Tea Time

Remembering the Tea Party:

Changing a party from within is slow work. In the Tea Party heyday, we spent more time butting heads with the GOP establishment than with the Democrats. The "Harumph!" Republicans in D.C. have always been status quo fetishists who live in fear of change. If they'd had their druthers, the Bush/McConnell/Romney uniparty dream would have already ruined the Republic. Enter one Donald John Trump. It wasn't apparent at the time that he entered the race in 2015, but he would become the spark that ignited a flame that fired up beleaguered conservative activists (the Obama years felt like they went on forever) and began burning the uniparty weeds that were choking the Republican Party. It took some time, but those of us who were on the frontlines during the Tea Party era began to realize that Trump was the anti-politician, blow-up-the-moribund-Republican-norms kind of guy we'd been waiting for. As his first term unfolded, it was the Tea Party types who were most vocal with our support. Proving that everything that's old is new again, it was — and still is — the political consultant class that was the cornerstone of the Never Trump movement.

Have a toast in their honor...