Fiscally Conservative movement, the Tea Party, existing in name from 2009 to 2016 was considered a response to the destructive policies sanctioned by Presidents Bush, and Obama. Certainly earning its place among the other American political movements in history with the notable Red Wave being brought upon Congress in the November 2010 midterms, it had quite an impressive track record, but many politically involved young people have yet to hear about the movement, perhaps due to the one thing Tea Partiers ignored in whole, the culture. Falling into the trap many other right wingers in the past had, caused the movement to be seen as a fad, and not having many long-term effects. But they’re only half right. The real Tea Party of the 1770’s may have been a key event in the birth of a new nation, changing the course of history forever. Almost nothing can beat that, but the modern movement of the same name still managed to influence reactionary politics. Not only perfectly paving the way for Trump’s 2016 victory, Tea Partiers ironically also happened to teach the right wing that culture does matter, and served as the last example of a movement that ignores it. 

In politics, one of the best ways to gauge a movements’ success is by analyzing the opposing side’s response. When the other sinks down to ignoring the topic at hand, throwing insults at your character and straw manning your arguments are all sure signs you've won a debate with a peer. To be clear, people who genuinely want to converse on a personal level are not the problem, as there are plenty of well-intentioned Democrats who bring interesting points to the table. As an overall institution, The Left’s responses to both movements reveal a deeper connection between the Tea Party and today’s populist movement of Trump supporters.

Constantly being up in arms about Michael Knowles’ latest comments about transgenderism’s existence as an ideology, or Trump’s incendiary quips at Joe Biden may be well received by the Left’s compatriots, however are seen by Conservatives as avoiding the real issues. The Left has no concrete arguments as to why 8-year-old girls should be able to be pumped with “puberty blockers”, or why illegals should be granted unfettered access to the American welfare system, causing them to revert to decade-old talking points once used against Tea Party policies such as Social Security. Limiting Social Security was an issue rarely campaigned on, both now and in the Tea Party’s glory days. Even if a politician believes in the abolition of the program as a whole, he knows enough to not speak of it in public due to it being wildly unpopular. For example, other Tea Party presidential candidates, still decided to use this as a straw man point against former Texas Governor Rick Perry, in the 2011 CNN “Tea Party Express''. Perry did label the program a Ponzi scheme, but contrary to McCain’s accusations, nowhere in his book Fed Up! does he tout its abolition. Claims like this may ring familiar to the contemporary voter, as attacks are piled on Republican campaigns by congressional Democrat PACs. Ultimately, the reason why commentators choose Social Security as the non-issue to inflate and exploit boils down to strategy. Today’s reawakening of the straw man comes from history between Republicans and Social Security. McCain’s use of the sore spot laid the foundation for Democrats today, while simultaneously being a point of persuasion for the moderates both sides desperately need in an election year. This attempted rebuilding of the Tea-Party-styled Republican Party is deliberately executed on the basis of weak, obscure areas like Social Security being able to be knocked down by opponents, contributing to the image of the fragile Republican party with a disordered agenda. 

As for the times when Democrat strategists agree it is necessary to comment on cultural issues, they still rarely say anything of substance. The obscuring of the definitions of words has long been a sign of a nation’s political decline. Drained of all true meaning, words like racism and sexism are abused by the Left in smear campaigns, with the right deciding it was an effective strategy to yell back “When you think about it, you’re really the (racist, sexist, etc)!”. Non coincidentally, squish Republican John Dean, former Nixon cabinet member, and never-Trumper, happened to be ardently against the Tea Party as well. His reason? Authoritarianism, the word hailed by Democrats and RINOs everywhere to demolish any effective movement or people who actually utilize power. Conflicting narratives claim different levels of the strategy’s effectiveness. While influential among moderate Conservatives still afraid of attacks on personality, it’s rendered useless on principled Conservatives, who’ve been in the ring for a while. Immunity grew as time went on, and a once popular tactic against the contenders who wielded power began to wane when faced with the strength of the Tea Party, and succeeding movements.  

As if longing for a return to the rather moderate cultural arguments of the early 2010’s, the Left continues in their attempts to repaint today’s right wing as the movement of yesterday, with arbitrary criticisms of character and exploitations of non-issues. Politics is language, rallying requires speech, and strategy breeds success. Although unconventionally, the Tea Party achieved all of the latter. The movement’s straightforward rednecks had a rather simple strategy. Saying what was on their mind not only helped them in the cultivation, but the upkeep of their coalition. Sweeping the nation, Tea Party protests greatly contributed to their exponential growth, as numerous signs, chants, and songs spoke to the unfiltered message of fiscal Conservatives. Their death, as so many news outlets couldn’t wait to proclaim, was not a death. Its downfall was not permanent, because its legacy carries on in Republican politics to this day, but more on that next week.