What the left can learn from the tea party: independence, not loyalty, is the way to push Democratic politicians on drug policy, civil liberties, and war.

• Author: Welch, Matt
• Position: From the Top - Viewpoint essay

WHEN, AFTER TWO excruciating months of headline-making negotiations, congressional Democrats and Republicans agreed to reduce projected increases in federal spending somewhat in return for a $2.1 trillion extension of the nation's credit line, a broad swath of the professional left knew whom to blame: the Tea Party movement.

"Tea Party Republicans have waged jihad on the American people," wailed New York Times columnist Joe Nocera. "This small group of terrorists have made it impossible to spend any money," complained Rep. Mike Doyle (D-Pa.). Salon's Michael Lind warned that "neo-Confederate" Tea Party "fanatics" were threatening to "destroy America's credit rating unless the federal government agrees to enact Dixie's economic agenda." Not to be outdone, former Vice President Al Gore called on Americans to emulate revolutionary freedom fighters in the Arab world.

"We need to have an American Spring," Gore said on Current TV, "a kind of an American nonviolent change where people on the grassroots get involved again. Not the, you know, not in the Tea Party style."

It takes a special kind of brain to advocate regime change against a force that controls neither the White House nor the Senate, let alone to react to a grassroots movement by lamenting the lack of a grassroots movement. Still, Gore was almost onto something: The Tea Parties hold an important lesson for left-of-center grassroots political activists. But to learn it, they have to get past their hatred of the Tea Parties.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), who successfully steered Republican negotiations so that no taxes were raised in the debt-limit deal, is anything but a fiscally responsible, government-limiting public servant. He championed such Bush-era white elephants as No Child Left Behind, the single biggest increase in federal education spending in history, and Medicare Part D, which gave heavily subsidized prescription drugs to seniors. He supported George W. Bush's $100 million stimulus plan in 2008, his $ 700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) later that year, and his $1 trillion-plus war expenditures. As recently as last fall's congressional campaign, Boehner was explicitly refusing to contemplate cuts in military and entitlement spending--the two biggest growth engines in government.

What changed Boehner's tune? The Tea Parties.

In the run-up to the November 2010 elections, Boehner, along with his Senate counterpart, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.)...