By Alex Thompson on Nov 1, 2016
When the tea party movement came to prominence in the summer of 2009, adherents proclaimed they were guided by conservative principles forgotten in the big-spending years of George W. Bush. Republicans who didn’t adhere to their strict ideological interpretation of the Constitution were labeled RINOs (Republicans in name only). The tea partiers’ stubborn demands and obstructionism so exasperated President Obama in 2011 that he snapped, “Can they say yes to anything?”
In 2016 after a divisive GOP primary, the tea party vote has unified behindnominee Donald Trump, even though he in many ways defies the ideological purity that once defined the movement. But Trump and his big-government populism isn’t just winning their votes; he’s also winning their donations, a sign that the money behind the movement will remain a force in American politics long after Election Day.
When the tea party movement came to prominence in the summer of 2009, adherents proclaimed they were guided by conservative principles forgotten in the big-spending years of George W. Bush. Republicans who didn’t adhere to their strict ideological interpretation of the Constitution were labeled RINOs (Republicans in name only). The tea partiers’ stubborn demands and obstructionism so exasperated President Obama in 2011 that he snapped, “Can they say yes to anything?”
In 2016 after a divisive GOP primary, the tea party vote has unified behindnominee Donald Trump, even though he in many ways defies the ideological purity that once defined the movement. But Trump and his big-government populism isn’t just winning their votes; he’s also winning their donations, a sign that the money behind the movement will remain a force in American politics long after Election Day.
