Bernie Sanders backers must become a Tea Party of the left

http://www.salon.com/2016/04/24/this_third_party_would_keep_hillary_honest_bernie_sanders_backers_must_become_a_tea_party_of_the_left/

What gave the Tea Party its power? Well, first it could rely on organizers funded by rightwing organizations and wealthy funders. We don’t have that on the Left, but at this moment there are many volunteer organizers who would respond to an appeal from Bernie. Next, the Tea Party had media attention—indispensible to reaching out to large numbers. Just look at the way the pro-democracy demonstrators last week in D.C. were almost totally ignored by the media even after a thousand of them were arrested in nonviolent protests, and you realize that this moment when Sanders’ ideas are being given attention will pass if he doesn’t win the nomination, so this is the moment to begin to organize. Finally, the Tea Party people focused on unseating members of their own party (both nationally and locally) who did not share their worldview. Fearful for their political future, many elected officials quickly moved to the Right. The same thing could happen to the Democrats if progressives organized by Bernie were to plan now to run for office at every level in the 2018 congressional election primaries (and sooner in local and state elections) —against the mainstream Dems who would block Sanders’ program should he be elected in 2016 and who refuse to endorse key elements of Bernie’s program. These are the people in the Democratic Party who have been doing their best to move it from a center/liberal to a center/right force as it was under Bill Clinton in the 1990s. A Tea Party of the Left would also play a role in keeping a Hillary Clinton presidency from abandoning the progressive ideas that she gradually started to embrace in somewhat watered-down form during this presidential campaign in response to the pressure that the Sanders campaign was creating.