A foreseeable fire: A steady diet of red meat turned the Tea Party into Trumpism

[marmar]

A foreseeable fire: A steady diet of red meat turned the Tea Party into Trumpism
I could have joined my colleagues and survived, even thrived, in the Tea Party era. But instead I lost an election rather than fan the flames.

Bob InglisOpinion contributor


A House Republican colleague returned to Washington circa 2009 to tell us how he was going to survive the Tea Party. He was just back from holding a series of Obamacare town halls in his deep red part of Georgia. He said that he had learned how to handle the rabble-rousing crowd from a meeting that had gotten off to a bad start. The people were mad at him and mad at the world. Halfway into the meeting he found a pivot. He told the crowd that he got it — that they just want him to go to Washington and 'raise some hell."

The crowd roared their approval. He became an active Tea Partier that day and, subsequently, a full-throated Trumper.

Perhaps I should have learned from my friend’s example. It might have saved my seat in the United States Congress. I had had one of those raucous meetings. A man had risen in great anger to tell me that, President Barack Obama is so unpatriotic, he doesn’t put his hand over his heart when the national anthem is played or the Pledge of Allegiance is recited. (Apparently, he’d been surfing on some isolated internet island.)

....(snip)....

Had I taken that advice, I suppose I might have joined my House colleague from Georgia in surviving, even thriving, in the Tea Party. As it was, I was uninvited to the party. The Tea Party didn’t want to hear civility, and they sure as hell didn’t want to hear my message about climate change in the 2010 cycle. (Thankfully, that latter part has changed. As the sea level rises and septic tanks stop working, even the most ardent disputer of science realizes that he or she has a problem!)

....(snip)....

Oh, that my party had taken a path illuminated by truth rather than one darkened by useless conspiracy theories. Oh, that my party had chosen more leaders of character willing to speak truth to our own people. Oh, that we might learn from our mistakes and bear the fruit of repentance. ............(more)

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2021/01/10/tea-party-protests-trump-bob-inglis-column/6594986002/

[Voltaire2]

1. This is ass backwards.

The tea-party was the proto-fascist faction within the Republican Party, Trump simply figured out how to become its Dear Leader. Politicians put their flags up, saw which way the wind was blowing, and joined the march to fascism without hesitation.