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The Tea Party was a grassroots movement that coalesced mostly in response to the economic crisis in 2008 and the US gov't response of bailouts to various entities. It grew over the course of 2009 and 2010 on a general platform of no new taxes and debt/deficit/spending reduction (originally an American Revolution reference, TEA became "Taxed Enough Already"). Probably best known for its opposition to Obamacare, and a significant contributor to the Republican wave election of 2010. At the time, it was practically unique in being a right-aligned popular protest movement (and, famously, known for leaving its protest sites cleaner than when the protesters arrived). While members of the movement had individual political views that were broadly conservative-ish, the movement as a whole was strictly focused on taxation and fiscal responsibility issues--it did not have a social policy platform.
In any case, if you're going to go from public rallies in parks to any sort of real political impact, you need organization and fundraising with an eye to electing friendly candidates for office. That means setting up 501(c)(3)s and 501(c)(4)s with the IRS. With Lois Lerner on point, the IRS went to work trying to choke off the movement financially, by a combination of sitting on applications without movement for months at a time, making periodic records demands that escalated to ludicrous levels of invasiveness, leaking donor information to hostile third-parties, etc.
The Tea Party didn't last much longer, though a couple of the orgs created acquired grifters and continued on, zombie-fashion, for another year or two after 2010. A lot of the original support for Trump's candidacy in 2015-2016 came from veterans of the Tea Party who were less inclined to politeness the second time around.
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