Trump's MAGA is marching down a trail blazed by the Tea Party
A little more than a dozen years ago, a new movement erupted in American politics calling itself "the Tea Party." In the midterm elections of 2010, that movement remade Congress and helped the Republican Party to a decade of dominance in electing the legislatures of roughly 30 states.
The phrase "Tea Party" has since faded from the scene. The congressional caucus that went by that name has been largely inactive for years. But the political ferment and fervor once associated with that label have grown more intense as they were reshaped by former President Donald Trump.
Today, the populist energy within the Republican Party goes by the name he gave it: MAGA (Make America Great Again). And its influence on the 2022 midterms seems destined to track that of the Tea Party surge in 2010.
There is one difference between then and now that could alter that trajectory. The Tea Party was driven largely by hostility to former President Obama. It never had a singular leader of its own whose brand was
