Immediately after the defeat of Hillary Clinton, long time Democrat advisor, David Axelrod observed that Democrats needed a game changer like the Tea Party to resurrect the party. Bernie Sanders and Paul Begala, though loyal to Clinton to a fault, have voiced the same call for a left-leaning grassroots movement.
Angry protests at town halls around the country have led the mainstream media to gladly label this a leftist Tea Party. But is it?
Less than a month into President Trump’s term, leaders in the Democratic Party are claiming that these protests are a grassroots movement that reflects the concerns of a majority of Americans. More sober pundits say the efforts to derail President Trump’s presidency look more like the Occupy Wall Street movement than the Tea Party.
One opposition group, “Indivisible,” is far from a grassroots effort. The group was launched by Angel Padilla and a small cadre of ex-Democratic aides intent on delegitimizing President Trump’s victory and agenda.
Indivisible was birthed by Ezra Levin a former aide to Texas Democratic Rep. Lloyd Doggett along with his wife, Leah Greenberg, a longtime aide to ex-Virginia Democratic Rep. Tom Perriello. Together they formulated what they call the “Indivisible Guide,” a set of “best practices for making Congress listen.”
The guide does openly borrow from the early tactics of the Tea Party. The original Tea Party movement rose as a true grassroots reaction to former President Barack Obama’s government stimulus bill and what became The Affordable Care Act. “Indivisible” claims it is a similar bottom-up movement from the left rather than the right.
There are, however, some fundamental differences in what the media is touting as the Tea Party of the Left and the movement from the Right.
The Tea Party was organic, decentralized, and wasn’t a product of political establishment types. In fact, a main component in the Tea Party’s success is that there really is no such thing as THE Tea Party. It was rather a truly organic amalgamation of various local groups that banded together as much in opposition to the Republican establishment as to Obama’s progressive agenda.
What is occurring on the left is hardly organic or decentralized. So-called “grassroots activists” of the left arrive in large groups. They descend on town halls and Washington, often in bus caravans arranged for them. They carry pre-printed professional signage and chant in unison the same carefully worded outrage in Washington, D.C. and Seattle, Washington.
It would be a mistake to think this leftist “Tea Party” is not problematic for the country but also a mistake to believe them to have the same ultimate influence. The Tea Party of 2010 was an organic uprising brought about by President Obama’s policies rammed through Congress.
Tea Party groups often had a specific agenda calling both Democrat and Republican to clean up their act and govern as they were elected to do. These groups sought to throw out the old guard regardless of party affiliation.
What is being labeled a new leftist Tea Party doesn’t want to throw out anyone in their own party but are rabid in their contempt for President Trump. Rather than presenting their own agenda, today’s liberal activists appear to have only one goal in mind: cause the Trump presidency to be stillborn.
Instead of rallying for real, meaningful change, this tea party seems intent on pretending as though Barack Obama is still president and Donald Trump is an interloper.
If history can teach us anything, a movement focused on what shouldn’t be rather what should is doomed to failure. Many on the left proclaimed Occupy Wall Street a counterpart to the Tea Party. But unlike a peaceful and focused Tea Party, Occupy Wall Street protested, created confusion and left little to remember it by but mounds of garbage on the streets of New York City.
The aforementioned, Indivisible Guide, boldly proclaims that “Trump does not have a mandate … If a small minority in the Tea Party could stop President Obama, then we the majority can stop a petty tyrant named Trump.”
In spite of its bluster, Jazz Shaw of Hotair sums it up: “Let’s not make a mistake here… this is not the Tea Party. It’s not even remotely similar. This is a finely tuned protest machine, bitter about the recent defeat and seeking to harness friendly forces in the mainstream media to reinforce a daily narrative that the winner of the election has failed before he’s even begun.”
~ Conservative Zone
