From all corners of the legacy media comes the question: is the Democrat Party now confronting its “Tea Party moment?”
The question arises because of the recent electoral success of Democratic Socialists of America-sponsored candidates in Democrat Party primary elections.
As one of the co-founders of the largest Tea Party group in the country, I can say with authority that a comparison of the Democratic Socialists of America to the Tea Party is an insult to the patriots who make up the Tea Party movement.
In recent weeks, the Wall Street Journal has referred to “mainstream Democrats dreading their own Tea Party moment”; CNN’s Harry Enten said, “I would argue the Democratic version of it is a new Tea Party”; the New Yorker asked, “Is this the Democratic Party's Tea Party moment?”; and Bloomberg’s David Drucker wrote, “Is this Socialist wave the left's Tea Party moment?”
For the record, the Tea Party movement is nothing like the Democratic Socialists of America.
The most significant difference is also the most obvious – the Tea Party movement cherishes the United States, honors and appreciates the Founding and the Constitution, and works to ensure the government is abiding by the Constitution.
Tea Party supporters regularly attended rallies brandishing their pocket-sized (and dog-eared) copies of the Constitution. We proudly unfurled and waved Old Glory. We cheered speakers when they spoke reverently of that hot summer of 1787, and we urged Members of Congress to govern by the limits the Constitution imposed on them.
The few constitutional amendments Tea Party Patriots endorsed – a balanced budget amendment, and term limits for Members of Congress – were meant to adapt the Constitution to the realities of the political and fiscal indiscipline practiced by Congresses over the last several decades, while hewing to the original ideals of a government of limited and enumerated powers.
And we had enough respect for property rights – whether it was private property or public property – that we picked up after ourselves.
The DSA, on the other hand, does not honor and appreciate America. Based on the way Democratic Socialists talk and write about the United States and the Constitution, and the laws enacted by Congress to implement the rights acknowledged within it, it’s clear Democratic Socialists have major problems with the Constitution and would wish it out of existence if they could.
For instance, the organization’s recently released platform calls for massive changes to our political system: “extend full voting rights to people with criminal convictions and noncitizens”; “establish statehood for Washington DC”; “replace the Electoral College with a national popular vote for President”; “replace the two-party system with a multi-party democracy through proportional representation elections”; “expand the number of seats in the House of Representatives and end the Senate filibuster”; and “limit the [Supreme] Court’s power of judicial review which it uses to effectively create and abolish laws outside the legislative process.”
DSA national co-chair Megan Romer, in a recent appearance on FOX News, acknowledged the group’s platform was even more radical: abolish prisons, borders, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the Senate; defund the Pentagon; and grant amnesty to illegal aliens.
To be clear, what the DSA wants is to destroy the government our Constitution established. The DSA wants to eliminate the separation of powers meant to prevent the creation of a tyranny. The DSA wants instead to create a one-legislative-chamber parliamentary system where an expanded House of Representatives would choose an executive who would be subservient to the legislature. And the same for the Supreme Court – the legislature would choose the members of the Court, who would be subservient to the legislature. In other words, they want a government featuring the very centralization of power the Founders created a system to prevent.
And by granting amnesty and citizenship to the millions of illegal aliens living here already – and then eliminating ICE and border enforcement entirely – we’d be so changing the composition of the electorate that the move to the left would be virtually irreversible.
That’s a recipe for a very different America. To their credit, the leadership and members of the Democratic Socialists of America boldly acknowledge as much. To them, their radical proposals are not a bug, but a feature.
This may well be a moment for the Democrat Party – and for the nation itself – but please don’t call it a “Tea Party” moment.
Jenny Beth Martin is Chairman of Tea Party Patriots Action.
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