Woj is right about the yin and yang of the DP/RP relationship. Perhaps, and this is just kind of thinking out loud here, the whole TP movement is due to the relative weakness of this DP/RP relationship as Obama moves rightward and seemed to be blunting some of the normal binary between them- Bush's undermining of the RP and the crisis helped alot too. The TP and the media portrial of it, would seem by this to be trying to reconstruct this binary between the DP/RP and push folks back 'home' during uncertain times. It serves to create disunity and individualization across the working class.
Brad