but we were sometimes able to agree on dinner.

The basic thrusts of both are completely different.

At bottom, the tea-baggers aim for greater exploitation of workers and consumers by business; they simply imagine they are part of the exploiting element, and chafe at government action which do not appear to directly benefit them as members of the exploiting class.

Progressives of the sort exemplified by Sen. Warren aim at reducing exploitation of workers and consumers by business; they understand who is exploited and who is an exploiter, and stand by the former and against the latter, and demand government act as a make-weight for workers and consumers in their struggle to defend themselves against exploitation by businessmen.

I think -- as wrong-headed as they are -- many of the grass roots teabaggers are coming to the same realization that many of the left have already realized.

We don't have an honest debate between conservatism and liberalism anymore. Both parties have been hijacked by big corporations and Wall St.

Eric Cantor relies on the same benefactors as Hillary Clinton and President Obama. Big Corporations and Wall St.

"His wife, Diana, has had a career in banking, working for Goldman Sachs and New York Private Bank & Trust. No industry was more generous to Mr. Cantor’s campaign than financial services. The three largest contributors in this election cycle, in which he collected $5.4 million, were Goldman Sachs, the Blackstone Group and Scoggin Capital Management."

Sound familiar?

ESPECIALLY the part that says "...understand who is exploited and who is an exploiter..."

But I disagree that they are a purposeful part of the exploiting element. They are themselves being exploited, very cynically, by the elites. We have to differentiate between the Tea Party as conceived by the Koch brothers and Dick Army and the loose aggregation of pissed off citizens who see themselves as Tea Party members. Are they selfish? Yes. Are they pigheaded? Yes, and none too bright. They're frightened and angry, and that fear and anger are the levers by which they are controlled and energized. Frankly, I don't give a damn what they think about immigration or Obamacare, if we can make common cause with regard to reigning the power of banks and corporations over government. These folks are not the enemy, however unreasonable and unpleasant they may be.

Whether accurately or not is of no importance, since they form views and guide actions in accordance with their belief. They feel that by rights they are part of the properly dominant strain, and constrictions and limitations they encounter are not interpreted as evidence this belief is false, but rather as evidence they are being cheated out of a birthright, in favor of lower or foreign elements. You cannot make common cause with them on reigning in the power of corporations and banks because they want to wield that power themselves, not restrict its operation against the interests of workers and consumers.

that we cannot make common cause. Most seem to have an acute sense of grievance and they have been heavily propagandized to believe that government is the source of all their ills. They can be driven, but they seem remarkably resistant to leadership. Some of their putative leaders may have predatory motives, but the Tea Party is a herd, not a pack.

I am a 'Popular Front' type myself, but you cannot make common cause with elements who if they had their druthers would imprison or even execute you.

Their belief is not just that government is the source of their ills; what they consider the chief problem of government is that it has been captured by leftist elements who are working to destroy capitalist freedom and subjugate the white man.

Eric Cantor would be the next speaker of the House of Representatives. The Capitalists are experiencing considerable angst at the loss of their point man in the House leadership. And since we are still nominally a democracy, I don't think it's wise to just write off 30% of the electorate.

Those who voted him out consider him to have sold out to the leftist enemies of freedom dominating the government in Washington, to be a traitor to their cause of liberty and free market capitalism.

Held extremist Christian beliefs. Many of them raised in that element (I'm talking the 45 and younger crowd) had instilled in them that they are never to divorce their political beliefs from their religion and anyone who does not think like them is an enemy to the cause to bring America under Christian Theocratic Control.

The "otherism" of the TEA Party movement and it's strong theologic elements are why they are so easily lead.

I don't see that from the Warren/Sanders crowd at all. They tend toward humanism and individual freedom.

They are "wild at heart" - that's a Tennesee Williams reference.

that the "Tea Party" that gets the corporate news media's attention is not representative of a substantial number of the people who originally formed that group. Indeed, some were registered democrats, who opposed the corporate government, and who support the Constitution -- especially the Bill of Rights.

There are a few of them that I can talk to, and find some common ground. But there are definitely more of the new ones, who are moths attracted to the flames of hatred.

You are spot-on on your assertion that they believe they are the exploiting element; even if the actual reality of their situation does not at all support their belief. That they are being used as useful idiots by the PTB is lost on these types: they believe they are them.

As to aspiring to be among the exploiting element, I've noticed a certain dynamic in some people too. Those that once were downtrodden and then come to achieve some measure of success have come to wield their new "status" visciously against the group they were once in in some bizarre perversion of "pay it forward". I would liken it to an ex-indentured servant who has broken free of the binds of servitude and become successful. Most of us would think that were we in their place, we would be grateful for our deliverance and try to do what we can to stop the practice from happening. Not so, for the type we're discussing. In their petty petulance and twisted mind, nothing consummates their deliverance like having their own indentured servants to lord over and shit on; in some perverted form of "revenge".

Yes, I have met people who are that petty.

In my view, people react to having met difficulties in one of two ways. Some look at what they went through, and think that nobody should have to go through that ever again. Some look at what they went through, and think, I had to go through that, who do you think you are to get it easier than I had it? The last group tend to be Republicans....

It does tend to fall along party/ideological lines too.

is that it was just a fucking primary, which means it doesn't mean much at all.

And that's a big deal.

Doesn't smell nice either.

Brat is just a typical rethug in that he runs against the very thing he is. Why people keep forcing the liberal left comparison is either wishful thinking or pure delusion.

When the monster figured it out, he killed his maker.

populists with poopulists.

Warren and liberals.

fuck that noise.

And all of us in the 79% want both the Republicans and the Democrats who are rigging it to be gone. Cantor was a rigger; now he is gone.

Both the Tea Party and us FDR/Warren Democrats are within that 79%, but we have much different ideas about what to do once the leeches are pulled off.