Tea Party 2.0

Do you remember the Tea Party? Its motto was Taxed Enough Already (hence TEA Party). They wore cool colonial costumes and quoted Thomas Paine and other Revolutionary War orators. Newt Gingrich led them as they took over the House in the 2010 midterms. It was not a coincidence at all that these lily-white conservatives who yearned for the Good Old Days of the 1770s when slavery was in bloom prospered after the election of the first Black president.

Among those whose political careers began with the Tea Party was Ron Johnson of Wisconsin. Ron would be up for re-election to the US Senate this year except, good Tea Party guy that he is, he promised that he would “term limit” himself and return to America’s Dairyland to munch cheese and root for the Packers.

Or maybe not. Citing the “threat to our Democracy”, Ron announced that he will run again in 2022. “With the White House and Congress both in the hands of Democrat Socialists,” Ron is sacrificing his well-earned retirement to keep America safe from catastrophic ideas like the Child Tax Credit, negotiating drug prices with Big Pharma, Medicare coverage of hearing and sight problems (Old people don’t need hearing aids or glasses), a Minimum Wage that hasn’t been raised since the Reagan Administration, and allowing people lacking a photo ID to vote.

Ron endeared himself to the Trump Crowd when he claimed that the events of Jan 6 were “like a normal Capitol tour group”.

Imagine being the advertising agency tasked with running ads against Ron. We start with video of him from 2016 saying he won’t run again. Then cut to video from this year saying he is running. We add the line “He can’t make up his mind whether he wants to be your Senator.”

Then we run video of the Jan 6 riot especially the window smashing and the assault on the Capitol police. We cut to Ron claiming that this is a normal Capitol tour group. Then we cut back to the riot video. “Do you want your Senator supporting this as normal behavior?”

Ron may have to break out his tricorn hat, wig, and knee breeches to recover that Tea Party charisma that swept him into office in the first place.

By Ed Dufton