The New York Times, in its assessment of the Scottish secessionist movement, offered the Tea Party a backhanded compliment: “When you get past the details of the Scottish independence referendum Thursday, there is a broader story underway, one that is also playing out in other advanced nations. It is a crisis of the elites. Scotland’s push for independence is driven by a conviction – one not ungrounded in reality – that the British ruling class has blundered through the last couple of decades. The same discontent applies to varying degrees in the United States and, especially, the eurozone. It is, in many ways, a defining feature of our time. The rise of … the Tea Party in the United States [is] rooted in a sense that, having been granted vast control over the levers of power, the political elite across the advanced world have made a mess of things.” The Scots are generally pretty far Left on the political spectrum, so they aren’t like the Tea Party in that sense. But while voters for Scottish independence didn’t end up with a majority, they, like the Tea Party, may bring about change nonetheless. More…