2009 was the year of the Tea Party. Tea Party activists organized rallies and events. At the rallies, the Tea Party protested the out of control spending of the Obama Regime. The Tea Party protested the plans for government health care that became known as Obamacare. The Tea Party protested the intrusions of the government into the lives of real Americans.
Fast forward to 2016. Seven years later, some of the people who rallied in 2009 are supporting Donald Trump. Trump even has a former Tea Party activist and political candidate as his campaign spokesman. Another longtime Tea Party activist just launched an unaffiliated Trump superPAC.
A lot of people who are in the movement and even some who started this movement are asking, if all of these “conservatives” are supporting Donald Trump, why did we have a Tea Party movement?
Donald Trump is the same person who has called for single payer healthcare. Didn’t the Tea Party fight Barack Obama and the Democrats over Obamacare? Why is Obamacare bad and Trumpcare good?
The answer is, neither is good.
Trump has also called for raising taxes on the wealthy. All the income tax does is provide for the easy, endless expansion of government. Taxes are never truly raised on the wealthy. The rate may go up but then the wealthy hire lobbyists to create tax loopholes for them. They hire even more accountants to find existing loopholes in the byzantine tax code.
The Tea Party movement was about shrinking the size of government, not growing it. The Tea Party was about letting the market pick winners and losers, not the government.
The Tea Party movement is a conservative movement. That means the movement pushes for conservative policies and conservative candidates. So how did these people end up supporting Mr. Trump?
In 2010, one of the largest Tea Party rallies was held in Searchlight, Nevada. That is Sen. Harry Reid’s hometown. Conservatives were working hard to defeat Harry Reid, while Donald Trump was contributing to Harry Reid’s reelection effort. Trump donated $4800 to Reid in 2010.
That’s not all. Mr. Trump has contributed to the Clinton Foundation, to the Democrat Senatorial Campaign Committee, the Democrat Congressional Campaign Committee, to infamous former Congressman Anthony Weiner, to New York Sens. Chuck Schumer and Kristen Gillibrand, as well as to former Massachusetts Sens. John Kerry and Ted Kennedy.
In 2013, Donald Trump endorsed the radical socialist Bill de Blasio to be mayor of New York City. Mr. de Blasio ran his campaign on socialist class warfare. He supported the rioters over the cops. De Blasio is so bad that at a January 2015 funeral of Officer Wenjain Liu, NYPD officers turned their backs on Mr. de Blasio. De Blasio handcuffed the NYPD, so they can not enforce laws to make New Yorkers safer and has championed New York City being a sanctuary city.
This is a man Donald Trump endorsed.
The real question is why these former Tea Party leaders would support Mr. Trump?
Liberty means these people have the right to make up their own minds. Liberty means they have the right to be wrong.
But being wrong has consequences.
A massive government healthcare program will not suddenly become acceptable because Donald Trump is running it. Tax increases that were anathema under Obama will not suddenly become acceptable because Donald Trump pushes them.
The Tea Party movement is a movement about principle. It was not launched because Democrats took control of the government. It was launched because the Democrats and some Republicans had launched a war on the U.S. Constitution and on liberty.
Some former leaders of the Tea Party movement should remember why this movement was launched.
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