Is the Tea Party Phenomenon Over?

Is the Tea Party Phenomenon Over?

This year, the Tea Party didn’t get a big turnout for their Tax Day protests. Has this group that has held so much power over Washington seen its peak?

Facebook
Twitter
Email
Flipboard
Pocket

This year, the Tea Party’s Tax Day protests failed to draw the crowds they had just last year. Just a few hundred showed up, in a few chosen places, while years past saw thousands. Is the Tea Party phenomenon over?

With the Tea Party on the way out, The Nation’s Chris Hayes says on The Rachel Maddow Show that Congress no longer needs to push policies farther right in order to appease the most extreme right-wingers. The Democrats have the numbers, both in the Senate and rallying on the streets in places like Madison. It’s time they take advantage of that, Hayes says.

—Sara Jerving

We cannot back down

We now confront a second Trump presidency.

There’s not a moment to lose. We must harness our fears, our grief, and yes, our anger, to resist the dangerous policies Donald Trump will unleash on our country. We rededicate ourselves to our role as journalists and writers of principle and conscience.

Today, we also steel ourselves for the fight ahead. It will demand a fearless spirit, an informed mind, wise analysis, and humane resistance. We face the enactment of Project 2025, a far-right supreme court, political authoritarianism, increasing inequality and record homelessness, a looming climate crisis, and conflicts abroad. The Nation will expose and propose, nurture investigative reporting, and stand together as a community to keep hope and possibility alive. The Nation’s work will continue—as it has in good and not-so-good times—to develop alternative ideas and visions, to deepen our mission of truth-telling and deep reporting, and to further solidarity in a nation divided.

Armed with a remarkable 160 years of bold, independent journalism, our mandate today remains the same as when abolitionists first founded The Nation—to uphold the principles of democracy and freedom, serve as a beacon through the darkest days of resistance, and to envision and struggle for a brighter future.

The day is dark, the forces arrayed are tenacious, but as the late Nation editorial board member Toni Morrison wrote “No! This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.”

I urge you to stand with The Nation and donate today.

Onwards,

Katrina vanden Heuvel
Editorial Director and Publisher, The Nation

Ad Policy
x