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Fifteen years ago this week ( April 15, 2009 ), the grassroots Tea Party movement rallied to oppose the massive government programs ( bailouts, ObamaCare ) pushed by new President Barack Obama. In reply, left- aircraft cable networks employed youthful jokes to disparage the activity, while the spread networks decried it as a front for” business interests”.
The internet putdowns failed, of training. The following November, the energy supplied by the Tea Party contributed to a” shellacking” of Democrats in the 2010 elections, as Republicans gained 63 House seats and six Senate seats ( seven if you count Scott Brown’s upset in a January special election in Massachusetts ).
The second T. E. A. Party ( Taxed Enough Already ) protests took place in various cities on February 27, 2009, a reaction to presumed new taxes that would inevitably result from the Obama administration’s huge bailouts and spending programs. April 15 was designated as” tax day,” the deadline for filing federal income tax forms, for a significant regional opposition.
David Shuster mocked the Tea Party by consistently using the vernacular name “teabagging” when he assumed the role of host of MSNBC’s Clock with Keith Olbermann on April 13.
” The appropriate will go crazy for it, and it’s going to be teabagging moment for them.” The teabaggers are full-throated about their objectives, Shuster sophomorically sneered as thousands of them whipped out the ceremonies earlier this past weekend, even though the parties are actually bald.
The second night, CNN’s Anderson Cooper got into the action. ” Republicans are very much in turmoil… They’re searching for their voice”, scientist David Gergen curtly opined on the April 14 AC360. ” It’s hard to talk when you’re teabagging”, Cooper snickered.
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April 15 marked the biggest protests against Obama’s laws. CNN analyst Paul Begala lamented that true patriots would have no problem giving their money to liberal bureaucrats on the morning program of Imus in the Morning in New York City, calling them” just a bunch of wimpy, whiny, weasels who do n’t love their country.” There are some Walter Reed men who fought their lives for my land because they must publish a search, right?
Over on NBC’s Now, Chuck Todd dismissed the Tea Party as no great deal. ” There’s been some grassroots conservatives who have organized therefore- called’ tea parties’ around the company, country, hoping the traditional reference will assist galvanize Americans against the President’s financial ideas. But I tell you, the idea has n’t really caught on…. It has n’t been as positive as they would have liked the party.
On CNN that evening, editor Susan Roesgen decried the opposition as” a group for Obama bashers…. It’s anti- state, anti- CNN, since this is greatly promoted by the correct aircraft traditional network, Fox. I’ll throw it back to you because I ca n’t really hear much and consider this to be “family viewing.”
On ABC’s World News that evening, correspondent Dan Harris referred to the protests as being” cheered on by Fox News and speak radio,” he added that” critics on the left” had claimed that” this is not a real community phenomenon, that it is actually generally orchestrated by persons fronting for business objectives.
Despite the fact that some observers believe not all of the “tea parties” were as grown up as they appear, organizers insist that today’s “tea parties” were organic uprisings of like-minded taxpayers from both parties. Over at CBS, correspondent Dean Reynolds reacted with caution when he warned that “it’s important to keep in mind that recent polls indicate there is not all that much passion about high taxes in the country at large right now.”
In an online piece published that afternoon, New York Times reporter Liz Robbins retorted that” all of these tax day parties seemed less about revolution and more about group therapy.” People holding signs expressing their anger without offering any solutions were dressed patriotically and holding banners at the rallies. Someone must have thought she overstated it because Robbins ‘ witty observations were omitted from the article’s version that appeared in the Times ‘ print edition on April 16.
Following the demonstrations, MSNBC’s Countdown on April 16 gave left-wing activist and actress Janeane Garofalo a platform to accuse the Tea Partiers of being ignorant and racist. ” Let’s be very honest about what this is about”, she sneered. ” It’s not about bashing Democrats, it’s not about taxes, they have no idea what the Boston Tea Party was about, they do n’t know their history at all. This is about despising a black person in the White House. This is pure racism. That is nothing more than a group of teabagging rednecks.
The rest of the year’s course of events were precipitated by the disdainful coverage of the April rallies. What do you call a group of crazed people who disrupt a health care meeting and hang the congressman in an effigy? A mob”, ex- CNN reporter Bob Franken deplored in his August 7″ Politics Daily” column on AOL.
” When Hamas does it or Hezbollah does it, it is called terrorism. Why should Republican lawmakers and the AstroTurf organizations that support the healthcare sector be treated differently? MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann growled that same night on Countdown.
” They’ve waved signs likening President Obama to Hitler and the devil, raised questions about whether he was really born in this country, falsely accused him of planning to set up death panels, decried his speech to students as indoctrination, and called him everything from a’ fascist’ to a’ socialist’ to a ‘ communist.'” ABC’s Harris scolded on the September 15 World News. Add it all up, and some well-known Obama supporters are now claiming that it evokes a perception of an opposition that is largely motivated by a refusal to accept a black president.
The media likes to portray radical liberals ‘ cause as popular and vehemently oppose Republican policies when they storm the streets to protest their positions. But when it came to the anti- big government Tea Party, the media’s mission was to disparage and destroy the grassroots opposition to the Obama administration’s unprecedented liberalism.
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