In 2009, a conservative political movement came onto the scene that would radically alter the Republican party, change the course of American politics, and lay the foundation for the ascendency of Trump: the Tea Party. On its face, the Tea Party was ridiculous, a bunch of libertarians dressed like the Founding Fathers, railing against Obama for daring to try to expand healthcare access. But the Tea Party, through successful primary challenges was able to remake the Republican party in its own goofy and extreme image.
Since the beginning of the Tea Party, there has been hope on the left that a progressive equivalent would emerge to change the Democratic party, but no such parallel has occurred. While the first Trump administration saw the Resistance, a general rise in progressivism, and shifts in the Democratic base, unlike the Tea Party, the anger of this new force in Democratic politics was by and large not directed at Democratic leadership, but Trump and Republicans. Liberals saw elected Democrats as their standard bearers, rather than foes. But after the very public failures of the Biden administration, in the second Trump presidency, progressives have adopted a new different, more aggressive, approach to politics.
While rumblings of a Democratic Tea Party began right after inauguration day, there was a sharp uptick after the Senate vote on the Republican Budget Continuing Resolution, in which a handful of Senate Democrats, led by Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, voted to break a filibuster, allowing the bill’s passage. Outraged that these Senate Democrats rolled over in the face of an increasingly authoritarian and erratic administration, liberals and progressives took to social media, with many calling for Schumer to step down. His favorability plummeted and never recovered. Online leftist weren’t the only ones furious at the Senate Democrats, even moderate members of the House Democratic caucus urged AOC to primary Schumer in 2028—a scenario some polls suggest she would win in a landslide. But the opposition to Schumer isn’t limited to the left wing members of the Squad, even a mainstream liberal like Michigan Senate candidate Mallory McMorrow is calling on him to step aside.
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Polling backs up these anecdotal observations. Congressional Democrats are at a record low approval rating, but not just among Republicans and Independents, sitting at a -13% net approval among their own voters. Yet this does not mean there is a surge of corresponding support for Republicans. In fact the president is also at record low approvals, and Democrats are polling well ahead in the race for the mid-terms next year. The problem for Democratic voters is that Democrats simply aren’t seen to be doing enough. Many see the party as weak and ineffective at resisting Trump’s administration.
We may be witnessing the birth of a new political movement. Liberals and progressives are enraged over the direction the country has taken, and as a group that pays far closer attention to the news, they are watching every one of Trump’s moves with fear and bitterness. Millions of people took to the streets across the country on No Kings Day to demonstrate their opposition to the new administration, in what may have been the single largest protest in US history. Democratic voters seem to believe that if ordinary people can stand up to Trump, so too should Democratic leadership, with an anonymous congressional Democrat reporting that their constituent demanded that they should be willing to “get shot” standing up to fascism.
A grassroots push to transform the Democratic Party into a more oppositional and hardline anti-Trump force would represent a significant change in American politics that could rival the Tea Party in influence and impact. It would come to define our politics in the second half of the 2020s and the 2030s. Such a movement also threatens to upend the progressive vs moderate dynamic that has dominated the party since 2016, creating new faultlines based on how anti-Trump and anti-authoritarian elected officials are. If this movement succeeds we could see a Democratic Party that is much more likely to take measures to preserve democracy, like expanding the supreme court, and confront oligarchs attempting to undermine democracy by raising taxes on the rich and prosecuting white collar crime. While we should be clear eyed about the possible limitations such a movement may have and about the possibility that it never gets off the ground, liberals and leftists alike ignore the anger in the Democratic grassroots at their own peril.
The GOP Tea Party was a decentralized movement fed by right wing donors, so it’s hard to pinpoint its exact start, but the generally accepted beginning is a bizarre televised rant that CNBC analyst Rick Santelli made on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange in February of 2009. As Obama’s first term progressed, right-wing Tea Party style protests grew. Promoted by Fox News and funded by right wing oligarchs, the Tea Party movement decried “big government”. Of course, the movement’s actual motivation was racial animus against the US first black president.
On its face, the Tea Party was ridiculous. Attendees of Tea Party rallies would dress up like the founding fathers. The general vibe was “weird right wing carnival.” But the Tea Party had real success in reorienting the Republican Party towards a more rapid, confrontational posture. This transformation had already begun with the Gingrich led Republican Revolution in 1994, but it reached a fever pitch as Tea Party groups attacked Republicans they deemed RINOS (Republicans in Name Only). Several prominent Republicans went down to Tea Party backed primary challenges. The end result was a Republican party that was completely confrontational to Obama and a normalization of carnival-style politics that set the stage for Trump’s ascendancy in 2016.
The Tea Party movement had four things going for it that made it a success: financial support, a rightwing propaganda machine, ideology, and a genuine grassroots anger. These were the four pillars that made the Tea Party what it was. Any Democratic Tea Party will have to replicate them in some form. In order to understand how a Democratic Tea Party would come about, it’s worth examining each pillar in detail.
A Movement Needs Money: Prior to the Tea Party, a robust right wing donor network already existed, but in 2010, during the apex of the Tea Party, the Supreme Court struck down campaign spending limits in its infamous Citizens United decision allowing a flood of money to pour into Republican primary campaigns. The Koch Brothers in particular funded Tea Party movements across the country.
A Propaganda Machine: Since its inception, Fox News has functioned as the propaganda arm of the Republican Party, but during the Tea Party it took its support to a whole new level. Fox News hosts headlined and promoted Tea Party events on air and Glenn Beck became the conspiracy theorist face of the movement.
Something to Believe in: In 2008, Congressmember Ron Paul ran for President as a libertarian. Though he didn’t come close to the nomination, he did attain cult status among a large portion of Republicans. With Neoconservatism, the dominant ideology of George W. Bush’s administration was extremely unpopular in the aftermath of the Iraq War, libertarianism became an attractive right wing ideology, maintaining most of the conservative agenda while disavowing imperial adventurism. A vague libertarianism became the defining ideology of the Tea Party movement, which allowed it to position itself as something new and not just a rehash of prior conservatism.
Grassroots Energy: Though the Tea Party is often called an “astroturf” movement because of its rightwing donor support, there really was a huge backlash to the election of Barack Obama. Tens of thousands of people attended events across the country.
Right now, a potential Democratic Tea Party has some of what the original Tea Party had going for it. There is intense grassroots energy against the Democratic Party that could be harnessed into a movement and there is also the potential for fundraising via small donors who since 2016 have donated huge amounts to Democratic candidates. Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner for example, running on a quintessential change platform, managed to raise $1 million over the course of about a week.
What a Democratic Tea Party is missing is a media apparatus and an ideology. The mainstream media is increasingly turning towards the right, but it is notable that MSNBC hosts Chris Hayes and Rachel Maddow have been staunchly opposed to this turn. Still, MSNBC will not play the same role that Fox News did for the Tea Party. There is potential in the wellspring of independent media that has grown increasingly popular as mainstream media has shifted to the right, but these independent media sources are often run by just a handful of people. They will have to be organized into a greater force to have the same propagandistic effect as Fox News.
As for an ideology, frustration with the Democratic Party transcends the usual progressive/moderate divide. There are moderates who are furious with the Democrats and progressives who are rolling over and playing dead. Prevailing wisdom is that the current divide in the Democrats is not based in ideology, but willingness to oppose the ascendant far right. Still, a willingness to fight is not enough to build a movement. This is an opportunity for thought leaders and progressive organizations to define what resistance to the Democratic Party establishment could look like.
Another key question is how the movement will cohere. During the first Trump administration, grassroots energy drove membership spikes in organizations such as Indivisible and the Democratic Socialists of America. Yet with Biden’s election, activity in these grassroots organizations fell off. While there are some signs of revitalization since inauguration day, it is unclear to what extent a clear organizational form is necessary for a Democratic Tea Party to succeed. The Republican Tea Party was never a single organization, and was more so a network of individuals, donors and groups, and so a single uniting group may not be needed to transform the party, but a movement will need some means of channeling grassroots anger.
There needs to be some shift at the elite level as well to actually implement a Democratic Tea Party’s program. While a successful movement would certainly create new leaders and figureheads as primaries are won, it will also need buy-in from currently prominent Democratic elected officials. While some of this is already emerging, with figures such as AOC, JB Pritzker and Jasmine Crockett, among others, acting as early adopters of the strongly anti-Trump line, a Democratic Tea Party will need to win over (or force to win over via primaries) more electeds in order to be successful. It cannot merely be a burst of energy among Democratic voters, but must actually alter the character of how Democratic electeds and officials act.
While it remains to be seen how successful a movement to transform the Democratic Party will be, we should be clear eyed about two things. First, it is quite different from the “realignment” theory discussed on the left of changing the Democratic Party into a social democratic or socialist party. The motivation of the movement is not to “pull the party left” or to make it more progressive. While this could be a downstream effect, as moving the party away from a dead bipartisan consensus could result in it being more willing to enact progressive policy, it would not be correct to think of this as purely coming from the left. For this reason, the ultimate victory of this movement is far easier to imagine than “realignment.”
Second, if a Democratic Tea Party is successful and in a few years time we have a more confrontational Democratic Party that even manages to come back into power in 2028, what the party does with this power will be a critical question. With Trump and Musk gutting the administrative state, devastating programs such as Social Security, and annihilating long held US alliances with nations such as Canada, a return to normalcy will be impossible. A future Democratic administration will not be able to operate with business as usual and must finally vanquish Trumpism once and for all.