Occupy and the Tea Party

Occupy and the Tea Party were both a populist reaction to the "elites". After the economic crisis of 2008, bought about by risk taking on Wall Street and a lack of foresight and oversight by successive administrations, the recovery was hindered by an economic stimulus package focused not on those who needed it but the institutions that apparently we couldn't do without (the investment banks). 

The bailout infuriated both the left who didn't see why the already wealthy should have their firms saved at tax payers' expense and the populist right who did't see that tax payers should be on the hook at all¹.  

But the recovery was slow and populist resentment continued to simmer. The establishment left was unable to pivot to capitalize on it, perhaps being preoccupied with less directly concerns and because of their disdain for the "deplorables". Occupy was of course antithetical to structure and organized action and inevitably faded away. The Tea Party however didn't and the GOP was happy to embrace its members as they embraced the establishment (or at least the levers of establishment power). And the result was Donald Trump.

Covid presents another economic crisis. If the GOP has learned anything from the last 12 years it's that they are better organised and positioned to harness the resentment economic hardship generates; so they have an incentive not to provide economic relief. Their best bet for getting back into power is to make life sufficiently difficult for people who are struggling financially² that those people will turn to the only populist party we have. This one of the three levers by which the GOP and the minority it represents cling onto power; that, gerrymandering and voter suppression. Their only problem is that they will have to wrets power over their party from a flagrantly self-dealing family who has found another grift to exploit. 

¹ In the end it appeared that the toxic assets the government acquired in the bailout actual made it money rather than costing it money.

² while cleverly avoiding blame by rediscovering the "we can't raise the debt" mantra to justify their actions - something they conveniently forgot when dishing out huge tax cuts four years ago.