We all agree that Tea Party revolutionaries are nuts. Their political beliefs are insane, and it is easy to mock their bunker, militia, paranoid mentality (though that mockery comes with a hint of fear if you live in certain parts of the country). They have become overwhelmed with cynicism and anger, and are absolutely convinced that the country is beyond saving with conventional means and that the only way to save it is some sort of apocalyptic change.
This strain of thought has cousins on the left - not as many, but they're there. Natural, legitimate, understandable cynicism and frustration occasionally deepens into the same idea: that the country is beyond saving with conventional means, and that apocalyptic change is necessary. I've seen this crop up here a lot lately (it tends to show up in waves during silly season). People openly mock the idea of creating change through voting or through the conventional political process. Instead, they put all their eggs in the basket of a large-scale left-wing revolution.
But even though the political beliefs of left-wing revolutionaries are less insane than those of the right-wing ones, the idea is still terrible. Worse, it gets in the way of actually creating change.
The scenario most often floated from revolutionaries on the left is a series of mass protests against income inequality (possibly combined with other issues), like Occupy but a couple orders of magnitude bigger. In conversations with various people on DKos, people have told me that the plan would be to have millions of people camped out in the middle of major cities, demonstrating and causing so much disruption to business as usual that the government eventually accedes to their demands.
So here's the problem.
First of all, it's not going to happen. In order to bring this off, you need millions of people with the necessary combination of motivation and commitment. At the height of Occupy, you only had tens of thousands actually camped out in various cities. The reason is that camping out for the necessary length of time is not a luxury most people can afford. People have families, and jobs; you'd have to have people walking off work en masse. But they need to feed their kids.
And I just don't see the surge of public anger that would be necessary to overcome the inertia. It would take a true tidal wave - even at the height of the Vietnam War, there was no revolution! Just because you can get a couple hundred people on Kos talking about it doesn't mean the public mood is there. More likely, people would get annoyed at you for trying to shut things down (look what happened during the government shutdown).
Second, what would happen if you tried? In these rosy, optimistic scenarios, the right wing is remarkably silent. But in real life, they wouldn't be. You think they're just going to sit by and let you "take their country away from them"? They have more money, and more guns, than you. And half of the country, more or less, already believes what they have to say. There would be counter-mobilization from the Tea Party, well-funded by the Kochs and other right-wing billionaires. Instead of three million people camped out peacefully demanding change, you'd have two groups of three million people who are very angry at each other. This is a recipe for civil war.
Third, it gets in the way of creating real change. What if, instead of fantasizing about revolution, you channeled that energy into focused activism or volunteering? Find a candidate you like and send them money, or volunteer. You might not be thrilled with your local Democrat, but there are plenty of progressive candidates nationwide who could really use the dollars, or the help. Shenna Bellows, in Maine, is one example.
Or, if working within the system isn't your thing, go out and protest for your preferred cause! Occupy had a very positive effect on the national conversation. It might not be realistic to expect activism to start a revolution, but it can absolutely create change. It can even create massive change over the long term.
And even if you don't have time or resources, just talking to people and trying to put a human face on issues is really important. That's how we won the fight for marriage equality - we appealed to people's sense of empathy, and that produced incredible change in a very short time. If we can find a way to harness that innate sense of empathy and fairness and direct it towards other issues, we'll be unstoppable.
In short, I know the current state of the country can be frustrating. But instead of sitting around navel-gazing about revolution, get out there and try to do something real. Me, I'm going to volunteer for Gary Peters this summer. What's your plan?