As Sanford sees it — and, keep in mind, he’s no Trump fan — a movement like the Tea Party emerges when people galvanize around ideas. When they galvanize around an individual, they’re really just waiting for that individual to act or guide them. Put another way: While the Tea Party exploited a GOP leadership vacuum in 2009, there is a need for a vacuum in 2021. That may very well be the gift that Trump has given Biden. As the former president sits in Mar-a-Lago, plotting his next move, he has brought stasis to the Republican Party... But it also is evident on the grassroots level. Jenny Beth Martin, who co-founded the Tea Party Patriots and was a delegate to the 2020 RNC convention, conceded that there wasn’t as much mobilization now compared to 12 years ago. She said the Covid pandemic was a big part of that, preventing conservatives from congregating, holding their own events or disrupting those of others. But implicit in her analysis was that Trump was still setting the direction for the activists. “He certainly is a leader and people are looking to him for leadership,” she said. The bigger tell came when she described what she called “the animating issue in the country” for her organization.