A trading-floor rant launched the Tea Party populist movement.

Evidence

Although, many consider another incident as preamble to this spectacular alliance: when Rick Santelli, CNBC’s market reporter, delivered his infamous 2009 Tea Party rant—a theatrical outburst of populist anger against Barack Obama’s multibillion-dollar economic stimulus on live television. Surrounded by cheering traders inside the Chicago Mercantile Exchange’s pit, Santelli protested “subsidiz[ing] the losers’ mortgages” instead of rewarding “the people that could carry the water instead of drink the water… . This is America … the silent majority” (pointing to the traders behind him) and completed his tirade with the proclamation “We’re thinking of having a Chicago Tea Party.” — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 478

Categorization

• CANDY: The image of a CNBC reporter in a trading pit shouting about a Chicago Tea Party is a vivid, low-context anecdote perfect for elevator conversation.
• SHARE: Great nugget for someone interested in the fusion of finance and populism.
• XREF: connects to: The Tea Party’s apparent spontaneity was manufactured by networked astroturf organizations — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 131; The Tea Party was a product of engineered state-legitimacy crisis, not grassroots spontaneity — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 950; The Tea Party fused astroturfing with grassroots entrepreneurship into a self-propagating franchise — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 908 (+2 more)