The tea party was over, we thought. Not quite a decade old, the right-wing populist movement that once seemed poised to be an enduring force in national politics had burned out, overtaken by a more virulent strand of populism led by President Trump.
But when Trump dismissed Rex Tillerson as secretary of state this past week, naming Mike Pompeo as his replacement, it was hard to deny that, in some ways, the tea party is at the apex of its power — even if, paradoxically, it is an establishment power. And it might be out for blood. …
The grievances that animated the movement and fed Trump’s presidential candidacy live on. The tea party’s insurgent impulses have fused with his erratic populism to become one of the three contending forces in the Republican Party — the other two being establishment Republicanism and ideological conservatism. CONT.
Geoffrey Kabaservice, Washington Post