Did MAGA Kill the Tea Party?

Former Rep. Justin Amash and Fox News’ Kennedy join Nick Gillespie to examine how MAGA populism reshaped the Tea Party’s limited-government mission, why Congress no longer acts as a check on power, and what it will take to spark a new libertarian revival.

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Did MAGA Kill the Tea Party?

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In 2008, Rep. Ron Paul (R–Texas) ran for the Republican presidential nomination and did surprisingly well with a campaign focused on stopping the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, ending the Federal Reserve, and reducing the size and spending of the federal government. Two years later, the Tea Party movement burst onto the scene, bringing people like Paul's son Rand to the Senate and one of today's guests, Justin Amash, to the House of Representatives. In 2012, Ron Paul again ran for the GOP nod, finishing behind the eventual nominee Mitt Romney, and helping to usher in what The New York Times called "the libertarian moment."

What happened to the Ron Paul Revolution and Tea Party's promise to shrink government, especially once Donald Trump and the MAGA movement emerged in 2015? Did the broad-based alliance that rose to cut spending and limit power transmogrify into one that prizes wielding the state instead of restraining it?

Today's episode was recorded live on Saturday, August 9, at Ron Paul's 90th birthday BBQ in Lake Jackson, Texas. The guests are Amash and Fox News personality Kennedy. They talk with Nick Gillespie about how the MAGA movement grew out of the Ron Paul Revolution and the Tea Party and redirected the right's anti-establishment energy toward expanding government power rather than limiting it. They also discuss why Congress refuses to legislate, whether social media has expanded freedom or increased anxiety, and if Gen Z is libertarian or conformist.

 

0:00—Ron Paul's impact on the libertarian movement

6:33—The Tea Party wave

12:45—Did Trump end the libertarian moment?

18:41—Social media and bigger government

25:26—Optimism for young libertarians

33:42—Why has everything become political?

36:33—Will Amash run for office again?

44:38—Concerns for the next generation

 

Upcoming events:

The Soho Forum Debate: Melanie Thompson vs. Kaytlin Bailey, September 15

• Producer: Paul Alexander
• Audio Mixer: Ian Keyser

Comments

[Chumby]

If you want a libertarian revival, perhaps promote little “l” libertarianism in this periodical. And no more closet progressive LP potus candidates.

[Rick James]

Strategic AND reluctant!

[Rick James]

No, MAGA is the heir of the Tea Party! And the Tea Party is the heir of the 1994 Republican Revolution, which was the heir of the Ross Perot phenomenon, which was the likely heir of the Goldwater movement.

[Chumby]

Cue Hank to drop some Comstock gibberish.

[SCOTUS gave JeffSarc a big sad]

Haven’t seen him around in a while. Is he dead?

[Zeb]

I think he made an appearance yesterday.

[Idaho-Bob]

Is it authentic frontier Comstock gibberish?

[InsaneTrollLogic (Muting Sarc like he mutes us)]

Yes, very much so. It’s also the people taking over the party from the elites. For years, the elites, outside of a few, preferred their cocktail parties and breadcrumbs from the progressive establishment. The people finally rose up, took over the Republican Party, and started running their own candidates instead of those chosen for them by the elites (looking at you, Bob Dole, John McCain, and Mitt Romney). The tide turned when the people, not the elites, chose Trump, in spite of the best efforts of the elites. Those same elites tried to hamper the first Trump Administration. Then they tried to fight him by allying with the Democrats, those who should be their enemies.

[JesseAz (Prime Meanster of Sarcasia)]

GOPe and people like Kizinger coopted and killed the tea party.

Paul Ryan backing down due to the NYT killed the Tea Party.

Hilarious premise for this article.

[mad.casual]

"Hey! No fair! Donald Trump/MAGA stole our Libertarian Moment!" - Reason

They can't allow MAGA to be the heir because that means they were really crumb-snatching, oddball, Millennial-polling, uniparty-wannabes rather than any sort of serious, independent or divergent opposition all along.

[Don't look at me! ( Is the war over yet?)]

Can’t trust chicks who wear glasses like that.

[Juliana Frink]

Yeah. A little heavy on the "here I am."

[Juliana Frink]

...I mean, okay, if getting noticed helps get the message out then so be it. But it seems to me the more people get in the spotlight, the more their performance veers toward the left, I suppose because it is perceived as cool. Think there is a reason why people who seek celebrity trend that way?

I used to think Kennedy and The Jacket (ahem) were somewhat refreshing. Not so much lately. "Strained" is the word I think I'm looking for.

[Mother's Lament]

A ferociously anti-MAGA nutjob, who lied to the public about the Russia probe and the conclusions of the Mueller Report for a failed presidential attempt. He's going to be honest.

[Juliana Frink]

Exactly. Seeing through bullshit should be the first step toward a libertarian revival.

[sarcasmic]

Talk radio coopted the Tea Party and ruined it long before MAGA pissed on the grave.

[Chumby]

Did video kill the talk radio star?

[InsaneTrollLogic (Muting Sarc like he mutes us)]

Man, you’re a dumbass retard, Sarc. Talk radio, especially led by Limbaugh, led the fucking charge for the takeover of the Republican Party by the people from the elites. It fed the 1994 Republican revolution, the Tea Party, and MAGA.

[JesseAz (Prime Meanster of Sarcasia)]

He is still salty the neocons lost control and he ended up having to join democrats.

[Dillinger]

what did the tea party achieve long-term?

[Idaho-Bob]

Gave visibility to weaponized IRS and banking against conservatives by the Obama administration.

[Dillinger]

fair enough.

[Social Justice is neither]

Now stack that up against the reception Biden's 90k more IRS officers got and try keeping a straight face when you tell me that visibility meant anything at all.

[TJJ2000]

Pffft.... "They talk ... how the MAGA movement grew out of the Ron Paul Revolution and the Tea Party and ?redirected? the right's anti-establishment energy toward ?expanding government power? rather than limiting it."

...because De-Regulating, DOGE, Abolishing Departments is sooo NOT Limited Government? /s

A real discussion would be how TDS clowns paint the most Libertarian President in the last century as some sort of Power-Mad psychopath.

You Reason clowns are a symptom of your own TDS disease.

[sarcasmic]

...because De-Regulating, DOGE, Abolishing Departments is sooo NOT Limited Government? /s

The problem has always been with the how, not the what. The libertarian complaint is not about deregulating, saving money or abolishing departments. The complaint is that the method by which Trump is attempting to do these things is by presidential decree. He has nothing but disdain for separation of powers. I doubt any libertarian would complain if the president was working with Congress to roll back regulatory agencies created by Congress, to cut spending from the budget that is written by Congress, and to abolish departments that were created by Congress. I certainly would have no complaints. Instead he behaves like a wannabe dictator, and anyone who points it out is accused of mental illness. There is nothing libertarian about him or his followers. No. He is an authoritarian, as are his defenders.

[InsaneTrollLogic (Muting Sarc like he mutes us)]

Cite?

[Don't look at me! ( Is the war over yet?)]

Muh norms!

[JesseAz (Prime Meanster of Sarcasia)]

Fuck off you leftist shit. Cosplaying as wanting those things while always raging against any implementation of those things makes your actual desires apparent.

I mean yet another appeals court said DOGE actions were legal just fucking yesterday.

[Sevo, 5-30-24, embarrassment]

"...Cosplaying as wanting those things while always raging against any implementation of those things makes your actual desires apparent..."

'Claimed vs. revealed preferences.' Lefty shits need to quit lying since they make obvious what they prefer.

[TJJ2000]

What part of, "and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." don't you get?

Oh that's right; You're a closet 'Democrat/ic' '[WE] Identify-as mob RULES!' champion instead of a USA patriot of a *Constitutional* Republic.

It doesn't matter if politicians pass ILLEGAL UN-Constitutional legislation. It is still ILLEGAL by "the peoples" law over their government (i.e. Congress). If you don't think it's ILLEGAL then file a complaint with SCOTUS so they can jumble up party-activist excuses on how it is Constitutional.

It's such a display of pathetic dishonesty to be crying "He is an authoritarian" for "De-Regulating, DOGE, Abolishing Departments". Shoes on your head.

[sarcasmic]

What part of, "and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." don't you get?

I get it just fine. It's you and Trump who do not.

Oh that's right; You're a closet 'Democrat/ic' '[WE] Identify-as mob RULES!' champion instead of a USA patriot of a *Constitutional* Republic.

Yeah sure. Fuck you.

It doesn't matter if politicians pass ILLEGAL UN-Constitutional legislation. It is still ILLEGAL by "the peoples" law over their government (i.e. Congress). If you don't think it's ILLEGAL then file a complaint with SCOTUS so they can jumble up party-activist excuses on how it is Constitutional.

Yet you attack me when I criticize Trump for abusing unconstitutional legislation and instead blame Democrats.

It's such a display of pathetic dishonesty to be crying "He is an authoritarian" for "De-Regulating, DOGE, Abolishing Departments". Shoes on your head.

He is an authoritarian because he is trying to do all these things through executive orders, otherwise known as presidential decrees. If he was doing those things by following the rules set forth in the constitution that you dishonestly claim to uphold, then I would have no problem with it. I would applaud it. My problem is with the how, not the what. That is a concept that your willfully ignorant mind cannot grasp.

[JesseAz (Prime Meanster of Sarcasia)]

How many of the EOs have you even bothered to read dumbfuck? Because they all say within constitutional and legal scope.

So your entire rage is from the lies of the left.

What you're actually doing is defending the out of control growth that occurred under the federal branch since FDR. Weird how yoi have zero concerns of executive power expansion yet rage when someone tries to undo that expansion.

[Idaho-Bob]

Portland Logic.

[DesigNate]

If it’s truly just about how he’s going about it, then that means MAGA does in fact have at least some of the same aims as the Tea Party, which had much of the same aims as the 1994 Congress. Which means it would be more an evolution and less them killing it.*

*(Personally I think the premise is silly because it was obvious within a year of the Tea Party rise that the establishment was trying to take it over. That action by the GOPe led directly to the rise of Trump, especially once they decided to run Jeb Fucking Bush in 2016.)

[Quicktown Brix]

..because De-Regulating, DOGE, Abolishing Departments is sooo NOT Limited Government? /s

Yeah, that's good small government libertarian stuff. The problem is the big spending, corporatist/socailist government-big business partnership, tariffs, authoritarian expansion of federal power and central control of the presidency, diminishing of individual rights like due process and freedom of speech and blatant personal favors to chosen entities that's the issue.

[Dillinger]

describing Ruling Class / Ruled ... (R)+(D) / Us

[Quicktown Brix]

Are you putting Trump in the ruling class or with us? Because I think that may be where we differ.

[Dillinger]

Paul Ryan and T will never be in the same boat.

[Quicktown Brix]

I can't argue with that.

[TJJ2000]

Big Spending? 1/3rd what [D]-trifecta did before and after.
What government business partnership?
Tariffs were directly offset with Tax-Cuts ... Don't believe in fair-taxes or what?
The 'strain' of taxes being tariff or domestic is a direct result of [D] spending.
WHAT expansion of federal power? Don't you think E.O. tariffs ever happened before?

There rest can also just be chalked up to TDS fan-fare.
You have no evidence foundation.
Just a bunch of lefty-popular parroted accusations that don't hold any water.

About all you've got is he signed the Cares Act of which was written, pushed and passed by Democrats in the House amounting to about 1/4 the honest blame in the matter.

[JesseAz (Prime Meanster of Sarcasia)]

You have to remember. For the mikesarcs of the world income taxes are libertarian. Way better than consumption taxes.

[Quicktown Brix]

Big Spending? Yes. No further information needed.

What government business partnership?
US/Nippon Steel, NVDIA and AMD

Tariffs were directly offset with Tax-Cuts
Bullshit! Those tax cuts (that were already in place) were completely independent of tariffs.

WHAT expansion of federal power?
Well tariffs for starters and that's big one. He is directly meddling in US businesses, deporting people to foreign prisons without hearings or legal representation. He has completely humbled Congress via his stranglehold on the GOP and is working on the judiciary. He has silenced opposition in universities and blocked privileges of dis-favored law firms. He has used the office to blatantly enrich himself and his family.

1/4 the blame...bless your heart.

[Sevo, 5-30-24, embarrassment]

OK, slimy pile of TDS-addled lying shit:
"Big Spending? Yes. No further information needed."
Yeah, spending to toss the flood of Biden-welcomed humanity out.

"What government business partnership?
US/Nippon Steel, NVDIA and AMD"
Solyndra, EVs, solar and wind 'power'; need I go on, pile of shit? I wish Trump didn't to that, but it is far better than your faves Joe and Obo did.

"Tariffs were directly offset with Tax-Cuts
Bullshit! Those tax cuts (that were already in place) were completely independent of tariffs."
Sort of forgot the ones in the budget I see, but shit really has no memory, so it's not surprising.

"WHAT expansion of federal power?
Well tariffs for starters and that's big one. He is directly meddling in US businesses, deporting people to foreign prisons without hearings or legal representation. He has completely humbled Congress via his stranglehold on the GOP and is working on the judiciary. He has silenced opposition in universities and blocked privileges of dis-favored law firms. He has used the office to blatantly enrich himself and his family."
Lies, lies, lies and lies Do TDS-addled slimy piles of lying shit EVER tell the truth?
Fuck you with a barb-wire wrapped baseball bat, asswipe

[TJJ2000]

1/3 the spending.
Actual allowed the sale of U.S. Steel to Japan (Biden blocked it).
Import Tax and Domestic Tax are both Taxes. Shifting tax burden =/= entirely different.

Like I said; you have no evidence foundation.
You're just Self-Projecting EVERYTHING Democrats do.

[Sevo, 5-30-24, embarrassment]

"...The problem is the big spending, corporatist/socailist government-big business partnership, tariffs, authoritarian expansion of federal power and central control of the presidency,.."
Joe's no longer in office, asshole.

"...diminishing of individual rights like due process and freedom of speech and blatant personal favors to chosen entities that's the issue..."
If you'd quit lying, perhaps you wouldn't be the TDS-addled slimy pile of lying shit you are.
Fuck off and die, asswipe.

[Rick James]

You know, I've always considered myself a bad political analyst, but when my analysis is better than this, you know how bad things have gotten around here.

[InsaneTrollLogic (Muting Sarc like he mutes us)]

Reason became an unserious magazine quite some time ago.

[SCOTUS gave JeffSarc a big sad]

About the time Trump came down the escalator.

[Social Justice is neither]

Not when Obama first wowed them as a senator?

[Quicktown Brix]

You know, I've always considered myself a bad political analyst

I'll 2nd that!

[sarcasmic]

That's a very Jesse thing to say.

[Quicktown Brix]

It's just tongue in cheek revenge for his comment about me yesterday.

[JesseAz (Prime Meanster of Sarcasia)]

Bitter over being called out Mike?

How about offering more than DNC narratives?

[Quicktown Brix]

I'm not bitter with Paul. I can take a joke and I think he can too.

How about offering more than DNC narratives?

You call Ron Paul's positions DNC narratives when I say them here. You unquestioningly pivoted with MAGA as it lunges ever leftward and more authoritarian not realizing libertarians didn't leave you. You left libertarianism...well you left giving lip service to libertarianism.

[SCOTUS gave JeffSarc a big sad]

No, YOU lunge further leftward Quixy.

[TJJ2000]

Ron Paul and MAGA aren't at odds at all in the big picture.
MAGA is more Libertarian than all the RINO'S of the past.

It's like the new commie-indoctrination is to pit the Libertarians against Republicans in an effort to destroy both LIMITED Government parties.

[Juliana Frink]

"...Pit the Libertarians against Republicans in an effort to destroy both LIMITED Government parties."

This is on full display everyday here in ReasonWorld.

[Zeb]

Ron Paul and MAGA aren't at odds at all in the big picture.

That's probably overstating it a bit. Particularly on economics.

And libertarians have always had no problem vehemently disagreeing with each other. What would be weird would be if they weren't the same when it comes to Republicans

[JesseAz (Prime Meanster of Sarcasia)]

Ron Paul was talking about joining the Trump administration.

https://tribune.com.pk/story/2506968/ron-paul-responds-to-elon-musks-invitation-to-join-trump-administration

They have disagreed but they agree on a lot of the actions. Disagreements tend to be military related, although he agreed with Trump in 2020 about reducing foreign troops.

[Quicktown Brix]

You should listen to his liberty report.

Ron does not like what Trump's doing in Israel (or for Israel) especially bombing Iran and Yemen. He does not like tariffs. He eviscerated the BBB and calls it the "Big Beautiful Bankruptcy". He criticized the heavy hand used to silence dissent at universities. He liked DOGE, but concluded it was a failure. He criticized Trump's firing of the BLS lady.

[Zeb]

That's because he's not an asshole and is willing to work with people he doesn't entirely agree with. Joining the Trump administration is not an endorsement of every policy Trump supports. It's the "at all" that I was quibbling with. They may agree on many things, but there are still significant disagreements.

[Sevo, 5-30-24, embarrassment]

"Ron does not like what Trump's doing in Israel (or for Israel) especially bombing Iran and Yemen. He does not like tariffs. He eviscerated the BBB and calls it the "Big Beautiful Bankruptcy". He criticized the heavy hand used to silence dissent at universities. He liked DOGE, but concluded it was a failure. He criticized Trump's firing of the BLS lady."
So he's also a lying pile of TDS-addled shit like you?

[JesseAz (Prime Meanster of Sarcasia)]

Trump administration is not an endorsement of every policy Trump supports.

Literally stated in my comment.

Mike apparently was confused as well.

[Zeb]

Sorry if I misunderstood your comment as an attempt at refuting mine. If you were just passing on information you thought I might find interesting, thank you. I think it would be great if Ron joined the Trump admin.

[Quicktown Brix]

It's like the new commie-indoctrination is to pit the Libertarians against Republicans in an effort to destroy both LIMITED Government parties.

Libertarians and...what's the other limited government party?

[Sevo, 5-30-24, embarrassment]

Currently, the Rs, asswipe.

[Rick James]

The Democrats... you know, that party who Nick Gillespie agreed is where Libertarians need to align themselves!

[Quicktown Brix]

That's a stretch.

[sarcasmic]

Difference is that Trump defenders honestly believe that anyone who doesn't go to their church and pray to Saint Babbitt is a hardcore leftist. That's all you are to them. Your comment might have been tongue in cheek, but they mean it with every bone in their body.

[Quicktown Brix]

Oh yeah. I feel that every day here. Not from Paul though.

[sarcasmic]

Not from Paul though.

If you say so.

[TJJ2000]

Or maybe you're just Self-Projecting your own TDS religion.

So instead of making a valid point at all; you just run around trying to bully anyone who won't hate Trump and join your religion.

[sarcasmic]

What color are the rosary beads you hold when you pray to Saint Babbitt?

[InsaneTrollLogic (Muting Sarc like he mutes us)]

What color are your rosary beads when you pray to St Barry?

[JesseAz (Prime Meanster of Sarcasia)]

Hey zeb, hope you are noting here that Qb isnt calling out this type of bullshit as Marshall mentioned in the roundup today.

Yet right above he argues against something never stated by me. Why i call him the democrat he is. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

He has one single motivation here. Attacking conservatives and defending democrats. And he cant be honest about it.

[JesseAz (Prime Meanster of Sarcasia)]

Even when pretending he isnt a democrat he continues to mock and defend the murder of an unarmed woman.

[JesseAz (Prime Meanster of Sarcasia)]

No, you and Mike have the lockdown on ignorant analysis.

[Mickey Rat]

I would suggest that the GOP establishment, like John McCain strangled the Tea Party by marginalizing it as "crazy", which led to the embrace of Trump for the need of no holds barred politics against a party resistant to actual reform instead of lip service at best.

[Juliana Frink]

Bingo!!!

[mad.casual]

Not just the eGOP, the DNC and the eGOP, the uniparty. But Reason (and Amash) cannot allow that explanation because then that makes Trump/MAGA the true and successful independent party and relegates Reason-brand libertarianism as the motley crew of marginal malcontents captured between the other two halves of the uniparty.

[SCOTUS gave JeffSarc a big sad]

Trump is actually willing to DO something to stop the democrats and fix things. McCain sure as fuck never did. Ultimately, John K
McCain was a traitor.

[mad.casual]

After Nick Gillespie, Kennedy, and Justin Amash figure out who killed the Tea Party, can we get Dan Rather and Barbara Walters to dig up OJ Simpson's corpse to figure out who killed Nicole Brown?

[Its_Not_Inevitable]

If the corpse and his hand has shriveled up enough the glove just might fit now.

[Mickey Rat]

"Why is everything political?"

An this is answered by the trite response that "it benefits the two party system".

Sorry, the "personal is political" was something explicitly pushed by the Left, and it is the Left who says disowning your family members for having the wrong political/social opinions is a good thing.

There is something odd about Gillespie kind of celebrating his ignorance that American Eagle still existed as a brand. Being disinterested is one thing. Being so disengaged from someone who earns his living commenting on political and cultural issues is disconcerting.

[sarcasmic]

Hey man, thanks. You gave me another thing to add to my long list of things that Trump defenders have in common with the people they hate:

Disowning family members for having the wrong political/social opinions.

[JesseAz (Prime Meanster of Sarcasia)]

Do they praise cops who shoot their enemies on the face like you?

[Chumby]

Perhaps some MAGA people disown broken, drunk, retarded, Rachel Maddow narrative spewing collectivist family members but they don’t call CPS on them unless they act like a broken, drunk, retarded, Rachel Maddow narrative spewing collectivist.

[Idaho-Bob]

Portland Logic.

You really can't help yourself.

[sarcasmic]

You and those you call leftists redefine words in order to change the clear meaning of the law and the Constitution.

You both favor tax increases, so long as you feel that it won't effect you.

You both consider criticism of your Dear Leader to be a mental illness.

You both can't decide right or wrong without knowing personal attributes of the people involved.

You both like price controls.

You both have a scapegoat for all of the world's problems.

You both believe that anyone who disagrees with the manner in which you want to accomplish something opposes the end goal.

You bug call any court ruling you don't like "activist".

You both only support the Constitution when convenient.

You both are willfully ignorant of economics.

You both raise taxes on businesses and tell them to eat it.

You both agree that the long held American tradition of skepticism of authority is a bad thing, when your team is in charge.

Face it. You are what you hate.

[Neutral not Neutered]

I get it. You are an Anarcho-socialist.

[Chumby]

He’s an angry, drunk, stunted has-been that never was.

[sarcasmic]

Well there's an oxymoron. No. I'm a classical liberal who believes that people should be able to do whatever they want, buy and sell with whomever they want, and otherwise live their lives without government interference, unless they harm the life, liberty or property of others through force or fraud. Basically that makes me polar opposite of MAGAs and leftists, who are both authoritarians who believe that freedom means asking permission and obeying orders.

[InsaneTrollLogic (Muting Sarc like he mutes us)]

No. I'm a classical liberal who believes that people should be able to do whatever they want, buy and sell with whomever they want, and otherwise live their lives without government interference, unless they harm the life, liberty or property of others through force or fraud.

Your comment history says otherwise.

[Sevo, 5-30-24, embarrassment]

Stated vs revealed preference from a slimy pile of lefty shit.

[JesseAz (Prime Meanster of Sarcasia)]

Seems like this classical liberal term without knowing what it means is the new mask of the cosplaying leftists here.

Sarc, jeff, qb, shrike all claim it while running cover for the left.

They are standard liberals, not classic.

[Chumby]

The sarctionary had a new entry.

[DesigNate]

I’ve only rarely seen Trump supporters call for that. Definitely not en masse like you can see in comment sections on Instagram or YouTube.

[sarcasmic]

I've seen it happen IRL. You're with him or you're a leftist. I don't follow comments in Instagram or YouTube. However I do have friends and family. And the hostility from Trump defenders is just as emotional and stupid as the hostility towards them.

[JesseAz (Prime Meanster of Sarcasia)]

Was it on a bumper sticker?

[DesigNate]

“You're with him or you're a leftist”

Oh that I’ve seen.

I thought you were saying that Trump supporters advocate for cutting ties with family and friends, which I haven’t really seen. Even from my hardcore friends and family.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

You gave me another thing to add to my long list of things that Trump defenders have in common with the people they hate:

Disowning family members for having the wrong political/social opinions.

Really? Because the vast majority of comments on this particular topic I've seen have come from the left, not conservatives or even libertarians.

The right seems to be perfectly fine with having left-wing friends and family members hang around, based on the mutual understanding that the political sperging will be kept to a minimum, at most. Since leftists have decided that anyone not on their team is a fascist, just like their intellectual prophet Herbert Marcuse told them, they've alienated themselves from those people.

[Uncle Jay]

"Did MAGA Kill the Tea Party?"

No, and as far as I know the Tea Party is alive and well even though Obozo did his best to oppress its members via the IRS back in the day.

[creech]

The life went out of our local TP when Obama won re-election. The classical liberal types saw the handwriting on the wall, other leaders later emerged as full populist MAGAers, but most results-oriented folks just drifted away.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

The Tea Party was always a populist-oriented movement, though. It started up specifically because Bush and the Democrats worked together to bail out banks that committed years of securities fraud, instead of putting their corporate chiefs in prison for lying about the actual value of their products. the GOPe co-opted it in an effort to nerf that energy, which later spilled over on the left side of the nation into Occupy, which the Soros types quickly appropriated within about 3 days of the protests to make them about identitarianism rather than punishing the bankers.

Note that in both instances, the establishments on BOAF SYDEZ ended up re-directing the anger over TARP into something else. The GOPe nerfed the Tea Party politicians by playing controlled opposition to the Democrats, and the Dem establishment started putting all the massively retarded DEI shit as the central keystone of their operations. All of that was in service towards ensuring the bankers didn't get punished for their blatant felonious behavior.

[MWAocdoc]

Since I couldn't find a transcript, I will wing it. The only thing that could have saved the tea party movement or that could revive libertarian momentum would be the elimination of the two party election system. Since even nominally "limited government" types on this forum refuse to endorse the only alternative: at large ranked choice proportional representation election of state legislators and Congressmen, there is no chance that libertarians will have any say whatsoever in limiting government power. Anything else that might have been said during this conversation is hot air and mental masturbation.

[Sevo, 5-30-24, embarrassment]

"...The only thing that could have saved the tea party movement or that could revive libertarian momentum would be the elimination of the two party election system..."

And a pony, right? You ARE a fucking ignoramus!

[Incunabulum]

Reason, the Tea Party was dead long before MAGA.

MAGA is *because YOU* killed the Tea Party.

[mad.casual]

Nuh uh! They did *not* kill the Tea Party! They just reluctantly and strategically endorsed the *exact* opposite team repeatedly.

[Jones M. Murphy, Jr.]

Teabaggers were never about limited gov't. They were always obsessed with policing every vagina for abortion, miscarriage, IVF, ectopic pregnancy, stillbirth etc. They were always obsessed with deporting immigrants of Native American appearance, but not white illegal immigrants such as Melania or Elon. MAGA is the Tea Party.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

Yes, we know how much you hate white people and want to exterminate them. It's not whypipo's fault that your own ethno-narcissistic in-group has ensured that Planned Parenthood keeps you guys at 13 percent of the population.

You guys are so obsessed with genitalia you can't even figure out what a woman is anymore, such as the gal Biden nominated for the Supreme Court.

[Chumby]

What is a woman?

[Rick James]

She's getting her triplicate goldenrod carbon consent form notarized.

[Sevo, 5-30-24, embarrassment]

Jones M. Murphy, Jr. is a slimy pile of TDS-addled lying pile of shit.
Fuck off and die, asswipe.

[Sevo, 5-30-24, embarrassment]

Started getting the (sort of) magazine in the '70s, offices in Santa Barbara, on donations.
Some time (?) later, got tin-cup-begging for an office just to your right, turning up toward the Getty Museum on 405. OK, something.
Next got tin-cup-begging so the lot could relocate to the swamp.
Nope. Fuck the lot of you.
Reason was once libertarian, has turned into swamp critter TDS-addled shits; now gets a $5 donation so they know I'm aware of the steaming piles of shit Reason has become.
Fuck every one of you with a barb-wire-wrapped baseball bat; you, all of you, deserve nothing other.
You have become the swamp-dweller slimy piles of shit which "REASON" (I've got issues from that time) would have found such.