Just a few miles from my house, as I sit to write this, the leaderless Democrats are holding their annual retreat and trying desperately to find a way to remain politically relevant after their electoral thrashing in November and the succeeding months of repeated political own goals. It's been an embarrassing spectacle by the left, who still haven't figured out that the majority of Americans are repelled by what they've let themselves become: the smoldering ashes of a party that burnt itself to the ground on the acronym altar of BLM, DEI, CRT and LQBTQ. 

It was funny for me to read today, then, that the Democrat Party is apparently having their "Tea Party moment." That strange claim came from Dave Weigel of Semafor, who absurdly argued that "The Democrats’ Tea Party was born on Thursday night, when Chuck Schumer took the Senate floor to announce his grudging vote for a Republican spending bill." This, as Weigel notes, led to media darlings like AOC lashing out at Schumer for being "betrayed" by the Senate minority leader for voting in line with the Trump administration. 

House Dems Target Schumer With Transparent Political Threat After He Says He'll Vote for CR

Yeah, that's not a "Tea Party moment." Not even close. That's more like a political funeral. If pampered partisans like AOC throwing a tantrum over the CR vote is supposed to be the turning point for the Democrat Party, well, by all means, keep it up.

But Weigel knows very well that this isn't anything akin to a "Tea Party moment," and I know that because we both were there for the revolution that grew out of the infamous Rick Santelli rant in early 2009 about Obama's massive "porkulus" spending bill — me as an activist through my group Smart Girl Politics and Weigel as a reporter for various conservative outlets. 

Those early days of the Tea Party were truly organic, with everyday Americans who connected on Twitter, Facebook and, in my case, the old organizing platform Ning, banding together to organize Tax Day Tea Party protests across the country. Conservatives, in the wake of John McCain's loss to Obama, were as leaderless then as the Democrats are now. But, grassroots conservatives didn't rely on their powerless elected officials to fight back, they did it themselves. Hardly the same thing as the progressive pity party we're seeing play out right now on Capitol Hill, is it?

Here's a bold argument that I'm willing to make: those early tea parties gave rise to the Golden Age that is being ushered in by Donald Trump. Some of Trump's earliest and most ardent supporters back in 2015-2016 were some of the most effective leaders in the Tea Party movement. It had become abundantly obvious that the Republican Party, though very willing to play along with the Tea Party, had no intention of letting a people-powered movement demanding accountability reform the GOP. 

Until Donald Trump came along and smashed those GOP norms to smithereens. It wasn't necessarily always a smooth transition, but the Tea Party morphed into MAGA, and MAGA became the Republican Party of 2025. The leader the Tea Party was looking back in 2009 for was finally found.

I truly don't think Democrats are capable of having a Tea Party movement of their own, though they desperately need one, and here's why: they quite clearly can't accept the fact that they are on the wrong side of the things that matter most to everyday Americans. The past few months have seen them continue to alienate voters by letting their looniest mouthpieces run amok.

Also, the left isn't really good with that "organic" stuff. They like to have their pre-printed signs at the ready—signs they'll happily leave as litter for the peons to clean up—and rely on the deep pockets of unions and their preferred billionaires to pick up the tab when they feel like having a public meltdown. And, as it turns out, even radically leftist billionaires are tired of funding all the losing being done by Democrats.

The Democrat Party of 2025 Is Demoralized, Depressed and, Now, DeFUNDed

It's a humbling exercise to admit you're wrong and rebuild your belief system, and the party of Nancy Pelosi, AOC and Maxine Waters isn't exactly a humble bunch, now is it? They're so wedded to destroying Donald Trump and preserving any shreds of power they may have that they're incapable, at this point, of rebirth. For goodness sake, they're letting the likes of Al Green gobble up the headlines, proving they are not a serious party, but one in utter disarray.

Despite Dave Weigel's baseless claim, the Democrat Party is far from having their “Tea Party moment.” What they are having is a prolonged and epic meltdown as they despair over the fact that they no longer control things in DC. The Tea Party was a movement of defiance and renewal, a grassroots uprising that reshaped American politics and paved the way for the rise of Donald Trump. Who will save the Democrats? And do they even deserve to be saved?