Welcome to Washington: The Democrats’ Tea Party Arrives

Democrats are angry. It’s hard to think of a moment in recent decades when they are as agitated and befuddled as they are now. It is everywhere a topic, even this past week, when Congress was out of town. Welcome to Washington, where members of Congress will return on Monday from their week-long recess at home in their respective districts and states.While GOP lawmakers were cautioned against holding in-person town halls with constituents, some did so anyway, and some of their liberal constituents were able to confront them about votes they had taken. Several Democrats held town halls of their own, with some even traveling to other locales that are represented by Republicans. At all of these town halls and events, however, one thing became abundantly clear — Democratic voters are ready to burn the whole system down in the wake of President Trump’s re-election. They are furious at Elon Musk’s cost-cutting and Republican legislators’ plans for a tax cut and cuts to spending. History does not repeat itself, yes, but these demonstrations by liberal Democrats rhyme eerily with the conservative Tea Party movement of 2010.When Congressman Joe Wilson shouted “You lie” at President Obama during an address to Congress in 2009, he was widely condemned by his Republican colleagues and offered an apology, but then became an overnight sensation for the burgeoning Tea Party movement. When the House passed a resolution marking its disapproval of his conduct, seven Republicans voted for the measure. Just before the latest recess, Congressman Al Green went further than Mr. Wilson had, yelling for several minutes at Mr. Trump during his address to a joint session while waving his cane. This led Speaker Johnson to eject the Houston lawmaker from the chamber. House Democrats quickly rallied to him after he declared he “would do it again,” with all but one member — Mr. Green himself — voting for a motion to kill the censure. When that failed, ten Democrats did vote to formally censure him in the end. While that comparison between Messrs. Wilson and Green may capture only one moment in time, it marks a shift among the Democratic Party base. Rage is what governs the party at the moment. It is unclear if they can carry that kind of energy all the way to next November — 19 months from now — but what Democrats now know is that their voters are willing to turn on them in a moment if they are not deemed to be enough of a fighter. Feature Congressman Glenn Ivey’s town hall in Maryland last week. I personally know Mr. Ivey, and I can confirm that the Princeton and Harvard-educated, bespectacled lawmaker is a serious, well-respected legislator on the Democratic side. Despite fighting Mr. Trump at every turn for the last two months, his fellow Democrats let him have it at his most recent town hall. “It’s not that you’re in the minority — it’s that you aren’t even working together on a shared strategy!” one man screamed at Mr. Ivey this past week. “We want you to show some of the backbone and strategic brilliance that Mitch McConnell would have in the minority!”This same week, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Sanders rallied tens of thousands of people during their “Fight Oligarchy” tour in Nevada, Colorado, and Arizona — an impressive feat for two self-described democratic socialists who were campaigning in states that went for Republican presidential candidates just a few years ago. Congressman Ro Khanna, too, got a warm reception at two town halls in Republican districts just on Sunday. A representative from Silicon Valley, Mr. Khanna got a lengthy applause from his crowds when he said he wanted to tax billionaires at a higher rate, despite being the congressman who likely represented more billionaires than any other lawmaker. If “throw the bums out” was a rallying cry for the Tea Party just 15 years ago, it may very well be a song sung by Democrats next year. Many Democrats in safe blue seats — in the House and Senate alike — could be primaried in the coming months by those who have more fight in them.

Welcome to Washington: The Democrats’ Tea Party Arrives

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