"The Declining Status of White Americans and the Rise of the Tea Party"

Since its rapid rise in early 2009, scholars have advanced a variety of explanations for popular support for the Tea Party movement. Willer argues that various political, economic, and demographic trends and events – e.g., the election of Barack Obama, the rising minority population – have been perceived as threatening the relative standing of whites in the U.S., with the resulting racial resentment fueling popular support for the movement. He tests this “decline of whiteness” explanation for white Americans’ Tea Party support in five survey-based experiments and will discuss various implications of the research.