What I'm getting from a quick peruse, is that the author is saying that because duplicitous pols or those who wanted to break into the Insider Club, used Tea Party chapters...the Tea Party, movement and its causes, is discredited.
Because Trump has turned out to be a covert agent for the Democrats, that should dissuade the Little People from ever concerning their little heads with politics. We need to leave it to the SMART people - like JEB! and Mitch McConjob and Boner there in the House, and now Paul Duplicitous Ryan.
Sure. Just go home and shut up while we spend insanely and print more fiat and welcome more aliens who adhere to a religion which promises an after-life brothel for mass murder of Our Kind.
What the hell IS it with these people?
Sure, some folks who had stood with the TEA party groups were ticked off enough to fall for Trump. They were not the only ones.
Trump wasn't a TEA party candidate, and really, not my cup of TEA. Some very wealthy guy who won't release his tax records reeks of insider cronyism, not someone who will fight for 'the little guy'.
There were those who received TEA party (grassroots, not national astroturf herds) support, and a few of them went to D.C. and to varying degrees fought the fight. We need more like those, and not the bastards who smirked and forgot their campaign pledges to get rid of Obamacare, etc., like they told us they would at least try to do.
Those who dashed off looking for a quick fix to a problem that we knew would take time to iron out went for Trump, hard. They have helped give us the mess we are looking down the road at.
The regular TEA party folks are still working on the down ticket races, trying to get the foundation of officeholders and candidates we need to make this work, not looking for an emperor to 'set things straight', mainly because it just doesn't work that way. We don't want an emperor or a dictator, we want a return to the Constitution and the sane fiscal policy that would bring.