Stars and Strife

How two feuding tea party leaders helped lay the groundwork for the insurrection

- By Stephanie Mencimer

“Hello, deplorables!”

That’s how Amy Kremer greeted the thousands of Trump supporters she had helped gather at the Ellipse in Washington, DC, on January 6 to “stop the steal.” Resplendent onstage in a bold leopard-print shawl, with the White House rising up behind her, the former flight attendant had come a long way since she and another Georgia woman, Jenny Beth Martin, became known as the “founding mothers” of the tea party movement back in 2009.

During the heyday of the grassroots conservative movement that had sprung up to oppose President Barack Obama, Kremer had headlined cross-country bus tours stumping for candidates like Christine (“I’m not a witch”) O’Donnell and fighting against the Affordable Care Act. The tea party had helped elect hardcore conservatives who blew up immigration reform and took down former Republican House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) for insufficient conservatism.

But six months into the life of the movement, the two women split up, and this was before a bitter legal dispute—over tactics and money and salacious rumors—that lasted for years. As the Republican Party absorbed and institutionalized their movement, Martin successfully embedded in the Washington GOP establishment while Kremer kept trying to recapture the outsider energy of those early glory days.