"A Wave of Anger at Musk and Trump"

Discontent at Elected Reps Hits Fever Pitch Not Seen Since the Tea Party Summer

The President’s Day Holiday is usually the first opportunity in a new Congress for Senators and Representatives to meet with constiutents. It’s the first real gauge of the public sentiment of how things are shaping up for the new Congress and for the White House. So far, there is one prevailing sentiment appearing coast to coast:

Anger.

Here’s Wisconsin Republican Representative Glenn Grothman’s Town Hall in Oshkosh. Oshkosh went for Trump and is home to Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson. How did it go?

Here’s Georgia Republican Representative McCormick at his town hall:

These are just samplings, but they are solid Republican districts and the sentiment is universal across the country; people don’t like what DOGE and Musk are doing, and don’t like that Congress is going along with it. The only difference between these and the Democratic districts are that Democrat constituents are steaming off at their Representatives telling them they’re not doing enough to stop them (even though there is little they can do with the numbers they have).

This kind of energy, this level of ANGER, this early in the cycle I’ve only seen once before, during the Tea Party cycle of President Obama’s first two years in office. Yup, there is a lot of similarity between the movements that gave us Sarah Palin, revitalized the Gadsden Flag and injected steroids in the right’s shift towards Trumpism, and today’s movement which has people wondering WTF Elon Musk is doing and fearing for their Social Security and Medicare.

Now, for a lot of you out there, particularly if you came of political age after that period, you may think of the Tea Party as a pageant of nuts wearing tricorn hats and waving racist signs directing their animosity towards the new President and his filibuster-proof Senate. That’s certainly how it ended up. However, the beginnings were much less polarizing than that. In fact, it was an amalgam of misplaced anger, economic fear, and hostility at every major institution in the country.

The Start of the Tea Party

Most hostile movements like this begin with economic issues. And in 2008, we had a huge economic calamity. The housing collapse in mid to late 2008 was a huge economic disaster. Some of the largest investment banks collapsed and the nation’s (and world’s) economy teetered on the brink. In September and October, the Bush Administration finally realized they couldn’t just rely on the market to sort things out and didn’t want to leave the now inevitable Democratic administration to set response, so they intervened and began a series of bailouts to strengthen the market and reassure the public. Their first attempt, the first TARP vote, failed miserably as Democrats voted in favor of it, but Republicans rejected it outright. Now, this can be interpretted as Democrats realizing the middle and lower classes were at risk the most and the Republicans in their higher towers screamed “to hell with them.” To the Bush Administration’s credit, they included more details and protections and tried to pass it again. Eventually, it passed, but people were not pleased with the $700 billion price tag.¹ As more bailouts continued, for AIG, for Fannie Mae, for Freddie Mac, the public became more and more outraged. This was all BEFORE Obama came into office. When Obama came into office, he continued with the plans because changing course would be detrimental to the economy. He made the architect of the plan, Timothy Geithner, his Treasury Secretary to see it through.

Then, on February 19, 2009, four weeks into the Obama term, Rick Santelli gave a rant that gave focus to that growing public anger at the banks and government, which were now seen as being complicit in the collapse.

Yup, on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Rick Santelli called for a new “Tea Party.” At this point, the anger wasn’t Republican anger, it was bipartisan, it was intense and it was hostile at everyone involved. The only ones less popular than the government at this point were the banks themselves who caused the whole collapse. People didn’t even really understand yet what caused the collapse; it was still this amorphous, complex, misunderstood event economists were still trying to wrap their head around. What Santelli was saying was let the collapse happen, laissez faire style, and the people who caused it would pay the price, rather than the ongoing moral hazard the government was encouraging.

There was a lack of organization early on, and it was not yet what it would become, but there was a strong, populist, grassroots current forming in the country, and they were REALLY pissed off. Rallies started occuring, people flooded social media, and they started showing up at Congressional Town Hall meetings. If you’ve ever gone to a normal Town Hall, you know that it usually has the feel of a school board meeting or a conference. Sure, there are those that have axes to grind all the time at all the meetings, but these are usually not very well attended events, and the issues are usually a little banal. But in that spring of 2009, every Congressperson was flooded with angry constituents, and every elected official practically feared for their lives at them. The hatred and anger were that strong. There was little any Congressman could say about the economy; most couldnt understand what was happening much less describe it to a bunch of people who wouldn’t comprehend it nor care as much as they wanted blood.

As spring turned to summer, more organized marches and rallies occurred coast to coast, and this is where things took on a darker turn. The earlier rallies were not partisan—it was everyone pissed at government. But Republicans were locked out of power, and once Minnesota sat Al Franken as Senator following his recount, they had 60 votes in the Senate and could pass anything. Obama took advantage and pushed for changes to the Health Care system. “Obamacare” as it came to be known, was the thread Republicans used to latch on this energy and hatred toward the banks and channel it towards the new administration. They compared “ObamaCare” to slavery, misinformed the public about “death panels” and roiled the public into a fury. Republicans, led by former Majority Leader Dick Armey and his groups, effectively “astroturfed” the management and organization of the Tea Party and it became the hardcore Republican movement everyone remembers today. The following year, as Republican primaries heated up and the most hardcore, off the fringe nuts defeated rational, long timers, people were ready for a landslide not seen in a very long time. What they weren’t expecting was the wreckage that the Tea Party would have on the Democratic Majorities. The “Butcher’s Bill”²:

• Democrats lost 64 seats in the House, the biggest loss ever. They went from a 40 vote majority, to a 24 vote minority party at 193.

• In the Senate, the Democrats lost almost 1/3 of their seats up for election. At a high of 60, they began losing seats in special elections. By the time November rolled around they had already lost 3 seats. On Election Day they lost 6 more, bringing their total to 51. They would be able to hold the Senate until 2014, when they would lose another nine seats (they won a few in 2012) bringing their total down to 44.

The Anger Today

Watching a lot of what is going on today, a lot of it feels like deja vu. The source of it all isn’t as severe as the 2008 Housing Collapse was, but it’s still economic in nature; inflation. When people’s economic future’s are in doubt, they get angry and edgy. Republicans have complete control over government right now, and are going along with what Trump wants. Trump is doing deeply unpopular things, he is unencumbered politically and Republicans in Congress are compliant. That also makes people extremely anxious and nervous. These seeds, this undercurrent developing, are all moving in one direction, and the outcome could be a very strong blue wave in 2026. Right now, that anger is pretty diffuse and broad, against Trump and Musk and Republicans generally. My hunch is that when Trump starts to implement his legislative agenda, much of the anti-Democratic sentiment that motivated Tea Partiers will manifest as an anti-Republican tsunami forming. It remains to be seen whether that results in a more progressive Democratic party or a broader one. The Democratic opposition has yet to develop a voice or strategy on the direction it will eventually go. But make no mistake, we’re about to go through a very intense spring and summer; it’s going to be interesting to see where it goes.

PurpleAmerica’s Obscure Fact of the Day

The tea thrown in Boston Harbor was not British Tea, but rather chinese. The 340 chests of tea thrown into the harbor were filled with Chinese tea, mostly Bohea, Congou, and Souchong varieties. At the time, Britain sourced its tea from China rather than India, as India’s tea industry had not yet been fully developed.

The reason it was thrown overboard was the tax that would have to be paid to the British crown once the tea was offboarded from the ship.

PurpleAmerica’s Final Word on the Subject

Get ready. You’re about to experience a strong tidal wave of anger, resentment, political upheaval and hostility over the next two years.

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Footnotes and Fun Stuff

1. The Troubled Relief Asset Plan (TARP) empowered the Secretary of the Treasury a wide latitude to use the money as they saw fit. The money was largely used for low interest loans to prop up the banks and prevent future failures. As unpopular as it was, the plan actually made money for the government.

2. The term goes back to Napoleon, who when being informed of his casualties in war would refer to it as “the Butcher’s Bill.”