We examine and criticize inaccurate stereotypes of the Tea Party as a revolutionary, insurgent, populist force. We demonstrate the Tea Party's role in furthering the longstanding and polarizing rightward drift of the Republican Party. We trace the pro-establishment voting biases of the Tea Party in a variety of policy areas and the capitulation of the Democratic Party to the Tea PartyRepublican political and economic agenda. The role of the mass media in amplifying the message of the Tea Party (largely neglected in the dominant political discourse) is also examined.

This paper examines the impact of partisanship, rightwing media, and social media on attitudes about contemporary conspiracy theories. Mainstream scholarly views that ‘both sides’ of the political aisle indulge routinely in such theories are challenged. I adopt a Gramscian hegemonic framework that examines rising rightwing conspiracy theories as a manifestation of mass false consciousness in service of a political-economic system that serves upper-class interests. Issues examined include the QAnon movement, ‘big lie’ voter fraud conspiracism, and Covid-19 conspiracy theories, and the way they related to partisanship, rightwing media, and social media. I provide evidence that Republican partisanship, rightwing media consumption, and social media consumption are all significant statistical predictors of acceptance of modern conspiracy theories.

Americans dislike economic inequality and prefer to see it reduced. However, Americans also fail to understand the severity of the economic divide in US society between those with and without financial wealth. The refusal to recognize this economic divide between ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’ carries profound implications for American public policy. Those who fail to recognize the economic divide are less likely to support redistributive efforts to reduce the divide in an era of record inequality. In this study, I document the effects of class consciousness on opinions of progressive and conservative political-economic policy-related issues. I identify the ways in which Americans subconsciously allow their personal backgrounds and their opinions about the economic divide to color their opinions of political-economic policy issues.

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