Many progressives remember the tea party revolution of 2009-2010 as an extended exercise in unreason. That’s not wrong. But it was also, quite possibly, the most successful political organizing movement in the last half-century of American politics. The tea party transformed the GOP from a broken and battered political party to a ruthlessly effective organ in the body politic — all in the space of about 18 months. As Democrats plot a path out of the wilderness, it’s important to consider how the right did it.
In those years, the tea party was full of scorn for Barack Obama’s background as a organizer, and the feared name of Saul Alinsky was never far from conservative activists’ lips. But these right-wing rabble-rousers were much better organizers. For decades, the American left has dreamed about building a national movement of self-organizing cells by unifying political neophytes with disparate beliefs into a single, broad cause, and operating both within and outside its host political party. Conservatives realized that model. It worked. And Democrats still have nothing like it.
In Texas, there were tea party groups at the county, city and even neighborhood level. They were hyperlocal organizing engines whose events also offered camaraderie. They often met in churches, and many were involved with their own politically active congregations.
Like minded folk – especially those who call themselves Democrats should organize and act in an organized fashion. Hopefully if this happens, it will be a fact based organization – unlike the tea party which based its activity on emotionalism, prejudice, zenophobia and basic misinformation. To me, it seemed that the tea party movement was responsible for so many lies about Obama that Obama has to be the most “lied about” president in U.S. history…but back to Democratic Party and further organization. Democracy is hard to achieve. I am reminded of a quote from Will Rogers who was a white Democrat during the time when most Democrats were basically “Dixiecrats” – in other words racist. He said he didn’t belong to an organized political party, he belonged to the Democratic Party. This was supposed to be a joke although it clearly pointed out the chaos that goes with the democratic process.