"idea-free periods enjoyed by the US when the know-nothings were around and then again recently with

[pampango]

their reappearance in Tea Party form."

http://www.crikey.com.au/2011/06/16/come-in-spinner-yes-and-no-the-answer-to-many-questions/

Australian politics — aided by much of the media — is experiencing one of those idea-free periods enjoyed by the US when the know-nothings were around and then again recently with their reappearance in Tea Party form. To be precise of course, neither the know-nothings nor the Tea Party actually knew/know nothing but rather knew/know things which were/are just plain wrong.

This week’s Festival of Ideas at the University of Melbourne, curated by Patrick McCaughey, featured two outstanding historians who have done an enormous amount to stimulate ideas about how we come to know “history”, how views of history shape identity and how we have come to get our beliefs about that history wrong.

David Cannadine spoke on nationalism and national identity and canvassed various historians’ views about the origins of nationalism — starting with those who felt nationalism (and national stereotypes) can be dated to late medieval and early modern times through to those who see it as the characteristic feature of late 19th century history plus post-First World War Wilsonian insistence on self-determination.

In a carefully argued lecture he outlined that nearly all supposedly distinctively national states comprised multiple nationalities and diverse populations. What was actually distinctive about them was the extent to which the “imagined communities” were shaped by how we see, or are encouraged to see, our history and how that shapes our sense of identity.

Interesting Australian perspective comparing the tea party with the Know-Nothing Party of the 1850's.