The origins of the 2008 Tea Party movement have been a source of lettered debate for academics both in the US and across the Atlantic.
Myriad factors are often cited, from grass roots disillusionment with the establishment to concerns over shifting demographics via economic anxieties, the election of the country’s first African American president and huge donations from right-wing campaign groups.
All these, however, have been challenged by a daring new theory in which the flourishing of the movement was brought about by God. That’s right, God… and specifically the one that likes free market capitalism, guns and a huge military expenditure.
We know this through the work of E.W. Jackson, an American politician and minister, who shared his revised version of Tea Party history at a recent meeting of conservative activists.
We await Mr Jackson's paper on the matter in the forthcoming Political Science Quarterly...