politics

The difference is whether you stand behind the police line, or if you break through the police line.

The tea party was ridiculous and loud with having Fox News and other media ready to spread their message and present them as a grass roots movement. If a genuine grass roots movement from the left is just "ridiculous and loud" all the "Liberal" media will jump to defend the politicians and shame the activists.

The tea party "movement" was organized from "the top", with the money from "the top" and support from "the top". It was done to instill the idea of a legitimate grass roots movement that would also represent the interests of normal people, when its goals were all focused on the interests of rich people. This is why i don't think it to be a template that can be applied for a left takeover of the Democratic party.

And it is much easier for rich elites to maintain power inside a party, than it is for genuine grass roots to take it over from the inside. I believe the power has to be taken from the outside, first by grinding the party to a halt, and then taking it over from the inside, or better yet by having a third party take over its place, with better safeguards against oligarchs in its core structures.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_Party_movement

In an August 30, 2010, article in The New Yorker, Jane Mayer asserted that the brothers David H. Koch and Charles G. Koch and Koch Industries provided financial support to one of the organizations that became part of the Tea Party movement through Americans for Prosperity.[232][233] The AFP's "Hot Air Tour" was organized to fight against taxes on carbon use and the activation of a cap and trade program.[

U.S. News & World Report reported that the nature of the coverage of the protests has become part of the story.[272] On CNN's Situation Room, journalist Howard Kurtz commented that "much of the media seems to have chosen sides". He says that Fox News portrayed the protests "as a big story, CNN as a modest story, and MSNBC as a great story to make fun of. And for most major newspapers, it's a nonstory".[272] There were reports that the movement had been actively promoted by the Fox News Channel.[273][274]

According to Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, a progressive media watchdog, there is a disparity between large coverage of the Tea Party movement and minimal coverage of larger movements. In 2009, the major Tea Party protests were quoted twice as often as the National Equality March despite a much lower turnout.[275] In 2010, a Tea Party protest was covered 59 times as much as the US Social Forum (177 Tea Party mentions versus 3 for Social Forum) despite the attendance of the latter being 25 times as much (600 Tea Party attendees versus at least 15,000 for Social Forum).[276]

In the January/February 2012 issue of Foreign Affairs, Francis Fukuyama stated that the Tea Party is supporting "politicians who serve the interests of precisely those financiers and corporate elites they claim to despise" and inequality while comparing and contrasting it with the occupy movement.