They rode to power on the back of a populist movement driven by incoherent anger and fear. Now the new GOP lawmakers in the House are starting to find out just how crazy the teabaggers can be, as the “Tea Party Patriots” make a last minute demand that GOP members attend their event instead of an orientation by the Claremont Institute — and release the politicians’ personal phone numbers and email addresses to the angry mob, with instructions to pressure them.

Which they did.

Incoming members say they never received an invitation to participate in the Tea Party Patriots event held in the Ronald Reagan building in Washington, D.C., on Sunday.

“Nobody received any type of (invitation), it was just ‘this is what’s happening, please don’t go here,’ but I’m a big boy and I can choose where I need to go and where I need to be,” incoming Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) said in an interview on Sunday afternoon before heading into a meeting at the Capitol Hill Club, a Republican unofficial headquarters in the shadow of the U.S. Capitol, with members of his freshmen class.

“I didn’t know it was happening until I started getting inundated with emails and (messages) filling up my voicemail,” West’s colleague told The Hill.

One irate incoming member told The Hill that the Tea Party tactic to release personal contact information of the new class was “extremely counterproductive and, in all honesty, an incredible violation of privacy.”