No Left or Right, Only Right or Wrong

Tea party and conservative activists in the United States emphatically argued this point in conversations with me during my research on the Tea Party movement’s ascendency which occurred after President Barack Obama’s election in 2008 and in the wake of the Great Recession (Trapenberg Frick, Citation2013, Citation2016; Trapenberg Frick, Weinzimmer, & Waddell, Citation2015). We spoke for hours about the conservative traditions and interests of the Tea Party and other activists, on such subjects as reduced government and taxation, fiscal responsibility, free market economics and the protection of constitutional rights. Specific issues of our conversations ranged from what they viewed as ‘wrong’ – from government overreach with national healthcare legislation dubbed ‘Obamacare’ and federal Environmental Protection Agency regulations, to bailouts of financial institutions on Wall Street, crony capitalism, illegal immigration, and lack of accountability and transparency. We also spoke about the focus of my research, which was on infrastructure policy, as well as the perceived encroachment of private property rights by unelected regional governments in tandem with cities and counties implementing higher density housing and development near transit. The research focused on the San Francisco Bay Area, California; Atlanta, Georgia Region; Gainesville, Florida; and, the States of Washington and Oregon.