There was one time since Ronald Reagan left the stage that I felt like this nation had a genuine chance to succeed – with “success” defined as “being the nation that the founding fathers envisioned it being”. That was during the Tea Party. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kids, ask your parents. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Tea Party was organic. It was a mass movement that almost entirely led with its its ideals – from leaving its demonstration sites cleaner than we found them, to focusing on its principles more than any mass movement (worth following) I can recall in my lifetime. Fiscal responsibility, federalism, checks and balances, civil liberties, equality, a tamed bureacracy – what wasn’t to like? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Naturally, this was a threat, both to the Democrat party (whom the Tea Party shellacked in the 2010 midterms) but the GOP establishment; both, with their handmaidens and drinking buddies in the media, combined to undercut the movement via the most defamatory attack PR campaign not waged on behalf of a Clinton that I can recall. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Which led to Trump, for better or worse, as millions of workadaddy, hugamommy people figured playing nice wasn’t going to work (notwithstanding the Tea Party having led one of the great electoral tsunamis in history in 2010 and 2012). <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Tea Party has lurked in the shadows, or in some cases been appropriated by hucksters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It’s time for that to change<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Six months into Joe Biden\u2019s presidency, the opposition to his sweeping agenda is practically nonexistent. This week, in direct violation of his oath of office, President Biden extended a moratorium on evictions despite acknowledging beforehand that doing so would be illegal. Meanwhile, his party is trying to push through a multi-trillion-dollar package that will radically transform the relationship between citizens and government from birth through retirement. This is a five-alarm fire for conservatism and Republicans should be fighting Biden with every tool at their disposal. Instead, Republicans have remained largely silent about his unconstitutional power grab<\/a> and, far from resisting his spending spree, are greasing the wheels for it by agreeing to pass one of his top priorities \u2014 an unnecessary infrastructure bill that is effectively an appendage of the larger social-welfare package…Historically, the path of least resistance was always for Republicans to come to Washington and rubber stamp more spending. At the height of the Tea Party\u2019s power, there was a period during which Republicans were more afraid of voting to increase spending than they were of voting to cut spending. That was an important development that effectively put the brakes on Obama\u2019s legislative agenda after 2010.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n It was a brief period – but it showed it could be done. <\/p>\n\n\n\n And that’s what we need to shoot for:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Today, the U.S. is at a scary point in its history. The last time the nation racked up so much debt, it was in response to the short-term crisis of World War II. Yet once that crisis ended, so did the elevated spending. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n