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By Ron Colenews@fosters.com

DOVER A snowy Saturday afternoon found more than 30 adults and children settled in a warm and toasty Wonderland.

The Childrens Museum of New Hampshire held its annual Wonderland Tea Party hosted by Alice and the Queen of Hearts, one of the most popular events at the museum.

Wonderland was replete with large tables set with china, teacups and roses and decorated with treats. At each place setting was a home-made sugar cookie in the shape of a heart.After all had gathered, they were greeted by the Queen of Hearts and Alice herself.

The Queen welcomed all and mentioned that the tea party was being held near a special date and asked if anyone knew what that occasion was. Talulah Bryant of Barrington quickly piped up with Valentines Day and was congratulated by the Queen.

The Queen of Hearts then advised all that in order for them to participate in the tea party, they would need to be welcomed into her court. Each child approached her, receiving a blinking red heart on a chain. Each child also received congratulations on their formal greeting of a bow or curtsey.

The Queen then read the words to the Lewis Carroll novel which has been a favorite of children for 151 years. Alice, at this time, was holding pictures of the adventures she had after she fell down a rabbit hole.

A variety of teas were sipped as well as apple juice. The children set about decorating their cookies and eventually some magical Wonderland flowers.

This was a special day for the adults as well as the children, and for many it was as real as of the book. Kellyanne Zink of Somersworth was joined by her appropriately named daughter Alice, who was accompanied by her properly attired doll, also named Alice.

We just finished reading the book, said Kellyanne and she is so excited to be doing this.

Many of the children were formally dressed for the special occasion.

Although the weather was a little snowy, it did not deter most from attending this special day. Kaitlyn Fortier traveled with her 4-year-old daughter Aleah Sensabella from Londonderry.

It was a little difficult driving, said Fortier, but we wouldnt miss this. It's wonderful to be in a fairy tale, we need to have more things like this.

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Alice and the Queen of Hearts host a Children's Museum Tea Party - Foster's Daily Democrat

(Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)

Grass-roots movements can be the life and death of political leaders.

Its a well-worn story now about how John A. Boehner, then House minority leader, joined a rising star in his caucus, Rep. Kevin McCarthy, in April 2009 for one of the first major tea party protests in the California Republicans home town of Bakersfield.

A little more than six years later, after they surfed that wave into power, the movement consumed both of them. Boehner was driven out of the House speakers office and McCarthys expected succession fell apart, leaving him stuck at the rank of majority leader.

Democrats are well aware of that history as they try to tap the energy of the roiling liberal activists who have staged rallies and marches in the first three weeks of Donald Trumps presidency.

What if they can fuse these protesters, many of whom have never been politically active, into the liberal firmament? What if a new tea party is arising, with the energy and enthusiasm to bring out new voters and make a real difference at the polls, starting with the 2018 midterm elections?

(Alice Li,Whitney Leaming/The Washington Post)

The womens marches that brought millions onto streets across the country the day after Trumps inauguration spurred organically through social media opened Democratic leaders eyes to the possibilities.

With a 10-day recess beginning next weekend, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has instructed her members to hold a day of action in their districts, including town halls focused on saving the Affordable Care Act. The following weekend, Democratic senators and House members will hold protests across the country, hoping to link arms with local activists who have already marched against Trump.

[Swarming crowds and hostile questions are the new normal at GOP town halls]

It was important to us to make sure that we reach out to everyone we could, to visit with them, to keep them engaged, to engage those that maybe arent engaged, Rep. Ben Ray Lujn (D-N.M.), chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, told reporters at a Democratic retreat in Baltimore that ended Friday. The trick is to keep them aiming their fire at Republicans and Trump, not turning it into a circular firing squad targeting fellow Democrats.

Now we want people to run for office, to volunteer and to vote, Lujn added.

[Schumers dilemma: Satisfying the base while protecting the minority]

Its too early to tell which direction this movement will take, but there are some similarities to the early days of the conservative tea party.

In early 2009, as unemployment approached 10percent and the home mortgage industry collapsed, the tea party emerged in reaction to the Wall Street bailout. It grew throughout the summer of 2009 as the Obama administration and congressional Democrats pushed toward passage of the Affordable Care Act.

Many of the protesters were newly engaged, politically conservative but not active with their local GOP and often registered as independents. Their initial fury seemed directed exclusively at Democrats, given that they controlled all the levers of power in Washington at the time; the protesters famously provoked raucous showdowns at Democratic town halls over the August 2009 recess.

Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumers first brush with the anti-Trump liberal movement came in a similar fashion to Boehner and McCarthys Bakersfield foray in 2009. Originally slated to deliver a brief speech at the womens march in New York, Schumer instead spent 41/2 hours on the streets there, talking to people he had never met. By his estimate, 20percent of them did not vote in November.

That, however, is where Schumer must surely hope the similarities end.

By the spring and summer of 2010, the tea party rage shifted its direction toward Republican primary politics. One incumbent GOP senator lost his primary, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) defeated the Kentucky establishment favorite, and three other insurgents knocked off other seasoned Republicans in Senate primaries (only to then lose in general elections).

One force that helped the tea party grow was a collection of Washington-based groups with some wealthy donors, notably the Koch-funded Americans For Prosperity, who positioned themselves as the self-declared leaders of the movement. For the next few years, they funded challenges to Republican incumbents, sparking a civil war that ran all the way through the 2016 GOP presidential primaries.

Boehner could never match the rhetorical ferocity of the movement. He was perpetually caught in a trap of overpromising and under-delivering. Republicans never repealed Obamacare, as they derisively called the ACA, and they could not stop then-President Obamas executive orders on immigration. Boehner resigned in October 2015.

Democrats want and need parallel outside groups to inject money and organization into their grass roots. There are signs it is happening: The thousands of activists who protested at a series of raucous town halls hosted by Republican congressmen over the past week were urged to action in part by sophisticated publicity campaigns run by such professional liberal enterprises as the Indivisible Guide, a blueprint for lobbying Congress written by former congressional staffers, and Planned Parenthood Action.

[Should House Democrats write off rural congressional districts?]

What is less clear is whether such energy and resources will remain united with Democratic leaders or will be turned on them, as happened with the tea party and the Republican establishment, if the activist base grows frustrated with the pace of progress.

There have been some signs of liberal disgruntlement toward Democratic leaders. Pelosi and Schumer (D-N.Y.) were jeered by some in a crowd of more than 1,000 that showed up at the Supreme Court two weeks ago to protest Trumps executive order travel ban. Marchers showed up outside Schumers home in Brooklyn, demanding he filibuster everything and complaining that he supported Trumps Cabinet members involved in national security.

But there are two key differences between the conservative and liberal movements: their funding, and their origins. Some anti-establishment liberal groups have feuded with leaders, but they are poorly funded compared with their conservative counterparts. And the tea party came of age in reaction not only to Obama but, before that, to what the movement considered a betrayal by George W. Bushs White House and a majority of congressional Republicans when they supported the 2008 Wall Street bailout.

There is no similar original sin for Democrats, as the liberal protests have grown as a reaction to Trump, not some failing by Schumer and Pelosi.

Schumer remains unconcerned about the few protesters who are angry at Democratic leaders. I think the energys terrific. Do some of them throw some brickbats and things? Sure, it doesnt bother me, Schumer said in a recent interview.

How the liberal activists respond to early defeats may be the next sign of which direction the movement takes. Their demand that Schumer block Trumps Cabinet is impossible to satisfy, because a simple majority can confirm these picks. All Schumer can do is drag out the debate, which he has done to an unprecedented degree.

The stakes will be even higher for the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch, whose lifetime appointment still requires a 60-vote supermajority to reach a final confirmation vote. A Trump victory on Gorsuch might deflate the liberal passion, and some think that was the main ingredient missing for Democrats in 2016.

We just didnt have the emotional connection, Pelosi told reporters in Baltimore. He had the emotional connection.

More:
A new, liberal tea party is forming. Can it last without turning against Democrats? - Washington Post

A new president blows into Washington, promising to forever change the status quo. He makes bold moves to fulfill those campaign promises. In response, large groups of citizens turn up in the streets and at congressional town halls to (loudly) voice their unhappiness and oppose the president's proposed policies.

In the summer of 2009 it was the tea party, which pretty much declared war on President Barack Obama's stimulus package and health care proposals.

In the winter of 2017 it's Indivisible, a group that's pretty much opposed to all things Trump.

It started out a couple of days after Thanksgiving, at a bar in Austin, Texas, as a conversation between a liberal husband and wife about what to do about Donald Trump. It's morphed into a nationwide movement, comprising 7,000 affiliated groups in all 50 states and almost every congressional district.

That husband and wife, former congressional staffers Ezra Levin and Leah Greenberg, were like a lot of Democrats after the 2016 presidential election -- shellshocked. Liberals wanted to fight back effectively but had no idea how.

"There was this overwhelming cry from different groups of people about not knowing what steps to take in order to fight," said Sarah Dohl, an Indivisible board member and former communications director for Democratic US Rep. Lloyd Doggett of Texas. "We thought we could help."

So Dohl, Greenberg, Levin and a few other people put together a guide of sorts for liberal activism in the age of Trump.

Dohl and Levin worked together in Doggett's office during 2009's tea party summer and witnessed firsthand how a loosely affiliated group of conservatives was able to band together to stymie Obama's agenda. So tea party strategies have been incorporated into Indivisible's guide.

"We believe that the way progressives can win is by emulating two of the tea party's tactics: local activism and defensive politics," said Dohl. "We can do what the tea party did in 2009. They effectively slowed federal policy making to a halt. That's not obstruction for the sake of obstruction, but to save our own progressive ideals."

The guide notes that the tea party activists took "on a popular president with a mandate for change and a supermajority in Congress. We saw them organize locally and convince their own (members of Congress) to reject President Obama's agenda."

Indivisible (Dohl said they wanted a phrase or name with a historical connotation) says it can do the same to President Trump, with what it sees as one key advantage.

"Trump is not popular. He does not have a mandate. He does not have large congressional majorities," the guide says. "If a small minority in the tea party could stop President Obama, then we the majority can stop a petty tyrant named Trump."

Indivisible's guide -- in a "poorly formatted, typo-filled Google Doc" -- was on the Internet by December, but it really took off in liberal corners of the Internet when progressive policy heavyweights like Robert Reich, the former secretary of labor during the Clinton administration, tweeted it out on social media.

Now the group has a little more structure. A more sophisticated website, which Dohl says has gotten about 10 million page views, has replaced the Google Doc. Indivisible became a nonprofit about three weeks ago.

About 100 volunteers around the country -- working remotely nights and weekends because Indivisible doesn't have an office -- do the grunt work of handling emails and social media, maintaining the website and providing congressional updates.

But Indivisible's board members -- Levin, Greenberg, Dohl, immigrant rights advocate Angel Padilla and union organizer Matt Traldi -- stress they're not trying to lead the anti-Trump movement.

"The last few weeks have made it abundantly clear that local groups are taking ownership of the resistance to Trump's agenda themselves," Indivisible says on its website. "You all are the leaders -- we're just here to help."

Indivisible started taking online donations about two weeks ago, but Dohl stresses that none of its money is coming from billionaire George Soros, whose name is often mentioned in conservative circles as backing all kinds of liberal causes.

"We haven't received any money from him," she said. "Those checks must have been lost in the mail."

Moving forward, Indivisible wants to do two things: make it easier for everyday citizens to advocate for the causes they believe in and help local groups implement Indivisible's online guide for "resisting the Trump agenda."

The guide goes on to list tactics the former congressional staffers say work when dealing with Congress: attending town halls, showing up at other public events where a member of Congress may appear (like a ribbon-cutting ceremony), visiting district offices and calling congressional offices.

That first tactic -- showing up at town halls -- was a popular one this week. Progressives and liberals, including some Indivisible-affiliated local groups, have been flooding GOP town halls and other meet-your-representative events, allowing them to publicly lambast the very people trying to roll back Obama's agenda.

But Democrats aren't safe from Indivisible's wrath, either. Just like the tea party tormented GOP members it felt weren't strong enough against Obama, Dohl says it's important for progressives "to stiffen the spine" of congressional Democrats.

Thursday night, two Republican members of Congress -- Reps. Jason Chaffetz of Utah and Diane Black of Tennessee -- were each confronted with impassioned constituents during simultaneous events. The shouted questions, emotional pleas and raucous protesters of the evening crystallized the GOP's tough political road.

In suburban Salt Lake City, local police estimated that some 1,000 people packed into a high school auditorium to see Chaffetz as hundreds more waited outside. For 75 minutes, the congressman confronted a crowd that fumed with resentment of Trump and accused Chaffetz of coddling the President.

They jeered and chanted "Do your job!" when Chaffetz, the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, was pressed on why his panel spent months investigating Hillary Clinton's emails but has not yet launched inquiries into Trump's taxes (Trump has declined to release his tax returns).

Remember, this is Utah. States don't get any redder, and it's amazing to see that much anger bubble up from the Democratic base in a district where Chaffetz was just re-elected by a margin of 47 percentage points.

Black faced the same kind of anger that night in her "Ask Your Reps" event in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.

This is what success looks like to Indivisible.

"Success to us is every delay," said Dohl. "Every time we can change the narrative. Success looks exactly like the Jason Chaffetz town hall (Thursday) night."

CNN's MJ Lee and Eric Bradner contributed to this report.

Read more:
What is Indivisible? Political group hopes to be flip side of tea party - CNN

posted at 9:31 am on February 12, 2017 by Jazz Shaw

Theres no doubt that liberals, unhappy with the election of Donald Trump as the nations next president, are up in arms and taking to the streets in significant numbers. Something (or someone) is clearly driving them (if not funding them) to activism in broad strokes. Theyve been showing up at town hall meetings and disrupting the normal order of business, quite similar to what was seen in 2008 through 2010. This has led the media to attempt to draw tempting parallels to the genesis of the Tea Party. Another example of this phenomenon is found in a weekend piece at the Washington Post which seeks to describe both the opportunities and perils awaiting Democrats should they attempt to hitch their wagon to this new unruly beast. (Washington Post)

Three weeks into President Trumps term, the Democratic Party and progressive establishment have almost entirely adopted the demands of a restive, active and aggressive base. They are hopeful that the new activism more closely resembles the tea party movement, which embraced electoral politics, than the Occupy Wall Street movement, which did not.

The pace of the activists, and the runaway-train approach of Trumps administration, have given them little time to puzzle it out.

He has a strategy to do so many things that he overwhelms the opposition, Gov. John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.) said of Trump, [but] hes creating the largest opposition movement Ive seen in my lifetime in the United States.

The incentive for left-leaning reporters to try to make these comparisons is obvious and in some ways understandable. What is not being reported, either intentionally or through oversight, is the fact that there are also significant differences between the ground game being seen in 2017 and what took place at the end of George W. Bushs term in office.

Having been around for that raucous era, I can well remember much of the chaos that engulfed the movement. When the Tea Party formed, it was quite the hot mess. It began in fits and starts in different parts of the nation, frequently with less than glowing results. In the upstate New York area where I live, two different tea party groups formed with headquarters less than an hour apart. The two organizations almost immediately went to war with each other, while at the same time fighting internal battles with competing leaders attempting to set the agenda. When money was required it was donated by willing and well intended members but all too often, in the normal fashion of such things, bad actors would arrive and attempt to pocket the cash for themselves. All in all, the fact the tea party managed to survive was something of a miracle in and of itself.

What were seeing today is almost entirely different. I do not doubt the sincerity of many of the liberal activists expressing their outrage, but the mechanisms being used to engage and coordinate their efforts are both obvious and very different from the early days of the Tea Party. Social media chains erupt on a moments notice directing protesters to show up at town halls, airports, municipal centers or wherever else they may be needed. These grassroots activists seem to arrive in large groups, frequently with buses provided, carrying pre-printed professional signage and well orchestrated chants which they read off of their mobile devices like an army of Stepford wives whose programming has run into a critical error loop.

Another key difference is the fact that the Tea Party groups generally had a specific agenda of items in matters of governance which they wish to see changed. They were seeking to throw out the old guard regardless of party affiliation before even beginning a discussion of what the new agenda might be. Conversely, todays liberal activists seem to have only one thought in mind: finding a way to end the Trump presidency before it even begins. Rather than fighting for change, they are heeding a call from someone we dont know who yet to forcibly roll back the clock and replay the last eight years of the Obama administration.

These activities are certainly newsworthy and I dont begrudge the media for covering them. But lets not make a mistake here this is not the Tea Party. Its not even remotely similar. This is a finely tuned protest machine, bitter about the recent defeat and seeking to harness friendly forces in the mainstream media to reinforce a daily narrative that the winner of the election as failed before hes even begun. If theres any good news on the horizon, its the fact that much of the public doesnt seem to be paying attention, or at least not blindly accepting everything they see on cable news.

The rest is here:
A few thoughts on this new left-wing tea party movement - Hot Air

Piles of stamps, homemade postcards and boxes of pens and markers filled the tables of Street Side Saigon on Wednesday night as about a dozen people wrote message after message to their legislators.

The notes expressed worry about President Donald Trumps immigration policies, supported halting construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline and protested a measure making it easier to drill in national parks.

It was the second of what organizers hope will be a weekly gathering to send a steady stream of feedback to Arizonas elected officials about what they see as a flood of alarming decisions on the state and national level.

The postcard writing is just one item on a robust list of events and actions organized and promoted by Together We Will Northern Arizona. The group, which came together two days after the November election, is part of a web of local and national organizations that sprang up post-election with a goal of building and sustaining a progressive resistance to the Trump administrations agenda.

Over the course of just a few months, the Flagstaff group has developed a three-pronged approach that includes daily calls to action, marches and public protests and a schedule of community events like talks and art shows, Executive Director Lori Poloni-Staudinger said. Many of the actions replicate those being taken by community groups across the nation or are coordinated with national efforts to amplify impact.

Taken together, the Trump resistance has turned into a grassroots network with a suite of strategies that organizers acknowledge are nothing new they have been wielded by resistance movements since the beginning of our democracy, Poloni-Staudinger said.

But it doesnt require looking far back in history to see the last time such tactics were used with striking success. Even on a local level, Together We Will members acknowledge they are pulling from the same playbook as that used by the Tea Party to stonewall much of former President Barack Obamas initial agenda.

They knew what they were doing, Pam Gemin said matter-of-factly, as she worked through a stack of postcards on Wednesday. Its the same energy, different outcome.

With more than 1,500 members on Facebook, Together We Will Northern Arizona has a broad mission of standing up to threats that are sexist, racist, xenophobic, homophobic or environmentally destructive, Poloni-Staudinger said.

Demonstrating a level of organization and focus on local legislators that echoes the Tea Partys strategy, Together We Will regularly updates a Google document that lists current legislation or other issues of concern, along with contact information for relevant Arizona legislators and a sample script for advocating a particular outcome. The calls to action include both Arizona-specific topics and those pulled from legislative calendars and announcements produced by national progressive organizations like Together We Will USA, Move On and The Action Network, Poloni-Staudinger said. Last week, items ranged from opposing Trumps nominee for Health and Human Services Secretary to pressing Sen. John McCain to help release Guadalupe Garca de Rayos, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico who was deported last week after being in the United States for more than two decades.

One of the action items that remains on the list is a call for State Rep. Bob Thorpe to hold a public forum in Flagstaff. After seeing their phone calls, Twitter messages and emails to Thorpe either ignored or never returned, Together We Will has targeted the Flagstaff legislator with repeated calls to his office and a #wheresbob social media blitz that includes photos of Thorpes face on missing posters and milk cartons.

Typically elected representatives will meet with constituents and he's made it very difficult and has shut down all forms of communication, Poloni-Staudinger said. If he's not communicating then he doesn't necessarily know what we care about.

Group members also requested, and were granted, meetings with U.S. Rep. Tom O'Halleran.

When it comes to getting involved in the next election, Poloni-Staudinger said the group won't be directly campaigning or fundraising for particular candidates. Together We Will is registered with the state as a nonprofit and is filing as a social welfare organization with the Internal Revenue Service, she said. That federal designation falls into a campaign finance gray zone, however, and is often associated with dark money because it allows an organization to participate in political activities, though not to coordinate directly with candidates, but does not require them to disclose details about their donors.

Among those who were writing postcards Wednesday evening, most were wading into political activism for the first time. After feeling a new level of frustration and fear upon watching the Trump administrations first days, they said they felt compelled to get involved in some way.

I wake up every morning, worrying about the state of our world. Every morning thats the first thing on my mind and its the last thing when I go to bed. Thats never happened before and it doesnt seem to be going away, said Tracy Walther, who helped organize Wednesday's event. Ive always been kind of not optimistic about this process working but what else can you do? I feel like there is no other option but to try every single avenue.

Several others at Street Side Saigon echoed that sentiment, saying the postcards at least seemed to be something tangible they could do to inundate their legislators with the message that their constituents are not happy.

While their efforts may not have deep-pocketed donors behind them, Walther said she sees in herself and many others a new willingness to put in sweat equity of sorts.

The voice of the people does not cost a dime and were here and were ready and I think the people are willing to sacrifice that time. Ive never felt that before but now I do. Definitely, she said.

Being relentless is just one of the qualities that those resisting Trumps agenda can learn from the Tea Party strategy, Gemin said.

I think that they knew what they were doing and were remarkably organized, she said, later adding, the other thing, too, is dont get discouraged, just keep pushing.

Ann Kirkpatrick, the former U.S. Representative for Arizona's Congressional District 1, was one of the legislators caught up in the Tea Partys fierce opposition to Obamas Affordable Care Act. In one highly publicized video, Kirkpatrick had to leave a "Chat with Ann" event after being shouted down by anti-Obamacare attendees.

Though in Kirkpatricks case people got so aggressive that the county sheriff asked her to leave, the former congresswoman maintains that in-person events are some of the most effective ways for people to make their views heard.

People should use their voices in any way they can, Kirkpatrick said.

Poloni-Staudinger maintains that one major difference is Together We Will and others do not employ or promote the same aggressive tactics as the Tea Party.

The way Stewart Deats sees it, it was a very small, squeaky-wheeled group of people who got Trump elected.

Now its time for the silent majority, he said. You cant be counted unless youre heard.

Original post:
Tea Party tactics show up in Flagstaff protest strategies - Arizona Daily Sun