Waldman explains why the Tea Party has no left-wing equivalent. A key point:
Many Tea Partiers are people who hadn’t run for office before 2010, or maybe had served briefly in a state legislature where they were bomb-throwers, not legislators. They won their primaries by promising to be the most conservative, Obama-hating member of Congress the folks of their district had ever seen. In contrast, almost none of the safe Democratic members got elected just by saying that they were the most liberal candidate in their race. Most of them worked their way up through the lower political ranks, getting used to cutting deals, making compromises, and solving problems for constituents. They may be very liberal ideologically, but they’re also old-school pols in many ways.
That gives them a practicality that their conservative counterparts don’t have.
Scott Galupo wants the Republicans to purge itself of the Tea Party:
The very nature of Tea Party opposition, whether it issues from the likes of Bazooka Ted and His Gang in the Senate or the unappeasable Jacobins in the House, is to throw weight without consequence. They evince no interest in actually wielding power from the inside, which would require restraint, conciliation, and moderation. They are hysterics on the brink of utter demoralization. The danger they pose to democratic norms, institutional comity, and political functionality is precisely why they can’t be bargained with; they must be marginalized.
The Dish 