Donald Trump’s takeover of the Republican Party may very well be a sign that the Tea Party is dead. But if the movement is going to revive itself during the Trump era, it’s going to have to pass a very important test.
To start, it’s worth defining in what context I’m describing the amorphous Tea Party. In its best incarnation, the Tea Party was borne out of decades of frustration with the Republican Party due to its failure to deliver on promises to rein in the size and scope of government.
Ronald Reagan rose to power in 1980 on a limited government message, as did Republicans when they took over Congress in 1994 — yet government continued to grow. There were excuses, of course _ in the 1980s, the GOP never controlled the House of Representatives, and in the second half of the 1990s, they didn’t control the White House.
However, for a period during the Bush administration, the GOP had unified control of government. And what did they do with that power? They passed the largest expansion of entitlements since the Great Society in the form of the Medicare prescription drug bill; they passed pork-laden spending bills; and as Bush exited office, he bailed out Wall Street.
Thus, when Obama took over promising a sort of New Deal for the 21st century, the stage was already set for a massive backlash against federal overreach. Through actions such as the economic stimulus bill and Obamacare, he added fuel to an already kindled fire.
Over the years, the problem with containing the growth of government was that when politicians came to Washington, the path of least resistance was always to go with the flow, rubber stamp more spending, collect money from special interests, and win re-election. But the Tea Party, at its best, represented a counterforce — creating political consequences for politicians who didn’t follow through on vows to shrink government.
To its critics, the Tea Party served a much more cynical purpose — to them, the movement was less about a return to constitutional government and more about a mindless populist backlash; a partisan tantrum over being out of power; a disturbing example of white resentment on overdrive due to the election of the first black president.
Trump’s dominance in the GOP primaries — despite his periodic support for socialized medicine; emphatic defense of government property seizures on behalf of private companies; disregard for controlling deficits; disinterest in reforming entitlements; scoffing at the idea of limits on executive power — helped bolster the cynics.
Now that Trump is president, however, the Tea Party will have an opportunity to prove the cynics wrong and live up to its initial promise. All those activists, and the Republican members of Congress who railed against the growth of government during the Obama era will now have the chance to prove that the small government rhetoric was actually based on an enduring principle greater than any concept of party loyalty.
The question is, will they make sure Trump follows through on his promises to repeal and replace Obamacare? Will they resist his efforts to explode spending levels, and pursue a trillion dollar infrastructure bill with Sen. Chuck Schumer and Rep. Nancy Pelosi?
The smart money is to bet against people taking principled stands. Bush got a free pass for most of his presidency, and it wasn’t really until Social Security reform collapsed, Iraq became more chaotic, and his political standing tanked after Hurricane Katrina that there was any semblance of an organized opposition to Bush from the Right.
During his campaign, Trump effectively seized the populist tide. When opponents, or conservative commentators, would criticize Trump for his deviations from limited government orthodoxy, it was they who were attacked as not being true conservatives. As long as Trump keeps up his public attacks on the media and pushes the right buttons on identity politics, it’s quite likely that he’ll remain popular among the Republican base within the Congressional districts that sent Tea Party candidates to power. Unless and until his approval ratings tank in these areas, it’s likely Trump will have as long of a leash as Bush did.
At that point, the Tea Party will be truly dead.
