Epilogue: So What Comes Next?
As part of my TEA Party +15 celebration I am serializing my 2019 book The Rise and Fall of the TEA Party. Today is the 15th anniversary of the TEA Party, which began February 27, 2009.
“Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted.” - quote attributed to Vladimir Lenin (1870-1924).
As I reach the end of this book, it's the judgment of this author that the rise and fall of the TEA Party coincided with the amount of influence the mainstream political parties had on it. A significant part of its initial appeal was the fact the TEA Party was at first issue-based and not wed to a particular political party. Rick Santelli did not go out and rant that he was hosting a TEA Party that summer and planning to allow the Republican Party to infiltrate his gathering that fall, but as time went along that's what happened. As political party influence grew, the fortunes of the TEA Party sank because it became perceived as just another special interest group.
At heart, it was supposed to be a grassroots effort. As an exercise while researching this book, I asked early TEA Party leaders what the movement did wrong (and right.) Perhaps the most poignant answer came from a man who fell from grace in the movement, Mark Williams:
Inasmuch as it was never a thing, like as in an actual party, group, or even gospel, I’m not sure how to answer (this question) except to point out that it sprung organically among Americans who used people like me – without entirely trusting us, thank God – yet understanding that something was happening. I am a HUGE fan of the Buffalo Springfield song (For What It's Worth) to this day and still listen, and relate to the words – I lived them. The “Tea Party” was America working as she was designed to work. Our official apparatus had wandered far, far beyond their Constitutional prison and citizens responded, en masse and peacefully. Even in the face of physical attacks, these people still believed and took a stand.
I think that we did it ALL Right (in every sense of the word) and absolutely nothing wrong. We just did and made whatever sacrifices that Americans have to do every couple of generations.1
Speaking of generational sacrifices, consider the original Tea Party: the one which occurred in Boston on December 16, 1773. Armchair historians tend to agree that the incident was an “act of American colonial defiance,”2 the start of the “violent part of the Revolution,”3 and a “defining event in American history.”4 Foreshadowing the more recent version, it even had its own huckster:
Samuel Adams, who was a professional agitator, probably did not actually plan or aid the effort to dump the tea, but he immediately saw the propaganda value of the protest, and began working to publicize and defend this act of political protest. Adams argued that the Tea Party was not the act of a crazed mob, but arose out as the only response available to the colonists who were defending their reasonable principles and that they took this action as only remaining option the people had to defend their constitutional rights.5
The original Tea Party was a shot across the bow to the Crown, setting forth a chain of events on both sides of the Atlantic that would lead to war barely sixteen months later and our eventual declaration of independence before three years had passed.
At first, the TEA Party (vintage 2009) was indeed wed to a greater understanding of the Constitution and the benefits of limited government, as well as an opportunity for citizens to speak out. As Eric Eisenhammer, another Sacramento TEA Party leader, told me, “I think the grassroots nature of the Tea Party movement, where anybody could be a leader, was… a strength in that it empowered citizens to fight for their rights and make a difference.”6 There was a significant helping of libertarian influence which may have strangled the TEA Party in the crib as a political movement had they continued in that direction given the America we currently live in, but this was only because they were missing a key element – one I will get to momentarily.
As the TEA Party grew, however, it attracted a segment of the electorate that advocated for items directly contradictory to the movement's original stated mission. Limiting government was fine – but only on these newcomers' terms. I spent a lot of Chapter 13 discussing these incidents of hypocrisy, so I'll not rehash them here – suffice to say that the TEA Party got itself distracted and spread too thin, chasing its tail too often on the political processes it didn't understand enough of and ignoring the hard work of building on its coalition. Remember, polling never showed it gaining acceptance of more than about 1/3 of the population.
The political process that it never really cared for was what consumed the modern TEA Party in the end. My best attempt at an analogy to the 1773 version would be to imagine how things would have turned out if George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, et. al. had somehow turned the political system in such a way that they went to serve in the House of Commons. While all were men of character, the big “what-if” question is what if they had been co-opted by the power and prestige they gained while in Parliament and not among the colonists? Would America have missed its opportunity, turning out to be more of a basket case like other former British colonies?
So if you consider the Boston Tea Party (1773 version) as Tea Party 1.0 and its 2009 revival as version 2.0, the TEA Party 3.0 beta starting today has to be thought of as a multi-generational process. Lesson one is to understand that the American political system is, by its nature, full of inertia.
First case in point: in the federal system, it normally either takes a 3/5 majority of a legislative body or a special set of rules to get anything done, and since the occasions are rare where one political party or another has that 3/5 degree of control any change is either going to involve some level of compromise or be, at least at first, temporary by nature.
In the next instance it should always be remembered that, in the eyes of the bureaucrat, to solve a problem is to put himself out of a job. If someone announced a cure for cancer tomorrow, surely the naysayers would come out and call the bearer of the news crazy – but we would likely find those naysayers are all the doctors, clinicians, and pharmaceutical companies which were immediately placed at risk of losing all of their lucrative treatments in favor of a simpler (and likely cheaper) solution.
I also like the description penned by Dick Armey and Matt Kibbe – back when they were on speaking terms:
Whereas individuals in the real world have to live with the consequences of their decisions (unless they get a bailout), government does not because it can always get more money from the taxpayer. The only check on its growth is the ire of the citizenry. Government is also staffed by people who do not worry; they have the ultimate in job security. When a government program fails, the advocates of big government inevitably claim it failed because it was underfunded, not because it was a bad program.7
Two other points to keep in mind: the power to tax is the power to destroy and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Consider how much effort is spent lobbying Congress and IRS bureaucrats to adjust the tax code to benefit or penalize certain interests: for one example, Americans have millions of dollars redistributed to those who buy electric cars. Before GM got out of the production of both of these cars in 2018-19, the electric-hybrid Chevy Volt could easily cost twice as much as the conventionally-powered car which shared its chassis platform, the Chevy Cruze. So in order to entice buyers, the Volt had the sweetener of a $7,500 tax credit attached to it – a tax credit the rest of us who preferred a good old-fashioned gasoline-powered car like the Cruze paid for. Imagine the vast number of carveouts, exceptions, and interpretations that someone in power – elected or unelected – can hand out, and it's no wonder that our bloated government attracts rent-seekers like ticks latch onto dogs.
Once the politicians elected by the TEA Party came into power, we were often disappointed to find they weren't a whole lot different than the people they replaced:
(W)e fell into what I call the “Benevolent Despot” trap. If we just elected the right people to public office, they would do the right thing regardless of the political consequences. We have all slipped into this way of thinking, waiting for the perfect leader to take charge and drive the right reforms of big government from the top down.8
This, in a nutshell, is why people often believe there's not a dime's worth of difference between the two dominant political parties. We elect and eject different people every few years but get the same old results. Haven't they told us that's the definition of insanity? I know it's driven me to the brink.
So in order for TEA Party 3.0 to succeed – and it would be a tall order, indeed – it has to transcend politics. I believe its focus has to be on a generation that won't be able to vote for several years. Proverbs 22:6 says it well: “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”9 It will take the honesty of a George Washington, the moral fiber to resist the temptation absolute power would bring, and the self-sacrifice and altruism to consider that the generations before had become accustomed to the plethora of extra-Constitutional entitlements in place and would be allowed to receive benefits their peers might not as that system is phased out.
Children need to learn that what the Constitution really means, and that our political system has gone well beyond that which was intended. A piece by W. James Antle III, written in the wake of the defeat of the Obamacare repeal, illustrates the point well:
In practice, the American people want a much bigger federal government than the Constitution currently authorizes.
Not long ago, a conservative wag quipped that if a president actually tried to enforce the Constitution's limits on federal power, he or she would be impeached.
But even if Republicans find a way to give Obamacare a haircut, part of a new "skinny" welfare state, it will more closely resemble past free-market corrections of liberalism's excesses than a serious constitutional conservative challenge to liberalism.
That doesn't bode well for the Tea Party project of rolling back major liberal initiatives. The point of voting Republican will remain to make the inexorable growth of the welfare state as slow and painful as possible, a political posture that may be attractive to neither libertarian-leaning conservatives nor the populists drawn to Trump in the last presidential election.10
Because of the prevailing attitude of the American people, there has to be an understanding that change like the TEA Party desired isn't going to be political in nature at first – or maybe at all – but instead has to start out as educational, cultural, and spiritual. If you take the philosophy that “politics is downstream of culture” to heart, then the idea has to be that of changing the culture to suit the politics desired, and the best place to start in that process is with enlightening the young.
While the group that undertakes this may or may not be known as a TEA Party, the first issue those who care about America should work on is school choice. In order to be able to teach children properly, it may be necessary to take things into one's own hands – yet too many places have a stranglehold on the children by virtue of a subpar public educational system that fails to teach children the benefits of freedom, liberty, and limited Constitutional government. Moreover, there's a lack of opportunity for parents to teach them properly due to economics or state laws that work too much in favor of a single public educational system. After the obvious first step of removing federal influence on education by eliminating the Department of Education and restoring its power to the states closer to where it belongs, we can further break that chain by lobbying the several states to allow educational money to follow the child regardless of whichever public or private option parents demand – including homeschooling. Once that precedent is set, other chains may be worked off as well.
Hand-in-hand with that is the hard work of restoring traditional American mores and standards. Being born in 1964, some people would consider me a Baby Boomer and others would peg me as part of Generation X, which is my preference. In either case, though, our time as the direct drivers of culture is pretty much spent – the key demographic that advertisers and popular culture now shoot for is closely bracketed (here in 2019) by the two children I've helped to raise – one turned 35 last fall and the other just celebrated her 19th birthday in January. There are troubling signs that it will be a generation that's leaning to be far more socialist11 than any other prior one, and we in the Baby Boom and Generation X have ourselves to blame because those of us who believe in American ideals and Constitutional government didn't take the time and effort to train the Millennials in the way they should go.
As an example of how we need to address culture, I finished the initial draft of this epilogue days after the 2018 presentation of the Grammy Awards took place. The seminal event of that telecast wasn't a showstopping performance by a famous musician, but was instead Hillary Clinton reading excerpts from a book bashing Donald Trump.12 President Trump was also the basis of criticism for his stance on immigration and alleged racism; in return, the 2018 Grammy show plummeted to its lowest ratings on record for the 18-to-49 demographic.13 The slide has been reflected in other Hollywood award shows that have aired over the past several seasons.
On the surface that may appear to be a good sign, but given some of the other cultural rot Americans seem to partake in these days, that ratings decline simply means we're not into Tinseltown navel-gazing. This isn't to say that all of us should be whatever slang word is now the proper term for being less than socially acceptable to the youth, but why not seek out and consume entertainment that promotes traditional values, liberty, and portrays our nation in a positive light as a beacon of freedom for the world? Surely there are entertainers out there who do this, so it's up to my readers to find them. The larger of a market created, the better chance that people will wish to get in on it.
RedState commentator Kira Davis explained this point:
While we’ve been raising politicians and policy wonks, the left has been raising programmers and technology geeks. Now those people own the very technology that has changed our society the most, and we are just depending on their good will to be allowed to speak on those platforms.
(…)
If we want to preserve the avenues for conservative voices to reach the mainstream then we have to be more proactive in filling those jobs that serve the mainstream. It is great to encourage your children to be independent thinkers who share conservative values, but don’t get stuck there.14
Finally, I devoted Chapter 11 to the idea of God and man in the TEA Party because it was such a divisive topic in the last rendition. Remember, TEA Party 2.0 was initially led by those who tried at first to keep social issues out of it. But once that cat was out of the bag, libertarians eventually left when they felt the TEA Party was being taken over by those who wished to steer the movement into social issues.
Yet America was founded in the afterglow of the Great Awakening and shortly after its birth enjoyed the Second Great Awakening – both periods of significant religious revival. It's been close to a century since the last major religious revival in America, although there was an uptick in spiritual growth in the 1970s that led to the formation of the Moral Majority and a number of similar groups. One possible reason for this lengthy absence: politics from the pulpit is discouraged by the threat of the IRS withdrawing tax-exempt status from churches if they delve into politics thanks to the Johnson Amendment (named after President Lyndon Johnson, who sponsored this prohibition in 1954 as a member of Congress.) The Johnson Amendment is a favorite whipping boy of conservative politicians, but the last great opportunity to repeal it came and went when the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act passed in 2017 – a late draft of the bill repealed Johnson, but the final bill struck the repeal and preserved it.15
Even with the Johnson Amendment in place, though, there's no prohibition on preaching to matters of culture or praying for revival: among many others, the Reverend Billy Graham knew this:
My heart aches for America and its deceived people. The wonderful news is that our Lord is a God of mercy, and He responds to repentance. In Jonah’s day, Nineveh was the lone world superpower – wealthy, unconcerned, and self-centered. When the Prophet Jonah finally traveled to Nineveh and proclaimed God’s warning, people heard and repented.
I believe the same thing can happen once again, this time in our nation.16
I will confide in you that it's also my earnest prayer this nation enjoys a revival.
I believe in my heart those are the key steps to accomplishing in TEA Party version 3.0 what we tried and failed to do in the second go-round, for reasons I've written close to 100,000 words spelling out.
My literary journey through the TEA Party is coming to a close, but the time is now to begin planning out the next one – the one which, Good Lord willing, Americans both now and into future generations will make into a success. To my newfound reader friends: I thank you for sticking with me to the end of this book to learn the lessons of a political movement begun with the best of intentions. Like I said at the end of my introduction, may it be only a short time before the TEA Party rises from the ashes of history because we need it more than ever.
Notes - bearing in mind some of these links may now be dead ones:
1 Social media conversation with Mark Williams, January 26, 2018. I lightly edited this for clarity.
2 http://www.history.com/topics/american-revolution/boston-tea-party
3 http://www.boston-tea-party.org/essays/essay6.html
4 https://www.bostonteapartyship.com/the-aftermath
5 https://www.historyguy.com/americanrevolution/boston_tea_party.htm#.WnUwtainGM8
6 Social media conversation with Eric Eisenhammer, January 28, 2018.
7 Dick Armey and Matt Kibbe, Give Us Liberty: A Tea Party Manifesto (New York: William Morrow, 2010) p. 70.
8 Armey and Kibbe, p. 177.
9 Since my church uses the King James Version of the Bible, that's the version I use here.
10 http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/republicans-repeal-and-replace-the-tea-party/article/2629829
11 https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/nov/4/majority-millennials-want-live-socialist-fascist-o/
13 http://variety.com/2018/tv/awards/grammys-ratings-oscars-1202680720/
16 https://billygraham.org/story/billy-graham-my-heart-aches-for-america/
That concludes my posting of The Rise and Fall of the TEA Party.
Today is the 15th anniversary of the first set of TEA Parties, and it’s apparent to me we need a new version. In the time since I wrote this book, there have been further discouraging signs such as our reaction to the COVID scare and the “election” of Robert L. Peters (aka Joe Biden) to become President.
But there have been positive signs as well. We have begun to work at the level of local government and school boards for much needed reform, so hopefully this trend continues.
In the meantime, you can buy the book or Buy Me a Coffee, since I have a page there now. And remember…
Great book. Thanks Michael. Somebody said it has to get bad enough for people to feel it and then change will happen. That a majority of Americans in both major parties agree we have to build a wall and shut down illegal immigration is a good example. A new book on work that I can't recall the author or title observed Millenials did not want to work but Gen Z are willing to work to get what they want. Another good example.
At any right, it going to be "interesting" here in America heading toward this 2024 election.