As his fellow traders whistled and cheered, he went on to say, “We’re thinking of having a Chicago Tea Party in July. All you capitalists that want to show up to Lake Michigan, I’m gonna start organizing.” From the start, the analogy was inapt. As Michael Grunwald, author of The New New Deal, a richly reported book about Obama’s stimulus plan, observed, “The Boston Tea Party was a protest against an unelected leader who raised taxes, while Obama was an elected leader who had just cut them.”

