The old tea party may be over, but the new one is at peak power
By Geoffrey Kabaservice March 16 at 12:33 PM
Geoffrey Kabaservice is the author of "Rule and Ruin: The Downfall of Moderation and the Destruction of the Republican Party."
The tea party was over, we thought. Not quite a decade old, the right-wing populist movement that once seemed poised to be an enduring force in national politics had burned out, overtaken by a more virulent strand of populism led by President Trump.
But when Trump dismissed Rex Tillerson as secretary of state this past week, naming Mike Pompeo as his replacement, it was hard to deny that, in some ways, the tea party is at the apex of its power — even if, paradoxically, it is an establishment power. And it might be out for blood.
Pompeo’s ascent underscores just how many politicians who came to prominence with the tea party — including Vice President Pence, United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley and White House budget director Mick Mulvaney — now occupy powerful positions in Trump’s administration. Depending on how far Trump goes to try to remake the GOP in his image, tea party alumni may form the core of a new Republican establishment.
The grievances that animated the movement and fed Trump’s presidential candidacy live on. The tea party’s insurgent impulses have fused with his erratic populism to become one of the three contending forces in the Republican Party — the other two being establishment Republicanism and ideological conservatism. Tillerson’s fall is a prime example of how traditional Republicans are becoming yesterday’s men and women in the Trumpified GOP. Tomorrow, will it be the ideological conservatives like House Speaker Paul Ryan?
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/the-old-tea-party-may-be-over-but-the-new-one-is-at-peak-power/2018/03/16/9588cb7c-2873-11e8-bc72-077aa4dab9ef_story.html