How the tea party can save itself and become a force for good

Finally, the Tea Party has been assailed as inauthentic, a faux grassroots, “astroturf” movement financed by shadowy elites who have essentially duped an army of cranky retirees into doing their bidding. You hear this not only from left-liberals like Chris Hayes, the MSNBC host and author of Twilight of the Elites, but occasionally from Republicans like Ann Coulter who are looking to defend GOP incumbents facing Tea Party challengers. The fact that wealthy campaign donors are far more likely to support establishment Republicans over Tea Party conservatives in GOP primaries tells a different story.

Yes, the spending habits of some Tea Party organizations should be cause for embarrassment, a beat that Slate’s David Weigel has on lock. But is this really a Tea Party-specific problem? I would argue that the presence of hucksters who use politics for personal gain is simply a long-standing tradition.

So what is really wrong with the Tea Party, then? It’s that it has so far failed to live up to its populist convictions.

If the Tea Party were to fight crony capitalism as hard as it fights wasteful spending, and if its members were to train their anger on the Wall Street-Washington axis that deserves so much of the blame for our stagnant economy, it would be the most constructive and powerful political force of our time.