The chapter argues strategic essentialism has become the prevailing mode of thinking among scholars in Native American discourse, and traces its development over the past few decades. I suggest this has produced a host of unintended consequences and is, generally speaking, a bad thing. Mainly because the scholars are reflecting and advancing ideas held by many Native Americans in the United States, not just those in the academy. I analyze this condition through a discussion of the HBO series “The Leftovers,” recent exhibitions at the National Museum of the American Indian, and the rise of the tea party movement in 2014.