Why the Tea Party?

The latest issue of The American Prospect contains a very fine review by editor Robert Kuttner of several books whose authors try to explain the reasons why so many Americans support the Tea Party (and Donald Trump). Rather than try to summarize, let me just post the link:

Hidden Injuries

One of the authors, Arlie Russell Hochschild, quotes a Louisiana bayou resident:

" The state always seems to come down on the little guy. Take this bayou. If your motorboat leaks a little gas into the water, the warden’ll write you up. But if companies leak thousands of gallons of it and kill all the life here? The state lets them go. If you shoot an endangered brown pelican, they’ll put you in jail. But if a company kills the brown pelican by poisoning the fish he eats? They let it go. I think they overregulate the bottom because it’s harder to regulate the top. "

As Kuttner points out, this could have been written by Bernie Sanders...