Maybe I don’t understand, but I feel like the tea party wasted years being outside the Republicans. Once they got inside they were able to change things. So why follow in their failures? Why not jump right to their success?
The tea party had two advantages that the progressive movement doesn’t. First is a party leadership that knew it was floundering and was willing to let the public have the final verdict on the candidates they wanted (for more notice the difference between how the GOP treated Trump vs how the DNC treated and still treats Bernie). Second is billionaire money, lots of billionaire money. The progressive movement has a much harder task ahead of it than the tea party did, so expecting the same methods to work doesn’t make sense. I’ll copy part of my reply to someone else in this thread:
If that was the only problem then maybe, but the issue is the triple whammy of Dem leadership: Their economic policy is horrible, they lack the spine to do much of anything and they’ll fight you to the death if you try to change that. Any one—or even two—of these alone would’ve been solvable, but with all three it’s easier to just start from scratch. The the pre-existent party apparatus and brand recognition are very attractive, but the price you’ll pay is a bunch of gerontocrats who will keep demanding concessions so they keep you in the party and giving absolutely nothing in return, which among other things will lose you legitimacy with your base (see: Bernie and AOC) while dampening the speed of expansion of both your political base and footprint within the party. Hell, if they’re successful they just might be able to take enough of you to their side to permanently cripple your movement.
I’ve actually seen someone here argue that the left’s tea party happened in 2016 with Bernie’s candidacy in the primary and appearance of The Squad, and that it simply didn’t take hold for a number of reasons.
10% is very low, is my point.
In two years? No it’s not. For example if we assume that’s a constant rate that’d be more than a quarter of the whole party leaving in six years. And that’s with only the political establishment; actually make people’s lives better and you should be looking at a lot more than 10% every two years.
The tea party had two advantages that the progressive movement doesn’t. First is a party leadership that knew it was floundering and was willing to let the public have the final verdict on the candidates they wanted (for more notice the difference between how the GOP treated Trump vs how the DNC treated and still treats Bernie). Second is billionaire money, lots of billionaire money. The progressive movement has a much harder task ahead of it than the tea party did, so expecting the same methods to work doesn’t make sense. I’ll copy part of my reply to someone else in this thread:
I’ve actually seen someone here argue that the left’s tea party happened in 2016 with Bernie’s candidacy in the primary and appearance of The Squad, and that it simply didn’t take hold for a number of reasons.
In two years? No it’s not. For example if we assume that’s a constant rate that’d be more than a quarter of the whole party leaving in six years. And that’s with only the political establishment; actually make people’s lives better and you should be looking at a lot more than 10% every two years.