I agree with what you say about the Tea party. The deep state was terrified of the Tea party in the beginning because it was just people of all stripes coming out in mass against them.
This is what they always feared. We The People ignoring their many years of dividing us into groups and pitting us against each other so that we would fight and despise each other rather than seeing them, the puppetmasters, and what they were up to as many do now.
Yes, they wanted the Tea party gone and it scared them because it had no leaders at that time they could go after to demonize it to destruction.
It was ruined by people appointing themselves as leader, fielding candidates, silly stuff like Martha Washington costumes. Once there were “leaders”, the infighting began over who is big kahuna leader.
That was all the deep state needed to make it unserious and finish it off.
If we started a new one the current regime would throw us in the gulag after branding us as terrorists. That is what we are up against.
So, the recourse, the response, is to lie down in the center of the arena and continue to be eaten by the lions.