Ready to fight back? Sign up for Take Action Now and get three actions in your inbox every week. You will receive occasional promotional offers for programs that support The Nation’s journalism. You can read our Privacy Policy here. Sign up for Take Action Now and get three actions in your inbox every week.

Thank you for signing up. For more from The Nation, check out our latest issue

Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month!

Support Progressive Journalism The Nation is reader supported: Chip in $10 or more to help us continue to write about the issues that matter. The Nation is reader supported: Chip in $10 or more to help us continue to write about the issues that matter.

Fight Back! Sign up for Take Action Now and we’ll send you three meaningful actions you can take each week. You will receive occasional promotional offers for programs that support The Nation’s journalism. You can read our Privacy Policy here. Sign up for Take Action Now and we’ll send you three meaningful actions you can take each week.

Thank you for signing up. For more from The Nation, check out our latest issue

Travel With The Nation Be the first to hear about Nation Travels destinations, and explore the world with kindred spirits. Be the first to hear about Nation Travels destinations, and explore the world with kindred spirits.

Sign up for our Wine Club today. Did you know you can support The Nation by drinking wine?

The idea that the Tea Party is an accurate representation of Americans’ political views was put to the test in this week’s primaries—and it turns out that it’s a false notion. More moderate Republicans won out over the Tea Party faction of the right in Kansas, Missouri and Michigan. The Nation‘s Melissa Harris-Lacewell joins Keith Olbermann on Countdown to discuss what these losses signify for the future of the Tea Party in America. Ad Policy

The Tea Party, she says, is part of a traditional extremist backlash that occurs before a political party moves back to the center. "When a party loses the White House, what it tends to do in the midterm is to pull to the extreme. We’ve seen it happen over and over again," Harris-Lacewell explains. "But then what it finds out is… most people’s opinions are kind of towards the middle, with just a few people, often very vocal people, out on the edges. But if you want to win an election, you’ve got to get a majority of the people, which always means moving into the center of that normal curve."

—Carrie Battan