◼ Front Page Magazine: Of all that the Tea Party has accomplished, perhaps the movement’s most unlikely achievement to date is the admiration it has inspired on the activist Left. Disillusioned with President Obama and the rapid dissipation of a long-term left-wing dominance that Obama’s victory was supposed to usher in, left-wing activists and commentators have come to look upon the Tea Party as a model to revive their faded political fortunes.
Speaking for many on the Left, Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen recently acknowledged, “I suffer from Tea Party envy.” Similarly, the disgruntled twenty-somethings taking part in the Occupy Wall Street campaign have styled their protests as a left-wing and anti-capitalist version of the Tea Party. The latest left-wing admirer of the Tea Party is none other than Van Jones, the disgraced former Obama administration official who was ousted from his post as green jobs czar following revelations of his radical past, which included signing a 9/11 “Truther” petition. Time off from professional politics has afforded Van Jones an opportunity to reflect, and like many on the Left he has concluded that in order to regain their relevance, progressives must take a page from the Tea Party’s playbook. Read The Rest at the link.
