The end of the plantation system brought no relief for this segment of society, as the Civil War devastated the South, and Northern carpetbaggers arrived to exploit it when the war ended. As such, poor whites suffered “condemnation from all” (209), a sentiment that...