Chris Parker goes toe-to-toe with Tea Party (Compares to KKK and the John Birch Society)

Scarlet & Black, The Grinnell College Newspaper ^ | November 14, 2014 | Jon Sundby

[2ndDivisionVet]

Chris Parker, a political science professor at the University of Washington, Seattle, spoke at Grinnell on Tuesday, Nov. 11, about his recent book “Change They Can’t Believe In: The Tea Party and Reactionary Politics in America.” Parker’s talk revolved around the rise and identity of the Tea Party within the American political system, with a particular emphasis on the psychology behind the movement.

Besides the unique and relevant nature of his book, Parker was invited to speak at Grinnell given his connections with the College. Fourteen years ago, Parker received a fellowship through the Consortium for Faculty Diversity in Liberal Arts Colleges that allowed him to teach two semesters at Grinnell while he finished his doctoral dissertation.

“Grinnell’s a very special place for me,” Parker said. “It has played an instrumental role in my career.”

As the head of Grinnell’s Political Science department, Professor Barbara Trish mentioned the continuing relationship between the College and Parker as she introduced Parker to the large audience.

“We touch base with him at conferences whenever we see him, [and] I think we’ve talked to him when we had job openings to see if he has any insights or ideas about candidates who would be good for Grinnell,” she said.

After Trish’s introduction, Parker dove into his talk outlining his research on the Tea Party and its relation to the mainstream political establishment.

“There is something that explains their distaste for Obama beyond politics, beyond even race,” Parker observed.

He identified several reactionary movements throughout American history, including the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s and the John Birch Society, which he thought closely resembled the role the Tea Party plays in our current society.

“These people are always there, they just need something in the culture to activate them,” Parker said.

The cultural trigger in the case of the modern Tea Party, Parker argued, was the election of Barack Obama in 2008. He backed up his point with a series of pictures of signs at Tea Party rallies, almost all of which had hysterical, and often racist, references to Obama.

Following the slide show, he put on a quick promotional clip created by Sarah Palin’s political action committee in praise of the grassroots movement. Despite the clip’s insistence that the movement was about small government, common sense policy and traditional morals, Parker claimed that in reality the Tea Party is a reactionary movement that was birthed from a pervasive fear of social change.

Quoting the cognitive scientist Douglas Hofstadter, Parker said, “The pseudo-conservative believes a vast and sinister conspiracy … is in motion to undermine and destroy his way of life.”

According to him, it is this fear, primarily emanating from people who are privileged in the social order, which is the driver behind of reactionary movements like the Tea Party. Much of Parker’s latest research dealt with the nature of the dialogue used in Tea Party circles. He found that many of the articles on Tea Party websites, and several personal statements by Tea Party supporters, revolved around conspiracy theories and irrational fear over the actions of the Obama presidency. This, Parker argued, differs greatly from the type of speech that was observed on more mainstream conservative sources.

While answering a question raised by an audience member on the perceived connection between moderate Republicans and the Tea Party, Parker clarified that “it’s not a difference in degree, it’s a difference in content.”

In closing his presentation, Parker elaborated on his future research plans, which include exporting his research on American reactionary movements to nations across the globe. He mentioned several foreign political parties, including France’s National Front and Italy’s Northern League, which he thought fit his description of a reactionary movement.

“The fact of the matter is that my data has worked really well in Australia, and I think it will work well in other nations as well,” Parker said.

Many of Grinnell’s faculty in the Political Science Department stated that they were excited to see Parker back on campus.

“Back then a lot of you were colleagues, but now I can call you friends,” Parker remarked.

[2ndDivisionVet]

This is where your hard-earned tuition money goes, at 98% of colleges.

[KC_Conspirator]

This professor peddles lies.

[uncitizen]

With their threats and calls for violence and constant focus on separating everything by race, it’s actually the RAT party that is like the KKK.

[Mark17]

This is where your hard-earned tuition money goes, at 98% of colleges

I wonder if he learned political science at Bejing State University, or North Korea maybe?

[2ndDivisionVet]

Well, all the original KKK personnel were Democrats, so there’s that.

[fieldmarshaldj]

In the old days, they used to lock these cretins up in nervous hospitals. Today, they lock them up in universities and give them tenure.

[BCW]

Here is his page: http://www.polisci.washington.edu/Directory/Faculty/Faculty/faculty_parker.html

A book he wrote: Fighting for Democracy: Black Veterans and the Struggle Against White Supremacy in the Postwar South

His PhD was earned in Chicago...

Article he wrote: "If It Were Not for Big Central Gov't, I'd Be a Slave Right Now"

I would say this guy is a little bias....

[TigerLikesRooster]

primarily emanating from people who are privileged in the social order,

These people are usually called ignorant red necks by campus academics. A majority of them are neither rich nor powerful. Somehow this make them belong to the privileged class. Then where do Romney and establishment types, who campus liberals feel comfortable with, belong to? To the unprivileged class?

[2ndDivisionVet]

Christopher Parker (Ph.D., University of Chicago, 2001) is an associate professor, and Stuart A. Scheingold Professor of Social Justice and Political Science in the Department of Political Science at the University of Washington. The bulk of his research takes a behavioral approach to historical events.

[Sherman Logan]

Despite the clip’s insistence that the movement was about small government, common sense policy and traditional morals, Parker claimed that in reality the Tea Party is a reactionary movement that was birthed from a pervasive fear of social change.

Note the implicit and false assumption that the two cannot both be true.

Is it conceivable that the social change we fear involves larger government, nonsensical policies and immorality?

The subtext here is that "social change" is always good, and opposition to it is always bad. But of course Lenin, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot all brought great social change to their nations.

This is all part of the base-stealing and circular argument liberals never get called on.

Everybody is in favor of progress, right?

Progressives are of course by definition favor of Progress? So what policies will bring Progress about?

Well, of course, those would be the policies preferred by Progressives. So if you're opposed to those policies, you're against Progress and "social change."

The odd part is that I'm in favor of "social change" far more profound than that favored by Chris Parker. I want America to return to the values outlined in the Declaration of Independence, but purged of the racism and sexism inherent in them when they were produced. Those aspects were linked to the time of writing, not to the eternal values in the actual words themselves.

So I'm the real radical, and Chris is a reactionary who wants to keep things going the direction they've been headed for the last 75 years.

But he's the fearless change agent, and I'm hiding under the bed in fear of the future and the loss of my "privileged position?"

Is there any group in the history of the world more privileged than Parker, his colleagues and audience?

Sorry, rant off.

[TigerLikesRooster]

Party officials in Beijing and Pyongyang laugh at them, for their stupidity. At first, their disconnect from reality puzzles and confuses the officials, but eventually they figure out that the so called Western intellectuals are plain spoiled idiots.

[woweeitsme]

Great reply.

I was going to reply with “Taxed Enough Already” really isn’t all that threatening. There hasn’t been any violence associated with the TEA Party, unlike radical leftists.

[fieldmarshaldj]

Five will get you ten Chrissy has a Che Guevera poster in his home.

[Jimmy Valentine]

“What we really need to do around here is to shoot a few more intellectuals” - Nikita Kruschev

[Gaffer]

Just another race baiting black with a chip on his shoulder and a government diploma...not worth much at all.

[Sherman Logan]

Like most Americans, I’m in favor of progress. My problem is that “Progressives” are never challenged to explain why the direction they want to go is indeed progress.

Nobody ever does what Socrates did and challenge them to define “the Good.” If we don’t agree on what the Good is, then how can we agree on policies that will move us toward it?

This is IMO the biggest mistake conservatives make. We implicitly accept the leftist definition of the Good.

BTW, imo most of these arguments are in the process of becoming obsolete. They are essentially arguments about how to distribute scarce stuff produced by people. An economy of scarcity.

But we are rapidly moving towards a society in which there will be a lot of stuff around, but very few people required to produce it. A economy of abundance. This is, of course, the end result of constantly increasing productivity.

Since the free market and almost all political systems are about the distribution of scarce resources, they simply become irrelevant in a world where those resources aren’t scarce.

[Truth29]

"But we are rapidly moving towards a society in which there will be a lot of stuff around, but very few people required to produce it. A economy of abundance. This is, of course, the end result of constantly increasing productivity."

The global warmists, Obama and the rest of the Marxists are moving aggressively to make sure that doesn't happen in the US. Carbon controls and radically higher energy costs will destroy the middle class and force dependency on big government if they have their way.

[Truth29]

"But we are rapidly moving towards a society in which there will be a lot of stuff around, but very few people required to produce it. A economy of abundance. This is, of course, the end result of constantly increasing productivity."

The global warmists, Obama and the rest of the Marxists are moving aggressively to make sure that doesn't happen in the US. Carbon controls and radically higher energy costs will destroy the middle class and force dependency on big government if they have their way.

[Sherman Logan]

Big government enthusiasts should encourage the (IMO unstoppable anyway) move towards an economy of abundance.

In such a society, most people will be simply surplus to the economic system. I’ve tried to think of a way to distribute the goods produced by some mechanism other than an all-powerful government, but without a great deal of success.

The end result of such a system will probably be, ironically, to concentrate power in those few people still essential to running the system and in that somewhat larger number who will control the distribution of what it produces. That power may or may not necessarily correlate with the distribution of wealth.

I’d be thrilled if somebody has workable ideas whereby an economy of abundance distributes societal power as widely as it does “stuff,” but I’ve yet to see such ideas.

[ExTxMarine]

Bump for later.