How mad are they?

Conservatism evolved from the reaction against the elitism of the French Revolution. It was given up for dead in the mid 1950’s then redefined by Bill Buckley and others in the early ‘60s, as a duel between Christianity and atheism and the struggle between individualism and collectivism.  All of this history is the primordial stew out of which the modern Tea Party movement emerges. Today the Tea Party, bolstered by its 2010 success, is reshaping the Republican Party, conservatism and the nation in ways that are generating profound negative and frightening consequences. Theda Skocpol, Harvard Professor of Government and Sociology and past President of the American Political Science Association explains, in her new in depth look at The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism.My conversation with Theda Skocpol: