At Politico, Paul Jossey writes of the death of the so-called “Tea Party” movement. The movement didn’t go away on its own, writes Jossey. It was “murdered—and it was an inside job.”
Today, the Tea Party movement is dead, and Trump has co-opted the remnants. What was left of the Tea Party split for a while between Trump and, while he was still in the race, Ted Cruz, who was backed by Jenny Beth Martin, co-founder and national coordinator of the Tea Party Patriots. In 2014, the Tea Party Patriots group spent just 10 percent of the $14.4 million it collected actually supporting candidates, with the rest going to consultants and vendors and Martin’s hefty salary of $15,000 per month; in all, she makes an estimated $450,000 a year from her Tea Party-related ventures. Today, of course, it’s all about Trump, but Trump rallies are only Trump rallies, not Tea Party rallies that he assumed control of. There are no more Tea Party rallies. [...]
Any postmortem should start with the fact that there were always two Tea Parties. First were people who believe in constitutional conservatism. These folks sense the country they will leave their children and grandchildren is a shell of what they inherited. And they have little confidence the Republican Party can muster the courage or will to fix it.
Second were lawyers and consultants who read 2009’s political winds and saw a chance to get rich.
TWEET OF THE DAY
BLAST FROM THE PAST
At Daily Kos on this date in 2003—Bush to declare war on Iraq:
Okay, this is really funny:
Today President Bush said the situation in Iraq had deteriorated to the point where he had no choice "but to declare war on that country."
"I've just become aware that good people are dying out there. Terrorists run rampant, killing people, blowing up oil pipelines, wreaking havoc, maybe just plain reaking. They've got to be stopped."
Bush said that he had recently learned that since May 1, 2003, Iraq has become the "number one nexus of the terrorist activities in the world," and he called it "the nexus of the axis of evil," speaking from his ranch in Texas.
He said that it was a difficult decision but he had "no choice" given the state of the country at this time.
"Whoever is running that country has allowed it to turn into a hornet's nest that threatens the stability of the Middle East, and with it, the safety and security of the United States, and of the world."
Priceless.
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