From the perspective of Alain Badiou’s theory of the political subject, the Tea Party movement can be easily identified as a REACTIVE SUBJECT. A REACTIVE SUBJECT denies the existence of an EVENT that is literally unthinkable from the perspective of the established order but around which a FAITHFUL SUBJECT, also unthinkable as a legitimate part of the political world and has formed and on whose basis is challenging that order. An EVENT is not a thing or an object. From the perspective of the established order an EVENT is not something that has any value at all, at best it is no more than nonsense but also a transgression. The existence of an EVENT’s cannot be included in the world as described by the legitimate order, to do so would require a fundamental rearrangement of the values assigned to different objects in that world . For similar reasons the FAITHFUL SUBJECT must construct its own existence through a process of SUBTRACTION from the existing. Not only must the hierarch of values of the elements in a world change to establish the truth of the EVENT, the value of some elements becomes nil. Consider the social-political value of being a slave owner in 1830 and 1930 as an example of such change.
All very abstract, yes, but lets see how it allows us to account for the seemingly incoherent socio-political composition of the Tea Party movement’s members.
1. The EVENT(s) that transgressed the prevailing order against which the TP directs itself, all began with groups that were excluded from the equal justice and equality within the US political world before the Movements for Civil Liberties that began mid- 1950s with the Civil Rights movement and spread to other marginalized and unrepresented groups the following: Non-european ethnic groups, women, gays and lesbians, and members of non-Christian religions, being the most important.
2. Each of these movements had its key EVENTs. Rosa Parks, the Edmund Pettes bridge, the Grey Stone Uprising, etc. These EVENTs – officially considered at first to be no more than transgressions of the rules of the game — allowed these groups to name themselves on the basis of elements with no value in the established order (“Black Power”, “Gay Pride”, “Women’s Lib”) but which challenged the established values of that order anyway.
3. For the FAITHFUL SUBJECT to establish the truth and existence of the EVENT within the world , something must be subtracted, from the existing order. In this case the following elements were subtracted:
a. the maximal value of being a Euro-descendant (a white person) was reduced to a minimal value;
b. the maximal value of being a male was reduced to a minimum,
c. the absolute value of heterosexuality over (immoral, unnatural, even criminal) bi- or homosexuality was openly and successfully challenged: according to recent studies of attitudes toward sexual preference, anti-homosexual attitudes have virtually disappeared among persons born after 1985;
d. the idea that the US is a “Christian nation” became unsustainable …
I think these SUBTRACTIONS allow us to account of the apparent social, political and economic heterogeneity of Tea Party movement ; it is made up of individuals who identify themselves with the the elements that civil rights and liberation movements SUBTRACTED from the political calculus to establish their own presencethe Liberation movements that began with Rosa Parks’ bus ride and culminated with Obama’s electionpresence in the world of US politics:
1. Descendants of European immigrants; i.e., white folks both male and female;
2. Persons who reject women’s autonomy as individuals – including many women themselves —who accept the female roles established in during the 16th through 18th centuries in Europe and reduced women to unpaid domestic workers excluded from positions of social and political power they had held before that time.
3. individuals who fear the power of sexuality in general (perhaps because they are unable to express their own sexuality and who strive to control how others express theirs; and finally,
4. all Christians who believe that Chistianity (and often only their small sect) is the only true religion and that the U.S.A. is essentially, inherently a Christian nation. Christian fundamentalists including Mormons.
It isn’t hard to verify that a super-majority of the Tea Party movement’s “members” share one or more of these characteristics but the point of my analysis isn’t this identification;, one can do this empirically by looking at its activists, the candidates it endorses, the composition of those attending its events, and the content of its discourse. Rather the point is that these attributes all constitute rejections of the consequences of the EVENTs that took place in th 1960s and 1970s and that led to the formation of new political subjects whose actions led to the transformation of the political values in general as well as the total devaluation of some previously highly valued elements (e.g., being white, being a male, being a protestant, being a MAN and not a fag , a woose , a girly-man, etc.).
There is one further question to address to close my argument: Why now? Why not 5, 10, 15, or more years ago? I think Badiou’s theory of the subject also allows us to suggest a plausible hypothesis. First, like a FAITHFUL SUBJECT, a REACTIVE SUBJECT also forms around some kind of EVENT that is unthinkable and unnamable but whose consequences cannot be ignored and therefor must be denied. The consequences (from integrated schools to Same Sex Marriage) must be reinterpreted, not as evidence of the truth of the EVENT but as evidence of the decadence of the present situation, as a lethal threat to social order, as consequences that must be reversed to save the US from losing its identity, moral virtue, etc. etc. etc.
It is obvious that the election of an Afro-Amercan as US President was an unthinkable and abominable for many white Americans who make no attempt to hide their racism and for many who do, but it was inconceivable for Afro-Americans, Latinos, and other US citizens and residents of all ethnic origins; it was also for almost everyone on the planet. Outside of Africa itself and the Caribbean, there are few if any nations in which the election of an an Afro-descendant to the highest political office has been conceivable.
In terms of political affiliation the Tea Party movement has formed from the ranks of disgruntled Republicans or conservative independents who feel that the Republican party no longer represents their interests, that it has betrayed them. e.g., Evangelical and Fundamentalist Christians, Euro-Americans.
So, to conclude this much-too-long letter suggesting an appropriate term for the Tea Party movement: I believe that it is and should be called REACTIVE SUBJECT, one formed from members with nothing In common except the DENIAL of the EVENTS that led to the success of the liberation and rights movements of the 50s-70s and that culminated in Obama’s election and his forceful implementation of policies reflecting the once unthinkable goals of those movements; absolute transgression of the old racist, patriarchal, sexist, and homophobic order of pre-1960s U.S. society.
The movement should not be taken lightly however. It bears too close of a resemblance to the early periods of Nazism in Germany during the 1920s, when few really took them or their doctrines too seriously.
