It’s been ten years since TEA Parties swept the nation. With the credit bubble burst and the sub-prime mortgage industry collapsing, the federal government was already panicking in 2008. Big government Republicans and Democrats came together to craft a monstrous bailout package. As if on cue, President Obama was elected promising to “fundamentally transform America!” And Obama’s vision for America was socialism, so implementing an almost $1 Trillion stimulus package in his first days was a perfect storm and dream come true for America’s most progressive president ever.
In an effort to increase home ownership, the federal government for decades had been pressuring bankers to make tenuous loans to unqualified applicants. To encourage the bankers the government guaranteed those questionable mortgages. The wise guys on Wall Street figured out how to bundle those fragile notes and make huge profits. But it was a house of cards all built on poor credit that would inevitably default. And it did.
As the sub-prime mortgages came crashing down, we heard that these financial institutions were “too big to fail;” our entire banking system was threatened and the economy in peril. The federal government insisted the American Tax Payer bail out the borrowers who should have never gotten a loan and the big bankers that facilitated the fraud. It was also a neat narrative for the new socialist administration: they claimed capitalism had failed and only the government could save us.
Americans were incensed and shocked. Their hard earned tax dollars were going to prop up a scam. And with Democrats controlling all branches of government, America was diving head long into progressive policies. It seemed there was no one to stop the big government juggernaut. Except the American people themselves!
Completely off the cuff, the spark came 19 February 2009 from CNBC Business Editor, Rick Santelli, on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Lambasting the ill-conceived federal bailout, Santelli ranted about the adulteration of capitalism and the gross harm caused by government meddling. He declared it was time for a revolt and somewhat in jest said he would be organizing a new Tea Party on the shores of Lake Michigan.
That’s all it took. Santelli’s rant went viral. Americans heard the call and responded en masse. Standing for Taxed Enough Already, TEA Parties spontaneously sprang up around the country. There was no national coordination and at first scant organization. The movement had momentum with the first nationwide rallies on tax day in 2009. In just one example more than a 1,000 folks showed up at Cooper Riverside Park in Mobile, Alabama to hear an ad hoc program of local speakers. This happened in almost every city in America.
The TEA Parties were the most incredible grassroots movement in modern American politics. Republicans wanted to claim credit and Democrats insisted it was all fabricated by billionaires buying off the dumb hicks in fly over country. Both were wrong. Every TEA Party formed completely independent of any other, but some went on to cooperate. They never had any real money, only the few dollars collected from hard working Americans at each rally. They were rebelling against the billionaires and the tyrannical government giving them favor.
Determined to deny the people were in open revolt to the extremely progressive policies of the new administration, Democrats tried to smear the TEA Parties as racist. They surmised the discontent was simply a rejection of the first black president. It was not; it was a rejection of the first socialist president.
However, the socialist tendencies of Democrats were not new. Americans knew their utopian designs for this country. More than the Democrats winning, the TEA Parties emerged because Republicans had failed miserably. Republicans failed during the Bush years when they controlled the federal government and arguably grew a much bigger government to hand off to the Democrats. And in the minority, they were proving no match for the onslaught of progressive initiatives.
The people needed a champion, but they would have to do it themselves. It was the TEA Parties that resoundingly ousted Democrats from the House in 2010; and again in 2014 they were the base that restored the Senate to Republican control. Still uneasy with Republicans, it was TEA Party voters that chose Donald Trump over a huge field of Republican wannabes. And in the general election, it was TEA Party minded Democrats that crossed over to elect Trump.
Never fully organized and now much less visible, the TEA Parties are still quite active in local and state politics, but they are the conscience of the conservative movement. They never became a political party which is good because they would have succumbed to the corruption of partisan politics. But rest assured, they are still out there getting out the vote and strongly supporting the only man willing to drain the Washington swamp. They will ensure President Trump is reelected.
“I will restore your leaders as in days of old, your rulers as at the beginning. Afterward you will be called the City of Righteousness, the Faithful City." Isaiah 1:26
