the TEA Party movement has had a hugely beneficial effect on the GOP.
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The GOP did not embrace the Tea Party. In fact it did everything it could to undermine and marginalize this legitimate grass roots movement. Just ask many of the representatives who came to Washington hoping to change the system but were subverted by John Boehner and his cohorts in the GOP establishment.
I believe many of the people who voted for and financially supported Donald Trump were “members” and benefactors of that former movement. Myself include. I like to this of this group as the new T Party (”T” for Trump). :)
Preibus? My late daughter knew him in college.....great guy, the real deal. Salt of the Earth.
I didn’t say the GOP did, and wouldn’t. But the fact is that the GOPEs have had to deal with the TEA Party influence in many ways, and it has been beneficial. And I agree that Trump is where he is partially because of the TEA Party movement.
The fact remains, going 3rd party remains foolish. I attended the early national TEA Party convention in Nashville, and one thing we were almost all in agreement on, among folks I spoke with, was the need to work within GOP structures. Most were old enough to remember Perot, and none wanted to wind up on the 3rd party road again. It just doesn’t work in the US system from a game theory perspective.
the tea party won that process of attempted assimilation by the GOP establishment. you don’t have to look any further than the influence of the freedom caucus, or the fact that the vast majority of the GOP backed trump after he won the nomination.
stop throwing rocks at dead sh*t. the old thing that people like to call the GOPe is truly dead sh*t.
Have you been even following politics for the past 8 years.? The Tea Party got in enough Republicans to at least slow down Obama. The Freedom
caucus were a thorn in the side to the main stream Republicans in Cingress. But what we did really well is take back local state houses and counties. We worked so hard. People, like myself, who never were involved in politics who became Precinct Committeemen, voted conservative locally and they voted conservatively at State and definitely affected Washington. We did that. Then we ran candidates for local office, like me and we won. Donald Trump did not happen in a vacuum. He was the product of 8 years of very hard work by a lot of people.