As someone who reported on quite a few tea party gatherings after the election of President Obama added jet fuel to anti-government sentiment, I became familiar with the yellow flag and coiled snake ready to strike what was explained as expected government overreach.

From Washington, D.C., to Charlotte, N.C., I waded into crowds of the aggrieved and the furious and listened to detailed predictions of a government run amok, ignoring every constitutional right that stood in its way.

At the first National Tea Party conference at Tennessee’s Gaylord Opryland resort and convention center in 2010, several attendees did not need much prompting to spin a tale of what they imagined would come with Obama as commander in chief: helicopters descending on American neighborhoods in the middle of t

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