Teabaggers may have a point of possibly very real merit, and progressives ignore it at their peril.
Let's face it, there's a damn lot of anger about the kazillions that have gone to bail out banks.
We working stiffs and our children have been stiffed with probably a good portion of that bill. And we are continuing to be stiffed by the very people WE paid to bail out. This while scads of people are unemployed, deep-shit in debt, have ruined credit, have lost their home or owe more on it than it is worth, or all of the above.
If it's not out-fucking-rageous and enraging to you to watch multimillion dollar tax-payer-funded salaries go to people intent on only filthy lucre, check your pulse.
Teabaggers and Paultards insist that the banks should have been left alone to fail. Sure, there would have been pain; but, most of us are in pain right now. Perhaps, after all, the banks should have been left alone to fail so we could pick up the pieces and rebuild again afterward.
I'm not claiming that the above depiction is necessarily fully warranted. It may be that The Greater Great Depression was averted, I honestly don't know. But in politics, it is perception that equals reality.
Don't underestimate the underlying economic rage expressed by teabaggers. It's a rage shared much more widely than just among them, including by many progressives and independent moderates. And it is ripe for the picking by someone seeking votes.
Democrats must co-opt this rage. This will require some very serious finessing, since anything they do will be auto-labeled as "government takeover" and socialism. Yet that is the environment we are in. Democrats must figure a way to rebound the economy while at the same time satisfying the rather tribal demand for retribution against banks and recovering from them the lion's share of taxpayer money.
UPDATE1: Changed title from declarative to a question.