By William Haupt III | The Center Square
In this June 19, 2013, file photo, Tea Party activists
rally in front of the U.S. Capitol in
Washington. Photo By J. Scott Applewhite / AP
“This City is what it is because our citizens are what
they are.”
– Plato, Motto Tea Party Alliance
The Boston Tea Party in 1773 was more than a mercantile
protest by the Sons of Liberty targeting the abusive Tea Act and Townshend Act.
Although America strongly opposed the Townshend Act, their rebellion was in
response to the continued violation of their rights by the English. As patriots
destroyed an entire shipment of East Indian tea that night, they sent a message
to the British: They were “mad as hell and refused any future abuse of their natural
and God-given rights as free men.”
The Boston Tea Party was one of the most significant
events in world history. It was an American resistance movement against the
violation of the right to representation during the historic Age of
Enlightenment. Enlightenment thinking undermined the authority of the monarchy
to exercise total control over the people. It provided the impetus for the
revolutions of the 18th century that fostered the principle of the inherent
rights of man to self rule. And those rights can’t be violated by anyone.
Photo: CNBC Radio Show Annotator Rick Santelli
On Feb. 19, 2009, in the wake of numerous government
attempts to repair an economy that “it broke itself,” CNBC radio show annotator
Rick Santelli set off a powder keg of protests when he told viewers,
"We're thinking of having a Chicago Tea Party in July! All you capitalists
that want to show up at Lake Michigan, I'm going to start organizing!"
Within a week, average Americans began forming Tea Party groups around the nation as a result of Santelli's rant. Within months, Tea Party protests consumed America.
“Challenging our leaders is as American as it gets.”
– Rick Santelli
As the President Barack Obama and his liberal Congress
continued their assault on the Constitutional and natural God-given rights of
average Americans, within two years the Tea Party movement had shifted the
entire political equation. Considering Obama had been swept into office with a
mandate driven by Black voters to “fundamentally change America.” and given a
massive majority in Congress to do it; this proved again that Americans “were
as mad as hell and were not going to take abuse any longer.”
The Tea Party movement was a grassroots effort to shrink
the federal government to its original Constitutional size. The movement was
comprised of groups of concerned citizens who believed America was moving away
from its core principles of limited government and democracy. Mark Williams,
president of The Tea Party Express, spearheaded opposition to government-run
health care and helped Republicans take back the Congress after the passage of
Obamacare in 2010.
Tea Partiers were patriotic, religious middle class
conservatives. But the left attacked them as right wing extremists. They viewed
them as a resistance movement against Obama’s change campaign.
The left and their media condemned them as a race-based
patriarchy, angered and outraged over Obama’s ethnicity? Yet over 30 percent of
its members were non-white. The left had union members and professional paid
agitators disrupt peaceful Tea Party protests against the passage of Obamacare.
Yet after Obama’s second election, the steam quit flowing
from the party’s tea pots. They viewed the GOP's Mitt Romney as a booby prize,
but felt people would be “mad as hell again” since they lost their health
insurance and premiums doubled under Obamacare. But Romney was a wimp compared
to media mega messiah Obama, and the Tea Party was left standing at the altar.
And membership dwindled as they put their tea pots back in storage. Today,
there are few active Tea Party groups in America.
Although many tea partiers came out of hiding claiming
responsibility for Trump’s victory, they were most likely drinking cannabis
tea. President Trump was elected by the average American who was “mad as hell
again” after watching the economy flounder in limbo for four years. They were
fed up living under a regime that catered only to identity groups and did
nothing for the average American.
From the time Trump threw his hat in the ring, he was
castigated by the media and the far left. He is the first president to be
impeached before even being elected. He restored America as the leader of the
free world. Until the COVID-19 crisis, he had the highest sustained economic
growth in history. No other president has had higher minority employment
numbers. Yet Trump is tarred and feathered by liberal media and leftists
everyday. Why is the Tea Party in hiding when our president needs help the
most?
"No matter how good my numbers are, I can’t do anything
right.”
– Donald Trump
Ten years after the Tea Party movement began, the House
Tea Party Caucus is long gone. So too are almost of all the 87 House
Republicans elected in the biggest GOP wave since the 1920s. In a recent
telephone survey, Rasmussen found only 8 percent of all voters identify with
the Tea Party, and just 10 percent of voters have a favorable opinion of it.
Back in 2010, this polling organization found that 39 percent of voters
surveyed identified as Tea Party members and 41 percent had a positive
opinion of them.
During Trump's first two years, the lack of support from
the Tea Party groups cost the GOP control of the House. There was little
support from conservative organizations to force House members to actively
pursue putting Obamacare out of its misery. There was even less to build a wall
to protect America from illegal immigration. Then the GOP lost the House to the
socialist left.
“We’ve got lots of lobbyists here. But where's labor,
activists, community leaders and voters?”
– Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
The Tea Party was the only faction in the Republican
Party that was actually concerned about civil liberties, evidenced by Sen. Rand
Paul's efforts to safeguard the Fourth and Fifth Amendments. While the Tea
Partiers had a fetish for intransigence over compromise, that would have raised
the bar on eventual compromises on policies for the moderates and
conservatives. Today, the socialist left is garishly demanding and won’t
compromise on anything that doesn’t benefit socialist causes.
Billie Jean King told us, “Victory is fleeting.” Average
Americans, not patriotic organizations or Tea Party groups, elected Donald
Trump. And most average Americans are not activists or members of organized
political groups. They depend on citizen-led political groups to inform and
mobilize them when Congress and the president need help with policy and
legislation. Yet Tea Parties fell asleep at the wheel of liberty before Trump
was elected and can’t be found when he needs their help now.
Obama was chosen by the far left to usher in the era of
Democratic Socialism and ration our liberty one new law at a time. They were
set to finish the job with Hillary Clinton when Donald Trump flew into
Washington on a Leerjet to save us from total self destruction. Yet the Tea
Party failed to help him.
“Nobody should ignore the fires around you after a
victory, while they still burn.”
– Rick Santelli
The left is “mad as hell” and the media has helped them
beat up Trump and the GOP since he was elected. They are well financed and
organized, raging war in precincts and the streets with paid leftist mobs to
win the next election. Where is the Tea Party now? If they don’t come out of
hiding soon and brew up a potion to rekindle the fires of patriotism, they’ll
be nothing more than a line in the first new left history book after next election.
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed,
citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
– Margaret Mead
Contributing Columnist William Haupt III is a retired
professional journalist, author, and citizen legislator in California for over
40 years. He got his start working to approve California Proposition 13.
