The Tea Party is now clearly a distinctly minority faction. It's prospects for obtaining future majority rule are small. The most radical (Todd Aiken) and shallow (Scott Brown) Senators lost. Reformers like Elizabeth Warren and Tammy Baldwin won. We now have powerful voices for progressive reform that can join figures like Bernie Sanders in pursuit of curbing the "finance gone wild" that has put our economy in the doldrums for the past four years. To be clear, these same Senators will have to also take on their own President to achieve these reforms.
Tea Party figures, such as Wisconsin's Governor Scott Walker, are far stronger as communicators than representing popular ideas. Politicians like Walker deploy those skills to conceal their agenda, not to directly promote their ideas among the general electorate. The same goes for one of the most radical Tea Party Senators, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin. While happy to share his radical-right agenda with party insiders, Johnson takes great care to present himself as a moderate with the general electorate. Were this NOT the case, Barack Obama and Wisconsin Democratic Senator elect Tammy Baldwin would have lost in Wisconsin. They didn't. In short, the T-Party is a paper tiger that will now only win races with candidates that can successfully pass themselves off as moderates.
Next takeaway: Paul Ryan was a disastrous Vice President choice for Mitt Romney. While Ryan was useful for ginning up support for Romney among the GOP base, he proved a liability in the general election. Ryan is unpopular and his national political aspirations are finished. Ryan successfully presented himself as a moderate in his congressional district. Nationally, however, his budget and radical Ayn Rand ideas proved too much political baggage to portage across the American political landscape increasingly fatigued by T-Party fanatics.
Next: The 24/7 Fox and toxic shock talk radio machine provided a strong minority base, but the steady diet of hate and lies turned even more people off than it turned on. Hate media has reached a point of diminishing returns. It will likely ratchet up the hate rhetoric to create an even more aggressive American freikorps. This could further reduce their general popularity in conditions of stability. Alternatively, under greater crisis conditions, this could present a dangerous force in times of more profound turbulence and an opportunity for the "Empire Strikes Back."
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