On the back end the Tea Party movement was always a conglomeration of Koch related organizations and think tanks, who teamed up with 'Americans for Prosperity ', Phillip Morris, and ‘Citizens for a Sound Economy’.
It’s an accurate small scale model of what parts of Trumps campaign would later become, using the appearance of a “grass roots” movement to disguise the big money interests driving things just under the surface.
Not “always.” I believe the Tea Party was a genuine grass-roots movement for at least a few weeks or months at the very beginning, before the Koch-suckers co-opted it. Frankly, it had a lot in common with Occupy Wall Street and I was holding out hope for a while that the two movements would merge.
On the back end the Tea Party movement was always a conglomeration of Koch related organizations and think tanks, who teamed up with 'Americans for Prosperity ', Phillip Morris, and ‘Citizens for a Sound Economy’.
https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Tea_Party
It’s an accurate small scale model of what parts of Trumps campaign would later become, using the appearance of a “grass roots” movement to disguise the big money interests driving things just under the surface.
Not “always.” I believe the Tea Party was a genuine grass-roots movement for at least a few weeks or months at the very beginning, before the Koch-suckers co-opted it. Frankly, it had a lot in common with Occupy Wall Street and I was holding out hope for a while that the two movements would merge.