@LWFlouisa Tea Party is effectively a Republican movement and subculture of republicans that oppose large governemnt. Their focus is to significantly reduce government spending and taxes.

As such people tend to compare it to libertarianism since they both seek to reduce the federal government.

It differs in a few ways though

1) The Tea Party is first and foremost Republican. Meaning they share all the usual Republican ideals.

2) The Tea Party seeks to reduce federal government but has no intrest in strengthening local government in exchange. Most libertarian ideals want to move the power from federal to local, not eliminate it.

3) their stance on social issues are completely at odds with eachother. Socially libertarians look more like liberals (they support gay marriage, want weed to be legal, etc), but the Tea party is Republican thus resembles the Republican Party.