Bring Back the Tea Party

NRPLUS MEMBER ARTICLE R ick Santelli’s 2009 rant against government bailouts on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange is widely seen as one of the triggers for the development of the Tea Party in the early months of the Obama administration. The movement gained steam as Democrats passed a massive economic-stimulus package and rammed through Obamacare. After propelling Republicans to take over Congress, it set up high-stakes standoffs over the size and scope of government and fidelity to the Constitution that came to define the Obama era.

The cynical take on the Tea Party movement was that all the talk about returning to constitutional …