Tea Party

The railroading of the TeaParty is a great example of FakeNews. Media crumbling trust started in 2009. The railroading of the TeaParty is a great example of FakeNews, either through gross incompetence or more likely leftist malice. It started simply as bipartisan anti-tax, anti-spending, and anti-debt. But they got presented as racist, hyper-religious, far-right extremists, not to mention mocking them as "tea baggers" (testicle suckers). ℹ️ Info           ~ Aristotle Sabouni Created: 2019-02-18

The railroading of the TeaParty is a great example of FakeNews. The TeaParty started under Bush, as a bunch of bi-partisan people angry at rising debt, and it escalated under Obama's trillion dollar porkulus. The media mocked them as radicals, racists and domestic terrorists and called them TeaBaggers (after the sexual practice of sucking testicles), and after 4 years of false stories were able to drive-out many of the moderates and democrats, leaving more the dedicated right, patriotic right and religious right (as they were used to being bullied and lied about, so it didn't phase them).

If you read places like Wikipedia, or listen to the left-wing news, you'll get none of that context/backstory (or history of how they moved right over time), leaving readers/viewers with a view that's quite different from reality. But their treatment by the media/left was a great example of the confluence of ignorance and arrogance about them and their issues. Medias crumbling trust started long before Trump in 2016, this goes back to 2009.

History

If you lived through the Tea Party movement, you know that it was started under Bush (not Obama), it was against fiscal waste -- and while that did make them right leaning, they were libertarians, conservatives and blue-dog democrats (moderate or fiscally competent Democrats), only later, after years of calling them Tea Baggers, pretending they were domestic terrorists, racists and fanatics was the left-wing media able to drive out all the moderate democrats and others and did it become a conservative caucus. (This treatment helped re-ignite the contempt that the informed had against the media, and began the modern FakeNews thing).

Some background:

• In 1984 the Koch brothers had created the CSE (Citizens for a second economy) with Ron Paul (libertarian) as chairmen, "to fight for less government, lower taxes, and less regulation."
  • In 2002 they had their own website (www.usteaparty.com).
  • In 2004 they split into two groups: FreedomWorks and Americans for Prosperity Foundation -- both with similar causes and became strong supporters/motivators of the Tea Party.
• In 1992 Ross Perot ran an Independent Presidential Campaign under his "Reform Party" that was mostly about balancing the budget and dealing with deficit spending. He was famous for with his informercial full of slides talking about balancing the budget and where money goes. Ross got more support than any 3rd party in recent times (19% of the popular vote), and split the Republicans enough that Bill Clinton squeaked in.
• Democrats hammered deficit spending in the 80's, 90's and especially 2000's with the Iraq War -- ignoring that the biggest contributors to the deficit was not discretionary or military spending of Presidents but mandatory spending that was part of the social programs passed by Democrats. The Democrats were always resistant to any spending cuts and caps. However, since Republicans took the house/senate under Clinton, they were able cap spending growth during the Clinton years and alleviate some of the pressure.
• The Iraq War was relatively inexpensive for its scale: it cost less than the Obamacare deficits, or porkulus alone. (The left inflates the numbers by throwing in all military salaries, benefits and pensions -- but if you do that to Social Security and leftist programs, it dwarfs the war costs). It wasn't until Democrats took back congress in 2006 that things really started getting out of hand (spending started ballooning). Bush had also compromised with Democrats on creating medicare part-D, education funding for NCLB, and creation of the TSA and other national security bureaucracies that started to get out of control. Things were getting bad again.
• Then Ron Paul's efforts for 2008 presidential campaign had been on runaway spending, and started to re-ignite or coalesce the fiscal prudent wings of the Republicans and some democrats. Ron's 2007 Moneybomb fundraiser event on the Boston Tea Party's 234th anniversary had all the themes that the movement was later known for, and many consider the first Tea Party event.
• When the Financial crisis of 2007-2008 the far left media misinformed the voters as much as possible on causes, inventing things like de-regulation (Glass-Steagall), or it was rich bankers and other things. We can get into how wrong they were -- but the point was that there were many mad and inflamed by the rhetoric and the disinformation and that was leading to serious blowback against the bail-out -- that was the tailwind in the sails of the Tea Party. (Not Obama).
• Then in 2009, immediately after election, Obama not only didn't scale down the bail-out as he'd promised fiscal responsibility -- but to add insult to injury he scaled it up, and threw a huge spending program (Porkulus) on top. People were getting outraged when the deficit went from $160B in 2007 to $450B in 2008 thanks to the Democrats taking congress. But then $1.4T+ in 2009. That moved people from these many smaller protests and groups into a much bigger movement.

Since the Democrats had been harping on deficits under Bush (ignoring that it only got really bad when Pelosi/Reid took control of the house/senate), and they had complete control over all three houses --- they couldn't argue intelligently on the issue. While blaming Bush for their spending was one of the distractions, they turned to their old-friend the Ad Hominem attack. Why the Tea Party wasn't about fiscal responsibility despite the name, origins, and protests around 9/12 and tax day being centered on spending. They and their allies in the media invented the whole "they are racists" meme to claim the rise happened because of Barack Obama (and not his policies). They hated him because he was black, ignoring that they loved many black conservatives, and had more minorities in the party than CNN and MSNBC had on staff.

And thus one of the great frauds was perpetuated -- that the Tea Party was a reaction to Obama, and it was racist in origins.

Videos

Bill Wittle was a hero of the Tea Party for explaining their economic views and motives. Like the following videos (1 and 3 are especially salient):

Bill Whittle
What We Believe, Part 1: Small Government and Free Enterprise.

Bill Whittle
What We Believe, Part 2: The Problem with Elitism.

Bill Whittle
What We Believe, Part 3: Wealth Creation

Bill Whittle
What We Believe, Part 4: Natural Law

Bill Whittle
What We Believe, Part 5: Gun Rights

Bill Whittle
What We Believe, Part 6: Immigration

Bill Whittle
What We Believe, Part 7: American Exceptionalism

Articles

Tea Party • [1 items]

San Jose Tea Party Rally (2010)
April 2010, I walked from work to a Tea Party Rally in San Jose. It was tame, civil, and the crazies were sock puppet Democrats pretending to be Tea Partiers, so the media interviewed them, and cut out the signs that said, "he's not with us". The Tea Party was not what the media pretended, and that helped remind me how dishonest/Anti-American the media has become.

Conclusion

Based on past polls and what I've seen, the Tea Party tended to be older, wealthier, and score better on some science, economics and political questionnaires than the general pop or dems (probably because the tea party is slightly older and wealthier). That doesn't mean you have to agree with the Tea Party (they actually are a little monotone for me, and they want to cut spending -- I'm fine with a more modest capping it), but the polarizing mud-slinging doesn't do anyone any good. Or as I tell people, "lead by example". If you hate haters, then don't act like one.

Imagine all the readers perceptions of a quote by someone early in the movement, who thinks that they were always a far-right religious movement, instead of a centrist tax-policy movement, that shifted right over time. Kind of a huge difference between what a Wikipedia reader might think, versus someone with a clue on what actually happened.

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🔗 More

Fake News While the term goes back 100 years, the history is summed up well by Sharyl Attkisson.

Wikipedia Wikipedia is both hit and miss. Most articles are pretty good, but there's a leftist bias amongst too many articles.

Washington Post A once great paper, now a liberal fake news rag that looks more like Bezos Blog (or the DNC's blog) than an objective Newspaper.

CBS Once a proud eyeball of News, now they would embarass their newmen of yesteryear.

CNN 1980 Ted Turner started CNN to put his left center spin on "the news". Then it went downhill.

Igno-Arrogance Igno-arrgorance is often a consequence of the Dunning-Kruger effect, or the need for clique approval.

🔗 Links

• Wikipedia: Tea Party protests - Biased and omits a lot
• Wikipedia: Tea Party movement - Biased and omits a lot
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ross_Perot_1992_presidential_campaign
• http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703561604575282190930932412.htm

Origins:

• Started Brewing under Bush: http://web.archive.org/web/20101029200505/http://www.patheos.com/Resources/Additional-Resources/Tea-Started-Brewing-Under-Bush?offset=0&max=1

Tea Partiers are wealthier and smarter:

• http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/15/us/politics/15poll.html?_r=0
• https://www.ijreview.com/2013/10/87474-yale-professors-surprising-discovery-tea-party-supporters-scientifically-literate/
• http://www.gallup.com/poll/127181/tea-partiers-fairly-mainstream-demographics.aspx
• (Republicans/conservatives in general score better than Democrats: no surprise) http://www.people-press.org/2012/04/11/what-the-public-knows-about-the-political-parties/#partisan-differences-in-knowledge
• 40% are independent or left: http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/polls/90541-survey-four-in-10-tea-party-members-dem-or-indie
  • Wikipedia uses later data, after it started skewing more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_Party_movement#Composition

Conservatives score better on Economics and give more - so much for the greedy and ignorant trope

• http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703561604575282190930932412.html
• http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/03/conservatives_more_liberal_giv.html
• http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/21/opinion/21kristof.html

Double-Standards:

• https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/geoffrey-dickens/2011/10/13/tale-two-protests-media-cheer-wall-street-occupiers-jeered-tea

Jussie Smollett & MAGAgate = TeaParty 2.0:

• https://legalinsurrection.com/2019/02/media-following-same-script-against-maga-as-it-did-against-tea-party/

Tags: FakeNews  Wikipedia  WaPo  CBS  CNN  Igno-Arrogance