We are grateful for John Campbell’s thoughtful review of our book. We appreciate his praise and his discerning criticisms: They have made us think.
Campbell notes that “the nasty rhetorical turn in congressional politics dates at least as far back as the 1994 Gingrich revolution” and perhaps even “the emergence of the racist Southern Strategy and dog-whistle politics of the 1960s and 1970s.” The institutionalized Tea Party and the tone and substance of its rhetoric did grow from these earlier political developments. As our discussion of John Boehner’s rise to power as a Gingrich lieutenant suggests (pp. 55–57), the Gingrich Republicans play some role in the particular character of the Tea Party in the House. But we think that factors more proximate to the launch of the Tea Party movement are more important in explaining its rise. The legacy of Gingrich Republicans and the Southern Strategy may be in the modern GOP’s DNA, but it took the election of Barack Obama amid significant social change to fully activate these hyperpartisan, uncivil, and reactionary tendencies.
There are similarities between the Gingrich-era and Tea Party–era Republican conferences, but there are also important differences: The former shut down the government and impeached Bill Clinton, but also came to a number of significant compromise agreements with the Democratic president (pp. 136–37). What significant compromises did the latter reach with Obama? It is no accident that the 2011 Obama–Boehner “grand bargain” failed. And the current level of incivility—and politically motivated violence—is simply not the result of a subtle and predictable trend from Barry Goldwater or the Gingrich Republicans. It is qualitatively different (as we argue in our conclusion to the book).
Campbell also contends that “firm explanations of the causal mechanisms lying behind the statistical associations are often either missing or inconclusive.” Specifically, he argues that it is unclear from our book why some legislators received Tea Party support and why others attached themselves to the movement. We do provide an explanation for the origin of Tea Party support: Resource-scarce Tea Party organizations made strategic decisions to support vulnerable members, not necessarily those who were the most ideologically compatible (Chapter 4), and this is why such support is a poor predictor of most behavior associated with the Tea Party (p. 247). The reason members chose to attach themselves to the Tea Party is more complicated, but a key factor is the racial conservatism of the members' constituents (Chapter 4). We agree with Campbell that interviews with elites (if they would agree to talk—see our unsuccessful attempt to engage former Kansas Rep. Tim Huelskamp) could certainly refine and enrich these findings.
Campbell’s question regarding the manifestation of incivility among Democrats is a great one. We simply do not know. And on the Tea Party in the Senate, we conjecture that it is more complicated than in the House—probably due to the greater size and complexity of the constituencies. That said, the Republican Senate’s support for President Trump’s effort to construct a Supreme Court majority is fully consistent with the reactionary politics now at the core of the GOP.
