Is that all there is?

If control of one party for a season was the goal, why did I waste my time?

I don’t think these folks wanted a mailing list.

It’s inarguably the most prolific Substack I subscribe to, but

America First News

(which used to be Conservative Treehouse) is also perhaps the largest group of rabid Trump supporters I know, anointing him as a leader of the global populist movement. And that’s fine.

But there’s something Sundance wrote the other day that demanded comment. I’m not going to claim myself as the be-all and end-all expert on the TEA Party, but I suspect I know a little more about its history and origins than the average guy. And you might recall that the TEA Party turned out to be the backbone of Donald Trump’s support in his successful 2016 run to the White House, a conclusion I realized in the midst of writing my tome. Most of its leaders eventually got onboard the Trump Train.

But I got to thinking about the song I used as my title and made famous by Peggy Lee (even before my time) when I read this at the end of their recent article:

Sundance — MAGA Took RNC From 3 Million to 50 Million E-Mail Subscribers In Stunning Turnaround

Do not just brush past this information as unimportant or simply inside baseball.  This is a YUGE deal. I want every person associated with the Tea Party movement of 2010 to stand and take a bow. Guys, we did it…  We actually did it.  Feel awesome about this.

Essentially, the RNC of Bush, Romney, and the corporate Republican apparatus is dead. The MAGA grassroots movement is now in control. 50 million registered supporters of the great MIDDLE CLASS movement, represented by Donald Trump, is the core of the “silent majority.”

That number isn’t just big, it’s YUGE!  Lean into it; it’s time to leverage the scale of this assembly. No wonder the Deep State is scared!

So I sat there after reading that and thought, “we haven’t done shit yet.”

Let’s set aside the fact that nothing changes if Trump or other Republicans don’t win their elections and consider our situation when the TEA Party first thought they triumphed in 2010:

• We held the House thanks to 63 new Republicans, courtesy of the TEA Party. That body then turned around and elected an “establishment” Speaker in John Boehner.

• We fell short of taking the Senate. Four years later, we took it but they elected an “establishment” Majority Leader in Mitch McConnell.

• We still had President Obama for two more years. In 2012 the “establishment” took advantage of the divided loyalties of the TEA Party and Republicans nominated the feckless Mitt Romney, who dutifully lost to Obama.

So when we managed a Republican trifecta in 2016, what did we get? Well, we got (temporary) tax cuts and three reasonably good Supreme Court justices, but aside from that we’re basically back to where we were in 2009 - and $20-odd trillion more in the hole. That promise to repeal Obamacare: what promise? That quickly changed to “repeal and replace” and although they managed to cripple it somewhat, we still have it.

Initially, the TEA Party was rooted in the concept of limited government, with a fairly libertarian outlook. They took to heart the Reagan axiom, “In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”

But as the TEA Party grew in popularity to be the political flavor of the day, its purpose seemed to morph from limiting government to simply taking control of the government and steering it to the ends they desired, which is the essence of populism. That’s what drove the limitless supply of grifters and so-called conservative PACs who preferred being on the outside where they didn’t have real responsibility as it allowed them to make themselves wealthy by being the loyal opposition and parting believers with their money. (Meanwhile, those who really could make a difference at local levels were starved for funds.)

While I’m not discounting the impact 50 million people could have, they’re not going to do much good for liberty if all they’re about is shifting the focus of an extra-Constitutional government. Now if they’re for the federal government only doing tasks the Constitution prescribes and allowing the states more freedom to run their affairs without Big Brother Uncle Sam hovering over them, we may get somewhere.

But I’m not holding my breath because politics is determined by elections, and the change we need is cultural and educational. 50 million people on a mailing list won’t help there.

In the meantime, you can Buy Me a Coffee, since I have a page there now.