A New Political Age in America: The Era of Grassroots Democracy

There is no better day to make this observation than the 4th of July.

America is in the early stages of a new political age. I call it The Era of Grassroots Democracy.

We're in the latter stages of the 20 month gestation period, which began on February 20, 2009 when about 50 online conservative activists organized and planned the very simultaneous nationwide tea parties, which were held on February 27, 2009 in 51 cities and attended by 30,000 activists.

The new Era of Grassroots Democracy will arrive on Election Day, November 2, 2010 when voters tell Nancy Pelosi and her Democratic colleagues that she will not be Speaker of the House of Representatives in January of 2011. But the Republican Establishment need not celebrate that victory, nor should they claim much credit for it. The loss of Congress by the Democrats will be powered by the energy and organization of the millions of grassroots conservative activists who comprise the Tea Party Movement.

The grand pooh-bahs at the Democratic National Committee and the Republican National Committee, those champions of Big Government statism and the personal acquisition of power, are on their way out. They are relics of an era gone by, and are too dense to comprehend that reality yet.

No one likes them.

No one respects them.

No one trusts them.

No one believes they act on principle.

No one thinks they are thought leaders with any original ideas to address our country's problems.

This new Era of Grassroots Democracy will have three defining characteristics:

1. It will be Post-Partisan.
2. It will be Ideologically Competitive.
3. It will signal a revival of citizen activism within a new type of intensely engaged, participative grassroots democracy, enabled and accelerated by dramatic advances in technology.