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The anti-Trump resistance movement stretches far beyond major cities, or even states Trump lost. It's also nearly twice as popular as its right-wing counterpart.

"Take a look at the shot from Mount Desert Island in Maine," MSNBC host Rachel Maddow pointed out, showing a photo of a newly formed "indivisible" activist group gathered for a meeting earlier this week.

"55 people here at the first meeting of MDI Indivisible. Not bad for a town of 5,000," tweetedthe photographer, Jennifer S Booher.

"You see the hats that they're wearing? Those are little statue liberty crowns," Maddow noted. They were, incidentally, the same hats worn by Tea Party membersa trend set by high-profile members like Virginia "Ginny" Thomas.

"I remember back in 2010 at the start of the Tea Party movement that sprung up on the right to oppose President Obama... when we discovered that one of the high-profile organizers of that effort was the wife of a sitting Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas' wife, Ginny Thomas. [Ginny] was a Tea Party activist and in a very involved way; she founded something called Liberty Central."

Liberty Central was a conservative activist group founded in 2009 with over half a million dollars from undisclosed donors.

"They tried to get all the Tea Party people to wear these Statue of Liberty foam crowns [and] around the time that Clarence Thomas' wife Ginny was raising money from undisclosed donors for the Tea Party movement by selling those foam crowns... the Washington Post did a national poll asking Americans whether or not they had ever heard about this Tea Party movement that was taking shape."

That was in October 2010, when 54 percent of Americans were aware of the Tea Party.

"That compares roughly with the percentage of Americans right now who say they've heard about those women's marches that took place in protest of the new president, Donald Trump (57 percent)," Maddow pointed out.

"However, at the height of the Tea Party's power, the proportion of Americans who said they supported or leaned toward supporting the Tea Party was 39 percent. Right now the number of Americans who say they support or lean toward supporting the women's marches is sixty percent," the host added.

The Washington Post poll was taken in 2010, one month before the midterm elections of November 2010 when Republicans captured the House. It was a major turning point for the right, but also the decline of their movement.

"Americans, broadly speaking, are equally aware of those two movements," Maddow hammered. "A big solid majority of America approves of the women's marches that happened in protest of Donald Trump, and they are supported by Americans at a rate that outstrips support for the Tea Party at its apex by more than 20 points."

Watch:

Alexandra Rosenmann is an AlterNet associate editor. Follow her@alexpreditor.

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Rachel Maddow Drops Truth Bomb on the Right: Trump Resistance ... - AlterNet

Let the Democrats form a tea party-type group

After reading Froma Harrop's column, "Democrats must protest by vote," (R&L, Feb. 1) I was left with a question.

She states, Many Democrats hope the massive demonstrations against Donald Trump will evolve into a Democratic tea party. Isnt her idea of forming a tea party to get votes the same idea conservative Republicans had?

I wonder if she remembers what happened to the tea party back then. Remember Lois Lerner and the IRS? Harrop may think a tea party-type group could win votes for Democrats in 2018. I say that is a wonderful idea. Form a Democratic Tea Party!

But then, I ask myself if she remembers what happened to the conservative tea party in 2013. The IRS was directed to play games using government departments to work against the tea party's request for tax-exempt status.

The Democratic Tea Party might have to go through same process? Oh, can you hear the squeals all across the media? My sweet tea would taste a little sweeter if they decide to form a Democratic Tea Party.

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LETTER: Let the Democrats form a tea party-type group - Statesville Record & Landmark

The State

Letters: Who defended tea party protesters? The State You could have fooled me. I don't remember all of the First Amendment advocates coming out of the woodwork back when people were criticizing tea party members who were assembling to protest during the Obama administration. Obviously, some people ...

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Letters: Who defended tea party protesters? - The State

The Tea Party, which began in the early years of the Obamas administration, had a lot less support than todays anti-Trump Womens marches.

You can see that in this graph of data from the Washington Post, which in late January 2017 asked about support for the Womens marches, and earlier queried about Tea Party support in April 2010.

The difference is substantial 60% support for the Womens marches and just 27% for the Tea Party.

Do the popularity of these protests matter? Yes.

Tea Party activities ramped up in opposition to the Affordable Care Act. Repealing the ACA, even if theres some sort of substitute (which would cover fewer people with weaker coverage), will cause further protests.

The Womens marches were remarkable, with millions gathered through the country and the world. More participated in Washington, D.C. than attended the Trump inaugural.

Its increasingly easy to organize events via text message and social media. Just look at what happened last weekend as people quickly gathered all around the country to protest Trumps Executive Order on refugees and immigrants.

The Tea Party had an impact on the 2010 midterm elections, which then limited what President Obama was able to accomplish. Its focused energy influenced Republican legislators to oppose Obama administration policy and brought voters to the polls.

If these early anti-Trump protests and associated political activities letter-writing campaigns and the like continue, remain highly popular and even grow, they will likely make a real political difference.

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Protests against Trump are far more popular than the Tea Party ever - Bangor Daily News

At the red-hot center of President Trump's first 10 days in office has been his strategist Stephen Bannon, who proclaims a global populist movement for "Judeo-Christian" values and against radical Islam.

Bannon is a passionate ideologue who is the intellectual center of the new administration. For nearly a decade he has been advertising his desire to turn America and the world upside down. He's now doing exactly that. Trump's "America First" trade policies and his anti-refugee travel ban are early glimmers of the revolution Bannon has long been advocating.

As the uproar over Trump's actions grows, it's important to distinguish between policies that are politically controversial and those that actually undermine the country's foundations. The haphazard executive order banning travel by people from seven Muslim-majority countries seems to be the latter: It strikes at America's core values.

The folly of the travel ban is that it is producing the opposite of what Trump says he wanted. It weakens America's alliances, emboldens our adversaries and puts the country at greater risk. It's not just misguided and heartless; it's dangerous. It affirms the Islamic State's narrative that it's at war with an anti-Muslim America.

The weakness of Bannon's strategy in these first days of Trump's presidency has been its impatience and disorganization. The White House's opening salvoes have been rushed, poorly planned shots that resulted in what Sen. John McCain called a "self-inflicted wound." In his seeming counsel to Trump, Bannon appears to have overlooked Benjamin Franklin's famous advice: "Haste makes waste."

Some critics have argued that Bannon is a white nationalist and, even, a neo-Nazi. What follows is a more measured account, sticking to his own explanations of how he sees the world and seeks to overturn the establishment's network of trade and security policies.

As with many revolutionaries, Bannon's story is that of a wealthy man who came to see himself as a vanguard for the masses. He rose from a middle-class life in Richmond, Virginia, through an uneventful stint with the Navy; but his life changed after he enrolled at Harvard Business School, joined Goldman Sachs, founded an investment firm, and made a fortune. He began directing conservative agitprop documentaries in 2004, but the 2008 financial crisis was a turning point. Bannon saw it as a betrayal of working people, and he embraced the tea party's conservative revolt against Republican and Democratic elites.

Bannon gained a powerful platform in 2012 when he became chairman of the hard-right Breitbart.com after the death of its founder, Andrew Breitbart. In an April 2010 speech to a tea party gathering in New York that was posted on YouTube, Bannon's radical rhetoric evoked the 1960s and fused left and right: "It doesn't take a weatherman to tell you which way the wind blows, and the wind blows off the high plains of the country through the prairie, and lighting a fire that's going to burn all the way to Washington."

By 2014, Bannon saw himself leading what he called a "global tea party movement" against a financial elite that he described as "the party of Davos." In a summer 2014 speech broadcast to a conference inside the Vatican, he railed against Wall Street bailouts and "crony capitalists." Racists and anti-Semites might get attracted to this movement, he said, "but there's always elements who turn up at these things, whether it's militia guys or whatever . . . it all gets kind of washed out, right?"

The rise of the Islamic State in 2014 gave Bannon a new rallying cry: "We are in an outright war against jihadist Islamic fascism," he told the Vatican audience. "I believe you should take a very, very, very aggressive stance against radical Islam."

Breitbart's London branch became a leading advocate of "Brexit," and on the day Britain voted to leave the European Union, it thundered: "There's panic in the skyscrapers. A popular revolution against globalism is underway." Bannon pressed that theme after Trump's victory, telling Breitbart's radio show on Dec. 30 it was only the "top of the first inning."

Last Friday's travel ban echoed themes Bannon has developed over a half-dozen years. It brought cheers from the right-wing parties in Europe that are Bannon's allies. "Well done," tweeted Dutch populist Geert Wilders. "What annoys the media and the politicians is that Trump honors his campaign promises," tweeted French right-wing leader Marine Le Pen.

Bannon undeniably has a powerful radical vision. But this time, he may have blundered. The travel ban has triggered a counter-revolt among millions of Americans who saw his target as the Statue of Liberty.

David Ignatius writes a foreign affairs column. He has also written eight spy novels. "Body of Lies" was made into a 2008 film starring Leonard DiCaprio and Russell Crowe. He began writing his column in 1998. To read more of his reports, Click Here Now.

Washington Post Writers Group.

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Bannon Leading a 'Global Tea Party Movement' - Newsmax