I agree with your assessment of the Tea Party, but the roots of this "revolt" turn go back much farther. It has *always* rankled Republicans that Democrats since FDR have tried to expand the welfare state to cover everyone. Racial resentment curbed the scope of the New Deal. One way to view the odd, inefficient decision to federalize Medicare but make Medicaid a state-federal partnership is that the GOP and soon-to-be GOP (southern Democrats) wanted their states to have the authority to discriminate against "undeserving" (non-white) poor people. Even a 1974 expansion of who got protections under the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act excluded "domestic workers," who were primarily people of color.
It's racial resentment all the way down.
Some scholars of democratic decline have found themselves sideswiped by the realization that the GOP has become an anti-system party, hostile to the architecture of the system they inhabit. But in reality, they've been an anti-system party for a very long time. It was just pretty to think otherwise.
I agree with your assessment of the Tea Party, but the roots of this "revolt" turn go back much farther. It has *always* rankled Republicans that Democrats since FDR have tried to expand the welfare state to cover everyone. Racial resentment curbed the scope of the New Deal. One way to view the odd, inefficient decision to federalize Medicare but make Medicaid a state-federal partnership is that the GOP and soon-to-be GOP (southern Democrats) wanted their states to have the authority to discriminate against "undeserving" (non-white) poor people. Even a 1974 expansion of who got protections under the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act excluded "domestic workers," who were primarily people of color.
It's racial resentment all the way down.
Some scholars of democratic decline have found themselves sideswiped by the realization that the GOP has become an anti-system party, hostile to the architecture of the system they inhabit. But in reality, they've been an anti-system party for a very long time. It was just pretty to think otherwise.