Also a quick google search showed that 75% of the Tea Party were 45 or older (back in 2012).
My take is that there’s a desperation behind the last 20 years or so.
Haven’t you wondered what would cause an entire segment of the population to take a deep dive with thinly-disguised racists and Russian trolls?
Even having a balanced budget hasn't worked out for "the right". When they've been in power, the budget deficit hasn't really decreased.
Perhaps this has made "the right" more desperate? Maybe they need to rethink their principles instead?
(I use quotation marks for the sides, because these really aren't issues that fit on a one dimensional scale. A libertarian could fall on the right, but still support "the left" on most of the above issues. Also, this is mostly US specific.)
The Democratic establishment is in danger of this fate in the long term as well. They are sure taking the easy money from the progressive talk, but if they don’t deliver, it’s going to backfire in 2-3 elections from within.
In my opinion that is a good property in general, just no for elections.
The Democrats lack physical presence. It’s been an ongoing issue for us for a very long time. We had extreme issues with getting our youth vote out, getting our minority votes out. It literally took a black President to get that demo to show up, and for some reason they stopped showing up right after he was gone (for Hilary). The kids don’t turn out at all for decades now. Many could argue if we didn’t literally send out mail in ballots, the turn out would have been lower. Republicans don’t have this problem, so no, I don’t think a warcry works on the Democrats because we have been very weak on physical presence for decades now.
But in terms of madness, of course, all mobs are susceptible to this. Virtual turn out on the left is disproportionately high. The #metoo and BLM movements are clear examples of this. But again, the physical presence is lacking. The riots last summer were a blip and not coordinated, and led to zero legislation. I’ll concede #metoo inevitably entered into madness territory.
The Republican tea-party people have been practicing for years protesting in DC, and they have their physical turnout covered in almost every election.
If anything, I envy the right-wing’s ability to rally, and do not fear rally-calls on the left because we can barely show up for an election.