Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Latest from Red State: How the Tea Party Can Fight Back!


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 LaborUnionReport (Diary)  |    |
Last Monday evening, I had the privilege and disappointment of speaking with yet another Tea Party group that had come to hear a message on How to Become a Force Multiplier.
I say it was a privilege to speak to this group (and others like it) because, as always, I found the group comprised of Americans concerned about the future direction of America and highly desirous to hear a message on how to save and restore it.
Yet, it was also a disappointment because, after nearly four years of this upstart movement—this “beautiful chaos” called the Tea Party Movement—after all the demonization by the institutional Left and its media apparatchik; the backstabbing by the Republican establishment; after millions of dollars of donations from large and small donors alike, last Monday’s group (like so many others) were largely unaware of the size of the behemoth we face and, worse, have never been given the basic tools necessary to lead a movement.
As a former mobilization coordinator for the other side, I was disappointed to meet yet another Tea Party group that, after nearly four years, had not even formed a committee to recruit more people into their ranks—something that is absolutely essential to building a movement. [Worse is the fact that, given the age of many Tea Party activists, attrition in the movement is a very real problem.]
While their naivete is not their fault, I was left wondering: Where has all the money gone from all the donations given to the legacy groups? Though it is, in many cases, too late now, why didn’t anyone teach these amateur leaders of a movement how to lead a movement?
It is for all of the above reasons, we (collectively) need to re-evaluate the direction of this hybrid movement called the Tea Party.
Each and every individual that remains associated with the Tea Party movement, needs to look closer at what has gone well and, more importantly, what hasn’t gone well with the Tea Party.
Below are recommendations, for your consideration, to help rebuild a movement that has been attacked (unjustly) by its enemies as well as its alleged “allies.”
Before you can begin to focus on How to Become A Force Multiplier, as I observed (again) last Monday, there must be a re-examination of the Tea Party and where it is going.
Let’s start with some basic needs: