...Despite the age-old currents, though, Tea Partyism is in certain respects a purely contemporary wave. It spread like wildfire, upending dozens of elections, yet has not coalesced around a single leader, a single agenda or even a common name. The Institute for Research & Education on Human Rights has produced a detailed history of Tea Party organizations from large to tiny, viewable at teapartynationalism.com. Included is a map covered with a blizzard of dots, each representing a group or chapter or website or even just a couple of people. This dizzying multitude is arrayed around at least six different banners: Tea Party Nation, Tea Party Express, Tea Party Patriots, FreedomWorks, ResistNet, the 1776 Tea Party. Leveraging the same tools that helped elect President Obama — Facebook, Meetup, blogs, YouTube — the Tea Party opposition to Obama's policies grew huge without ever growing organized
In a sense, identifying with the Tea Party movement was like catching Beatlemania in the 1960s....
◼ Person of the Year 2010 Facebook's Mark Elliot Zuckerberg.
