This week marks the 16th anniversary of the birth of the modern-day Tea Party, and — at long last — with an ally in the Oval Office and friends throughout his administration and on Capitol Hill helping to carry out our shared mission, we can celebrate not just our birthday, but the fruits of our labor.
President Trump’s second-term priorities on a wide range of issues — the DOGE effort to shrink the size and scope of government; the determination to secure the border; the move to end the weaponization of government; and the commitment to healthcare freedom, among others — is the continuation of what we in the Tea Party have been working for over the last decade and a half.
Across that wide range of issues and others, we are working to support his agenda on the policy and the personnel fronts — because it is our agenda.
JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images
The modern-day Tea Party began in early 2009 as a natural grassroots reaction to the Washington Swamp’s response to the financial crisis of 2007-2008, and to its determination to use that crisis as a cover for expanding the size and scope of government. First, in September of 2008 the Republican-led administration proposed sending $700 billion (a then unheard-of sum) of taxpayer money to bail out Wall Street banks that had made bad decisions. Then, in January of 2009, a Democrat-led administration followed that up by proposing to spend almost $1 trillion in taxpayer funds on what it called a “stimulus” package.
It didn’t take long for grassroots anger to boil over. On February 16, 2009, the day before President Barack Obama signed the so-called “stimulus” bill into law, the first significant protest took place, in Seattle, Washington. Led by Keli Carender — who still works with me, leading grassroots activities today — it was called the “Porkulus Protest.”
Things began picking up speed. Three days later, on February 19, CNBC commentator Rick Santelli ranted from the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, asking the assembled traders on live television, “How many of you people want to pay for your neighbor’s mortgage, that has an extra bathroom and can’t pay their bills?” Then he half-jokingly said, “We’re thinking of having a ‘Chicago Tea Party’ in July. All you capitalists that want to show up to Lake Michigan, I’m going to start organizing.”
We took up his challenge. Precisely one day after Santelli’s rant, we held the first organizing phone call. Led by Michael Patrick Leahy (formerly of PJ Media and Breitbart, now best known for his work with Tennessee Star News), about three dozen activists got on a conference call and strategized. That led, one week later, on February 27, to what we now recognize as the first “official” tea party protests – 48 of them, all across the country, attended by about 35,000 people.
As the news from Washington got worse, the movement continued to pick up strength. Less than two months later, on April 15 (yes, the choice of Tax Day was symbolic, and strategic), FOX News hosts Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, and Neil Cavuto hosted their shows from “Tax Day Tea Parties” in Atlanta, Dallas, and Sacramento, respectively, as an estimated 1.2 million people gathered to protest at more than 2,000 local tea parties nationwide.
Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call
The summers of 2009 and 2010, remembered for the boisterous town hall meetings held by members of Congress during Congress’s regular recesses, saw the movement continue to grow. As it became clearer that the fight to pass ObamaCare would come down to just a few votes one way or the other, our organizing intensified. Democrats held strong majorities in both houses of Congress, though, and partisan politics eventually carried the day. Nevertheless, the Tea Party movement certainly helped many congressional Democrats to early retirement in the midterm elections of 2010.
The Tea Party didn’t go away. Instead, we prepared for the next battle. In 2013, Internal Revenue Service official Lois Lerner revealed that the IRS had been targeting us, demanding to know, among other things, the content of the prayers we prayed and the subject matter of the books we discussed at our meetings. Later that year we were instrumental in defeating a terrible bill establishing a mass amnesty for illegal immigrants that passed the Senate but was blocked in the House. In 2015, we fought Obama’s Iran nuclear deal, and held a protest rally on the West Front Lawn of the Capitol addressed by Donald Trump. In 2016, we fought to prevent Merrick Garland – who later revealed himself to be one of the most radical attorneys general in history – from taking a seat on the Supreme Court. In 2020 and thereafter, we maintained our long-held focus on healthcare freedom by fighting to reopen schools and against vaccine mandates.
Though the political environment in which we’ve operated has changed over the years, our dedication to our original values has not: From the start, we’ve stood for individual liberty, limited and constitutional government, and fiscal responsibility. We’ve fought to reduce the size and scope of the federal government; to secure the border; to defend healthcare freedom; and to stop the weaponization of government. We’ve won some, and we’ve lost some, and we’ve learned how to harness our passion and turn it into meaningful action.
Today, with our champion in the Oval Office, we help him wage political war against the Washington Swamp we’ve been fighting since we first organized ourselves 16 years ago. For the Tea Party, it’s a Sweet Sixteen, indeed.
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Jenny Beth Martin is Honorary Chairman of Tea Party Patriots Action.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.