April 2014: What Americans and the world must do after the Tea Party's first defeat

Imagine it's April 2014. Winter is fading, the days are getting longer. The Tea Party is in its cave, licking wounds and sharpening knives.

America is not quite in recession, but we're still digging out from the partial default of 2013.  The American dollar has fallen relative to other currencies and we pay more interest for short term treasuries. The falling currency has been a boost to manufacturing, and maybe we're finally getting some of the inflation we need. The state healthcare exchanges are operational and the federal exchange is finally more or less working.

Internationally the past few months have been an education in American civics. There's a bit more understanding of what Presidents can and can't do, and a wariness about the future of the American nation.

At home we have a better understanding of what drives the Tea Party -- decades of static white male income, fears of loss of historic privilege, and a deep fear of minority status and changing social mores. Did I mention fear and uncertainty?

So what should Americans, and non-Americans who are collateral damage in the latest bout of our centuries old slaver war, be doing?

We, everywhere, should be working on America's wealthy and America's corporations. The only way to manage the Tea Party is to strengthen the rational minority within America's GOP. That means funding GOP reformers and fighting Tea Party candidates. The only people who are going to do that are corporate donors, Chamber of Commerce members, wealthy Americans and others who still, barely, have a place in the GOP.

I'm not going to fund the GOP, but someone has to. We all need to put relentless pressure on the GOP's 'rational' donors to fight the Tea Party. We need to be doing that now, we need to be doing that next April.