To the question, “Where are the Tea Parties of the Left?” the simple answer is: they were led from the top. The crucial question which every man of the left must wrestle with is whether Tea Parties of the Left will ever be led from the bottom. George Orwell always assumed the answer to be “yes” until he learned differently in Catalonia. Most people on the Left think that rebellion is a permanent condition of “their” side. When out of power maybe. When in power things are different. Conservatives operate on a different model from that of the Left. They band together at need but tend to form no permanent organizations. By contrast, the Left is a standing political army. It never sleeps. It never disbands. It is always on the march, in season and out of season. And even when it isn’t doing anything — it is doing something. And when it is in power, it must do even more…

The interesting question is whether, if Saul Alinsky were alive today, he would be sitting “at party headquarters inside a putty brown stucco building south of the Capitol” having meekly obeyed the order of the One to go home and disband.