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Old 09-08-2018, 02:09 PM
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'The Herbal Tea Party'

Some call it the resistance; others label it the herbal tea party.
Whatever the name, liberal insurgents demanding a more confrontational approach to President Trump and his Republican allies upended the Democratic establishment last week. From Boston’s Charles River to the Senate committee rooms at the Capitol, from Chicago’s City Hall to Delaware’s beaches, veteran Democrats found themselves under fire from political newcomers or upstaged by junior colleagues.

The moments suggested that Democrats are now in the throes of something resembling what Republicans went through eight years ago. That’s when the so-called tea party began to seize control of the GOP in a manner that still wreaks havoc within the House and Senate caucuses.

For Democrats, the first blow came Tuesday night when Boston City Council member Ayanna Pressley, 44, routed one of the party’s most reliably liberal incumbents, Rep. Michael E. Capuano (Mass.), in a primary. In Chicago, Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who once aspired to build a Daley-style reign in that city, bowed out of his reelection bid in the face of a crowded field of liberal challengers and continued protests against the police department....

… “The political establishment has gotten us Donald Trump, it’s gotten us the worst political position for the Democratic Party since the 1920s. We need change, and change is coming,” said Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.), a thorn in his leadership’s side who himself first won office by defeating an 18-year incumbent four years ago...

… Republican leaders know well that the most dangerous intraparty rivals are not in competitive swing districts but in the safest GOP-leaning districts. Tea party groups intentionally focused on trying to elect the most confrontational lawmakers in solid Republican districts, and from that effort came the House Freedom Caucus.

Those far-right lawmakers drove the federal government into a shutdown in
October 2013 and helped oust John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) from the speaker’s office two years later. They are threatening to support another government shutdown this fall.

Moulton believes that, if they win the majority, Democrats will avoid those pitfalls — but only because Democrats tend to support the federal government.

“The tea party tries to destroy government,” he said. “We need to restore faith in government. Sometimes that means being willing to go against the establishment, but that doesn’t mean tearing apart the institutions.” WaPo

https://www.washingtonpost.com/power...=.359601f72b76

All hail the "herbal" tea party! Puff, puff.
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