The Incredible True Story of the Tea Party's Rise to Power

[eridani]

http://www.takepart.com/feature/2015/10/30/tea-party-history?cmpid=tpdaily-eml-2015-10-30-PoachingKingpinArrested

Thanks to their 2010 victories in so many state races that Democrats ignored, Republicans were able to pass the voter suppression laws and draw the gerrymandered districts that contributed to their winning in 2014 their largest House majority since 1928 and capturing the Senate as well. On the state level, Republicans flipped 11 more state legislative chambers to the GOP, for control of 69 of the 99 in the country.

The results gave the Republicans far and away more state legislators and more control over state governments than at anytime since the 1920s. But the Republican Party of the ’20s included plenty of establishment moderates and Bull Moose Progressives—often more liberal than anyone in American politics today.

In other words, the Tea Party and its confederates have succeeded in electing the most right-wing governments in American state and congressional history. This renders mostly moot the debate over whether or not it is a grassroots phenomenon. It is the grassroots now—the culture out of which America’s future leaders will come.

“You’re starting to see that farm team [in the state legislatures] grow to a point where even if we lose individual battles, I really feel we’re winning the long war,” said Brandon.

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Yet the Tea Party’s single-mindedness has proved to be enormously effective. At the moment, there does not seem to be a countervailing force anywhere in our society with the conviction or the ability to stop it.

The Democratic Party may be able to retain the presidency next year, but because the Democrats have no chance of winning back Congress, said president will be unable to deliver any agenda—and a political party that cannot deliver anything is one in serious trouble. As Matthew Yglesias wrote recently for Vox—and as I wrote in The New York Times last fall—the Democratic Party is already listing badly. In large swaths of the country, it is simply ceasing to exist, on every level.

In part this is because the Democrats’ activist base today is a farce, when compared with the well-organized clubs of the Tea Party. Black Lives Matter shoved around the most liberal presidential candidate in a generation. Occupy Wall Street invented the human microphone. The Tea Party took Congress. Who would you put your money on?