It’s their party

Right-wing Tea Party activists might well reshape the US Congress – but they have already routed the Republican establishment

When angry right-wing American voters started taking to the streets to protest against the Obama administration’s policies, leading Republicans were ecstatic. In the group of protesters who became known as the Tea Party, they saw a grassroots movement they could ride back to power. Now, with the midterm elections approaching, Tea Partiers may indeed change the balance of power in Washington — but a lot of establishment Republicans will be joining their Democratic counterparts in the unemployment queue.

This is an odd turn for a political phenomenon that was widely assumed by friend and foe alike to be orchestrated by Republican national headquarters and the right-leaning Fox News network. ‘The Republican party directs a lot of what the Tea Party does, but not everybody in the Tea Party takes direction from the Republican party,’ is how the Democratic speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, put it.