CATO STUDY: The Tea Party Is Libertarian

Liberals in politics and media have gone out of their way to portray the Tea Party as an extreme right group.

Yet while there are many Tea Party adherents who identify as social conservatives, a new study by the CATO Institute finds that the roots of the Tea Party are inherently libertarian…

Many people on the left still dismiss the tea party as the same old religious right, but the evidence says they are wrong. The tea party has strong libertarian roots and is a functionally libertarian influence on the Republican Party.

Compiling data from local and national polls, as well as dozens of original interviews with tea party members and leaders, we find that the tea party is united on economic issues, but split on the social issues it tends to avoid. Roughly half the tea party is socially conservative, half libertarian — or, fiscally conservative, but socially moderate to liberal.

Libertarians led the way for the tea party. Starting in early 2008 through early 2009, we find that libertarians were more than twice as “angry” with the Republican Party, more pessimistic about the economy and deficit since 2001, and more frustrated that people like them cannot affect government than were conservatives.

FYI – You won’t hear about this report in the media.

It doesn’t fit the narrative.