As With the Tea Party, Republican Leaders Try to Control a Rebel Army – The Wall Street Journal

When the tea party movement emerged in 2009, Republican leaders assumed they could humor its followers and capture their intensity, while keeping them under control.

They were wrong. Instead, the partys leaders were consumed by the movement they tried to corral, and by the grass-roots anger they thought they could use to their advantage.

Tea party energy helped propel Republicans into a House majority and make John Boehner the speaker of the Houseyet he was never able to contain the movement he was riding and eventually resigned in frustration.

The task of riding herd over the tea party caucus fell to three younger House leaders, who fashioned themselves as the Young Guns: Paul Ryan, Eric Cantor and Kevin McCarthy. Mr. Ryan became Speaker but he, too, eventually left Congress in frustration. Mr. Cantor was beaten in a Republican primary by a tea party upstart.

That left Mr. McCarthy, who today is the top House Republican. And he is, to some extent, struggling to manage an angry army of insurrectionists within his own party, this time in the form of former President Donald Trump and his followers.

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As With the Tea Party, Republican Leaders Try to Control a Rebel Army - The Wall Street Journal