Abstract:
The Tea Party Movement (TPM) is a grassroots conservative reactionary movement that according to the Washington Post’s, Christopher Parker, sees changes in traditional conservative values as a direct threat to its way of life. Initially started as an opposition to the fiscal policies of Barack Obama, the TPM soon embraced radicalism and adopted various hardline stances toward various domestic and foreign issues, ranging from the Obamacare to the recent JCPOA accord with the Islamic Republic of Iran. An influential figure within the TPM is the provocative and uncontrollably vocal former U.S congresswoman from Minnesota, whose controversial views have consistently made headlines in the media and the press. The so-called “undisputed queen of the TPM,” Michele Bachmann was never a shy person in expressing her support of Israel as well as her questionable antagonism towards Muslims and more importantly, the Islamic Republic of Iran. This study aims to investigate political views of Michele Bachmann on major domestic and foreign issues, as well as her stance regarding the Islamic Republic of Iran, by utilizing qualitative-based systematic review and content analysis of official documents, congressional records and the media coverage. A new perspective is offered to the understanding of republican-sponsored radicalism that the TPM employs vis-à-vis the Islamic Republic of Iran. Furthermore, it is shown that the TPM and its members have negative views with regard to Iran and adopt anti-Iran stances that parallel of today’s Republican Party.
Machine summary:
"However, with the introduction of hardline and radicalized organization and institutions such as the Tea Party Patriots, which is considered as a far-right group with highly controversial views regarding both the domestic and foreign issues, along with support from notable political figures such as Michele Bachmann, Sarah Palin, Louie Gohmert, Dick Armey, and later Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, the last two who received considerable support for their political campaigns, the TPM adopted staunch stances on many issues, in particular the Islamic Republic of Iran.
In an interview with the equally hardline right-wing online news website, World Net Daily, the former Congresswoman claimed that, "bombing Iranian nuclear facilities is called peace, and not war" (Bachmann(b), 2015), which clearly showed her lack of knowledge and national security credentials on most foreign policy subjects, most notably the Islamic Republic of Iran.
On one occasion, Michele Bachmann’s radical Republican views toward the Islamic Republic of Iran went so far to the point that she even criticized the American Jewish community for supporting Barack Obama (Lachman, 2014), whose policies, she believes, have not hade enough enthusiasm from the Likud-dominated administration of Benjamin Netanyahu (Keck, 2015), who is known to have had "unfriendly" relationships with former American Presidents and high-ranking politicians."