The tea party is dead — long live the tea party

The tea party is dead. Long live the tea party.

The tea party is dead because it has neither a coherent structure nor an identifiable strategy. It has no candidates except those who call themselves tea party adherents but run as Republicans. It has no platform except to complain that whatever could go wrong has gone wrong. And it has no legislative remedies except slogans: "Take back America," "Restore the Constitution," "Power to the states" and so on.

Long live the tea party, because it must be remembered as a force that stimulated the American people to once again become politically responsible citizens of a free nation.

For too long, Americans have allowed Congress — and powerful forces that control it — to ignore the needs of the nation and its people. Disastrous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan came about because Congress refused to exercise its constitutional responsibility. Tea party activists waved the Constitution and shouted at Congress: "Hey, you bozos, pay attention to this document."

The immigration issue is not intractable. But powerful influences convinced Congress to ignore it for decades. Now, immigration has become not simply a policy issue but an economic, social, racial and religious issue. The tea party yells loudly: "Fix it." And while some of that group's so-called "solutions" would only make matters worse, at least it moved immigration higher on the national priority list.

Influential lobbyists convinced Congress to ignore pending disaster in financial markets, even when bankers on main street told Congress a collapse was coming. Finally, things got so bad that reality twisted the arms of our representatives until they were forced to create a bank bailout fund. That long-delayed move definitely saved the nation from a depression. But some representatives who voted for it are already saying: "Who? Me?" And because most of the bailout fund is being repaid, Congress drags its feet on correcting basic economic problems. Those problems boil down to greed on Wall Street and blatant abuse of consumers. As a result, this year will see the largest bonuses ever on Wall Street. But there are no bonuses for taxpayers. Tea parties held rallies and wrote songs about the financial disaster. Their anger was often misdirected, but the sense that America was betrayed by Wall Street will not soon disappear.