“Tea Party was a ‘leave me alone’ movement, they didn’t leave us alone, and now it’s FAFO”
The suppression of the Tea Party movement led to MAGA. It’s one of those “don’t wish too hard for something, you might get it” historical sequences.
As many of you know, in the early years of Legal Insurrection we were part of the Tea Party movement.
I emphasize “movement” because we never affiliated with any groups — which turned out to be a wise choice because some of them turned out to be the types of grifters that have plagued the “right.”
I attended and reported on some Tea Party rallies in upstate NY.
Our archives dating back to 2010 document the vicious smear campaigns not only from leftist groups like the now-defunct Think Progress, but also establishment Republicans. In a hint of what was to come against Trump, the IRS was weaponized against the Tea Party.
The Tea Party was at heart a movement of people who just wanted to be left alone in the face of accelerating governmental mandates and instrusion – epitomized by the Obamacare mandate which forced you to buy private health insurance policies. It didn’t matter how much you tried to insulate yourself, you had to buy the policy.
The Obamacare mandate eventually was saved by John Roberts in the 2012 Supreme Court decision holding the mandate fell within Congress’s taxing power.
The Tea Party eventually fell by the wayside unable to withstand the pressure and from internal divisions.
Which brings me to a tweet by Prof. Randy Barnett about how suppression of the Tea Party gave way to MAGA.
This @politico analysis of Charlie Kirk’s role in the conservative-MAGA movement is informative. But it doesn’t get what happened to “Tea Party libertarianism.” The Dems demonized and suppressed the Tea Party constitutionalists with everything they had. MAGA was the response.
This @politico analysis of Charlie Kirk’s role in the conservative-MAGA movement is informative. But it doesn’t get what happened to “Tea Party libertarianism.” The Dems demonized and suppressed the Tea Party constitutionalists with everything they had. MAGA was the response.
— Randy Barnett (@RandyEBarnett) September 12, 2025
To which I responded.
True, I was part of Tea Party movement as was @LegInsurrection and witnessed how we were called Nazis for opposing Obamacare. Tea Party was a “leave me alone” movement, they didn’t leave us alone, and now it’s FAFO.
True, I was part of Tea Party movement as was @LegInsurrection and witnessed how we were called Nazis for opposing Obamacare. Tea Party was a "leave me alone" movement, they didn't leave us alone, and now it's FAFO. https://t.co/LyCFA2o84q
— William A. Jacobson (@wajacobson) September 12, 2025
It’s one of those “don’t wish too hard for something, you might get it” historical sequences.
[Featured Image: Legal Insurrection readers at Tea Party rally 2013]
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Comments
Those who suppress peaceful revolution, eh, Jack?
Maybe you should’ve Prepared Three Envelopes for your successors.
Leftist media unfortunately is still far too powerful.
Speaking of GOPe losers.
The smearing of the Tea Party by the likes of Bitch McConnell made me realize that the GOP had and still has a serious problem. I think it’s changing and the vicious assassination of Charlie Kirk will awaken even more people. However, the GOPe losers will not go quietly into the night.
The GOP still has a ‘fainting wing’ that has to be dealt with.
The GOPe are actually Leftists By Another Name.
Yeah, they’re just the “slow down, we’re not ready for full-blown socialism” type Leftists.
Agree 100%
There’s a sort of socialism that’s important, namely infrastructure projects, that are best done by government. These are network type things where private financing would run into free rider problems that can’t be solved. But they enable people to do transactions more cheaply and so result in a net gain in freedom. The criterion has to be something like nobody left worse off by the project.
What you’re referring to are programs that benefit “the common good,” rather than socialism-socialism (if I can call it that) that is about collecting taxes from the productive and providing welfare for the personal benefit of those who do not give at least a similar value back to the society. It is the latter that is objectionable when benefits are provided to people who should be able to support, or at least contribute to the support of, themselves.
The up vote was my thumbs down mis-hit.
Nothing is good about socialism’s taking of other’s accomplishments or the results thereof. Don’t confuse that taking with a ‘voluntary’ willingness to permit the collection of taxes for infrastructure or other supposed mutually beneficial projects, a willingness to pay that, in theory, can be withdrawn by removing the duly elected collecting agent and agency.
Likewise, don’t forget the semantics involved; one man’s tax is another man’s fee. Think Obamacare. We’re knee-deep in socialism. The installation of Mamdani as mayor in. NYC will be – is going to be – a monumental mistake.
You have to persuade women. That’s the soap opera audience, demographically, and they’re no longer isolated and so insulated from the most effective crap.
The soap opera audience also pays the bills of the left, advertiser eyeballs.
Yep, just like from the other posts, the soap opera diarrhea continues, with futile suggestions that have no space in reality, but the toilet. Carry on with the nonsense.
Network news lost its status as a prestige loss leader for the network and became profit centers. They found their audience with Jessica in the Well, 24/7 women watching. Not all women – only 40% – but enough to pay the bills, and nothing’s changed since then. News played as soap opera was the draw.
Rival sites on the right came up that thrived on making fun of the latest thing that the left had said, e.g. Limbaugh. And that’s where it stood.
Now the right is trying to go soap opera as well, which picks up some women but loses the amused right wingers. Their side is no longer true.
Why don’t you write a soap opera for all these women to watch and be swayed by your expert analysis. Since you know them so well. Please don’t take this literally.
It would just be soap opera. That’s sort of what the right is doing – poor widow, poor beautiful children, etc. There’s no analysis to it.
There’s no point saying that lots of people die each day leaving poor widows and poor beautiful children and these, being politicians, are probably worth even less than those, abstractly.
What news does is bring the most interesting event in the world into your backyard where it seems to matter like something actually in your backyard.
A tragedy in your backyard does call on you to do something. It’s a neighbor, you offer help, you offer sympathy, whatever you think will ease their burden. The distant tragedy brought to you has no such benefit. It’s called soap opera because women like to emote over it. They get a dopamine hit from it.
Soap opera news looks for the best distant tragedies for you to emote over.
Scott Adams, by the way, often says now that public outdoor meetings will soon be impossible for security reasons, but he’s thinking of drones as the attack vector.
Think of it as women are better at running neighborhood-sized things, where emoting actually does some good, and women are horrible at running nation-sized things, where emoting runs only into perverse consequences.
Lautreamont had a few nice lines:
Youth intends sentimental lucubrations. Maturity begins to reason without confusion. He was only feeling, he thinks. He used to let his sensations wander: now he gives them a pilot. If I liken humanity to a woman, I shall not expatiate upon her youth’s being on the wane and the approach of her middle-age. Her mind changes for the better. Her ideal of poetry will change. Tragedies, poems, elegies will no longer take precedence. The coolness of the maxim shall prevail!
Pepto Bismol: When You Overdo It, Undo It.
https://pepto-bismol.com/en-us
How do you manage to find the worst take on everything? That takes real effort.
Judging from hardin’s other costs he seems to be a national socialist.
posts
The Tea Party also left places cleaner than when they came, taking cleanup jobs from immigrants.
It was more than just the Tea Party that Obama and his henchman did not leave alone in their actions designed to tear America apart at the seams. Hiding behind his half race and pushing all the wrong implications.
We got called Teabaggers and the deplorables. No one started shooting.
Yes, the FAFO is becoming reality.
I have always believed that Clinton’s “basket of deplorables” remark cost her the election.
Certainly didn’t help.
I went to a well-organized Tea Party rally in Little Rock. There were a number of speakers, and it was all about small government, obeying/honoring the Constitution, and taxation and budgetary concerns. I don’t remember seeing rhhardin there, and there wasn’t a scrap of litter or a blade of grass out of place when we disbanded.
From my point of view, the spearhead of the anti-Tea Party movement was NBC News and Matt Lauer, with his “tea bag” nonsense, along with the other mainstream media outlets. Someone should have pushed back and asked them about tea-bagging, especially the slimeball Lauer. I wouldn’t be surprised if a large number of the highly paid talking heads in media participated in more debauchery than anyone wants to admit and know full well what tea-bagging is. Despicable.
https://www.charliesmurderers.com/
Now exposing 30,000 (and growing) persons who celebrated the murder of Charlie Kirk. Soon to have a searchable database to find happy killers near you.
Expect much wailing and gnashing of teeth from these people for being exposed to threats, doxxing, harassment, and loss of work. Remember, their rules.
Boo fucking hoo.
Twisted Sister quote on the London story. It’s as well suited here.
As someone else quoted, there is “no peacefully dialoguing” with these people as they shot the most reasonably peaceful and intellectual guy who was trying to peacefully dialogue with them.
They brought a sniper to the debate. It’s all they do.
Fuliginous Acronyms Frustrate Objectives
Seems like the Tea Party crashed. Maybe it’s time for the Coffee Party?
Too late for that.
Necktie Party, or I’m staying home and washing my hair.
Serving up Colombian….?
“That Michelin aroma calls to you like an old friend, rich and welcoming from the rainforests…”
There was a coffee party…that the left started to go against the Tea Party. Never heard of it?? Because they had no policies that people believe in.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee_Party_USA
“After collecting input from the first round of national gatherings, the Coffee Party outlined three initial steps to promote participatory democracy. “The first step is creating a public space for open and civil dialogue…”
Charlie Kirk: “IT’S A TRAP!”
I and a couple of other people, organized a tea party rally in my very left wing town. There was no one giving us support, we did it on our own before people started grifting off the movement. It was the only right wing or even moderate protest that had ever been held, and it was the last. When republicans started attacking the movement, I changed my party affiliation to independent and left the party permanently. I and many friends and family members were happy when Trump ran in 2016 because we were so fucking tired of the republican party and saw him as a disruptor, not only for the republican party, but for the nation.
Same with me. The Republicans were just as bad as the Democrats were in dissing us.
The establishment types of both political parties, the DC elite, the think tank folks, lobbyists, the legions of staffers and aides, the big donors, many Federal employees and Federal contractors, legacy media, the fossilized politicians… IOW the ‘Rich Men North of Richmond’…they don’t seem to understand or if they do they ignore the very clear trend line.
The Tea Party was an overly polite alliance of the center/right pushing back against the overreach of govt. It was ridiculed. A few years later Trump 1.0 appeared and took up many of the Tea Party themes and ideas. Again the center/right alliance, this time with more overtly populist ideals, was ridiculed right up until it won.
The establishment types spent four years attempting to ‘resist’ and undermine the political victory in Nov ’16. Ultimately they used Covid mania to alter how elections were conducted; mass mailed ballots with little to no security. They prevailed in ’20 then spent four years attempting to undermine Trump and MAGA to include assassination attempts when their kangaroo courts didn’t pan out.
The center/right won in ’24 by expanding again to encompass more populism with MAHA and vigorous outreach to non traditional GoP voters; youth vote, Latinos, Asians and Black voters. The ‘Rich Men North of Richmond’ don’t get it, that many of us on the center/right don’t think Trump 2.0 is being aggressive enough. What follows Trump 2.0, who to be fair, is doing a lot of heavy lifting that lays the groundwork for future efforts, is an even more determined, focused and outcome oriented v process oriented alliance. To give examples we won’t be satisfied with reducing rate in growth of spending but will demand cuts in current spending year over year and ruthless investigation and prosecution of employers who illegally hired illegal aliens alongside the prosecution of those who enabled them to remain in the Nation in violation of Federal immigration law such as the gov’t employees/contractors who signed off on benefits for the ineligible. IOW the move old gonna follow the trend line of increasingly aggressive demands for action and delivery of long overdue consequences.
I met (and engaged with)—TWICE—DJT at SC Tea Party Conventions. He was what you see is what you get.
Unforgettable – – and it told me that my world view was right.
It wasn’t too long after that that I discovered LI. That also told me—and keeps telling me—that my world view is right.
all movements have internal strife
it was another victory by the left that really put the ultimate pressure on as they continue their war against maga
maga dissolved faster than a snowflake into a pond of water after the pelosi/faucci /msm led offensive of Kungflu vs maga
this country shut the f down
think about
this country shut down
we ran around with masks on like our soon-to-be chinese masters had instructed
we begged for sporting events to continue as we took the knee for the nba and the nfl so that the black savior complex could continue for the distraught aimless wht crowd stumbled through the darkened streets trying to avoid the protected class of people who somehow magically were immune from the same kungflu,,,the bloplo warriors ,,as chickenst as they were ,,,they remained the formidable beasts as they had/have everything to gain with their violent tantrums
no, I will not delude myself with wishful thinking of fafo…though I welcome its arrival
the left will close the casket on that too
Not so. The Tea Party brought the biggest swing in Congressional power in 100 years to the GOP, only to have the GOP set out to destroy the Tea Party and renege on every promise they had made. Right after the massive win John Boehner and Mitch McConnell both announced how they were going to crush the Tea Party and by their colluding with the America-hating dems and Barky on so many asinine deals they did.
But, as you note, the Tea Party didn’t disappear, it just went into hibernation until Trump woke it up and brought it back into the open.
yeah
this I like
b/c it is the gop f ups that continue to destroy america by not changing the laws every chance they had/get to a no tax funding schools etc etc agenda
thereby forcing lefty to have to be the ones to tell people when they get back in power
hey the gop ,,sure they gave you 0% taxation on schools etc
but we’re here to claw it back….
lets see how that goes with middle class america who all of a sudden have xx amount of money in their own pockets courtesy of a true gop fiscal policy that is maga and the left wants it back
I was too a democrat, liked what I heard form the likes of Ross Perot, but was still on the wagon with the Dems and voted for Clinton…
By 2008 I was completely disillusioned by the Democrats and politicians in general, so I went to a Tea Party rally in Georgetown Tx.
I found the people a bit weird to me, not cool like younger Democrats I was use to, felt uncomfortable.
But I kept giving them a try, marched in rally’s in Austin Tx, and then watched politicans who said they were Tea Party faithful get elected and turn their backs on us.
Seemed everyone had a price.
I kept saying, “ we need someone so rich that money can’t buy them”
And then Donald came down the escalator, with Melania, with her off the shoulder dress, how cool was that democrats, and the rest of the family in tow
And that was how I became a Trump Republican
yeah
I appreciate your honesty
the yearning to “be cool” by the older crowd is over and over a glaring window into the souls of desperation ..of the desperate who have a level of self hate and unawareness that allows enables them to continue their self destruction but unfortunately allowing them to drag down good society that wont fight back,,with them