Originally published at: Why All the Handwringing About a ‘Tea Party of the Left’ Was So Misguided - TPM – Talking Points Memo
This article is part of Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis. As insurgent candidates offering critiques of the Democratic Party won primary after primary in 2025 and 2026, pundits were left wondering: were the Democrats having their own “Tea Party moment”? Back in 2010, the Tea Party was key to securing massive GOP legislative gains,…
1 Like
Democrats and the left just don’t have that march in lockstep gene. In fact, the problem with Democratic and left-leaning organizations is that they want to dictate and members want to be heard on an equal level. The establishment can’t or won’t see that because, hey, Dr Professor PhD Esq. who is part of it knows what’s best for you.
The Tea Baggers were an AstroTurf movement. The current Progressive wave in the Democratic party is organic.
9 Likes
I don’t think that the Tea Baggers had any problem with functional government. They just had a very different idea of the functions of government. Conservatives do not believe that government should be in the Mommy/Gospels business. Governments, to their mind, are strictly in the punishment business. Active social engineering is fine, but the only permissible tool is punishment: soldiers, bombs, cops, prisons. And transfer payments, being non-punitive, are outside the legitimate business of government.
Consider the conservative response to abortion. For the sake of argument (only!), let’s assume that abortion is a Bad Thing, and suppressing it is part of the business of government. Hence, conservatives want to criminalize abortion, and put doctors and women in jail. The Catholic Church has some very conservative elements, but also has many Mommy people, motivated by the Gospels. Hence Catholics also show a non-conservative approach: programs like Birthright, which supports pregnant women both morally and financially, and is not averse to adoption.
The war on drugs is another example: full incarceration; no emphasis on prevention or treatment. Even on treatment, conservatives prefer Naloxone to buprenorphine. Naloxone saves lives, but does nothing about agonizing withdrawal symptoms: a chemical form of punishment.
4 Likes
There is no “Tea Party” on the left because it was never a central controlling ideology, and the “Tea Party” was a “astro turf” funded operation. Who's Raising Money For Tea Party Movement? : NPR
8 Likes
The election of a black man was the primary driver of the so-called tea party movement. Not sure why it’s so hard to unqualifiedly acknowledge that.
9 Likes
The Tea Party movement was a ginned up pile of shit on top of a pile of resentment from the consequences of the lies and greed of Reagan and Bush.
It was always managed and controlled by the “brighter” lights, Fox and Gingrich and Koch and Cheney and Reed and Norquist and Bernie McConnell and the willing tools like Rick Santelli and what not.
Truly, an AstroTurf movement. And why was that?
Because when unbridled Capitalism is your only reason for being, your Golden Calf, everybody in the trenches, both sides, are just going to get trampled into the mud, and that, as we see today, is no way to get ahead in life, not even a little.
“Vote for me and I’ll take everything you’ve got and leave you in the Gutter” is not much of a campaign slogan.
6 Likes
Yeah …
While grassroots efforts were the heart of the Tea Party, conservative action groups and wealthy donors provided support that bolstered the movement’s influence. Organizations like FreedomWorks and Americans for Prosperity were instrumental in providing logistical and financial backing for large-scale mobilization.
4 Likes
The comparison fails because they are not opposite positions. The Tea Party was an extension of Reagan’s “government is the problem.” The left is not saying “government is the solution. Instead, the message is “BAD government is the problem.” There is an implicit belief that government is part of the solution, but that’s not the focus of what the left is saying. They are saying we need to fix and repair the abuses of the Trump administration. And, of course, the only way to fix those problems is to make government work better. DSA isn’t saying give all control and power to government. It is saying that the only way to address social problems is with social solutions that optimize the opportunities of the greatest part of society.
7 Likes
It was fun seeing them calling themselves “tea baggers” until they found out what it meant.
1 Like
pundits were left wondering: were the Democrats having their own “Tea Party moment”?
An example of the willed stupidity of mainstream media, which is just deeply locked into a binary “both-sides” frame for national politics. “If Democrats are moving further left, then the most important thing about that movement is obviously its similarity to a notable moment when Republicans moved further right.”
1 Like
The Tea Party was a product of big, dark, deregulated money and dedicated hard-right media. Money and media were the muscle and billionaires were the brains which provided a steady pull to the right, with a Federalist Society Supreme Court. Then there was anti-Obama racism and antigovernment libertarianism. It is surprising how well Libertarianism and Fascism get along. Silicon Valley - Mein Kamph meets the Whole Earth Catalog.
Will Rogers: “I don’t belong to an organized political party, I’m a Democrat.”
2 Likes