What do you really know about the tea party?

[Younigue]

No, I think I'll keep posting in this one.

Because you're an ugly rotten child? Nah, we get that. No need to continuously prove it.

 

[darkswordsman17]

The surprise comes from how large their effort was. To lobby for a cause is one thing, to plant people in a movement all across the country and to create multiple organizations to influence citizens and get them to unite and rally on behalf of your cause its another. Its the Russian playbook before the Russians even wrote one page.

Again, I don't think people are surprised at all about that. Now maybe rational people are surprised that it is clearly true and has an actual paper trail that, but a lot of people already assume this is how our political system has been operating. If anything most likely think its actually more in depth and widespread than it actually is (I think people would be pretty surprised how little it takes to win over Republican politicians).

I don't agree. I think this has already been done before (100% sure it has, seriously, Scientology did this type of shit back in like the 70s and 80s). I do agree that the mutual corruption that the Republicans and Russians have in common is what fostered that. I think Americans were doing that type of shit in Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union (actually that is kinda what led to the specific targeted meddling in the past few years, as the Magnitsky Act was because a Russian lawyer representing US person who was fairly involved in Russian schemes - simply put that's how Russia and the Republicans viewed business should run - made a stink when the Russians tried to screw the guy over; and then Russia blamed him and pretty much murdered him in prison and then the US guy made a stink about it - and had the money to be able to get meetings with US politicians) and they basically were letting some of the Russians know how to ingratiate themselves in politics over here.

I know a bunch of Republicans broke with party lines and pushed a more extreme policy and made a lot of noise over the Affordable Care Act. I know that it appealed to Libertarians more than the GOP. I also believe they never gained traction and after some losses to the GOP they simply folded. Not much of a party, more of a contingent of discontent voters. A voting bloc within the Republican Party.

It's a popular narrative of the Republican Party that our government is the "enemy". That its growth and its size are the enemy of a free people. That the government is "out" to get us. Tea Party was a concept of taking that idea literally and then reacting accordingly. Pander to an idea, foster a voting bloc, and then it gets out of control. Like setting a fire, but with bad ideas.

Ultimately it was the idea of opposing Bush's centrism that really appealed to me. Less government, less wars. The Republicans would never deliver on that, so the Tea Party was meant to force the issue. As I said, a contingent of discontent voters.

They didn't fold, in fact they probably wield more power now because the Kochs', in spite of constantly crying about money in politics, have been increasing the money they're spending on it. They even tried to push a narrative that they weren't going to spend for Republicans after Turmp started showing he was going to kick the shit out of the other GOP candidates (but that was total bullshit, I bet they probably spent half a billion dollars on greasing politics in 2016, they for sure spent hundreds of millions, but I bet it was a lot higher than even the initial figures suggest, which I seem to recall a figure a little under $200 million).

Yeah, they exploit the idiots that claim to be libertarian by giving them lip service, and then do the complete fucking opposite, and yet libertarians keep believing them. Just more hypocritical idiots that believe Republicans spouting that shit while ignoring their actions, and these same idiots have the gall to claim that they can't vote Democrat because they hold politicians accountable. Total bullshit. And yet every self-professed Libertarian I've encountered acts like they're more enlightened and know more about politics and that they're being the most rational.

Except it was never that. It was all a fucking sham. Now sure, there were some idiots that glombed on because they actually believed the bullshit (see the libertarians), but the vast majority of the Tea Party stuff was corporate interest and being done by some of these corporations (they literally were paying employees to go do these rallies and shit). This was known years ago and why they changed and rebranded (because they had already been exposed, so basically they dumped the fake Tea Party rallies rah-rahing about "taxes" and then just moved to the normal paying politicians method - which after Citizens United meant they didn't even have to try and be really tricky in going about it).

Holy shit, sometimes I really am flabbergasted at how simply ignorant (not even being mean, I mean truly just plain did not know the information) conservatives are. Its sad how it just makes then makes them willfully ignorant, makes them vitriolic and drives them to spite others (and themselves) for it.

 

[ivwshane]

I think there is a difference between what people think it's happening and knowing what is actually happening.

Am I to believe that you and others knew, not only that the tea party was created by Koch and Philip Morris, but you were aware that they were also behind numerous groups pushing a narrative of no taxes, for the sole purpose of ensuring that neither of their companies would have their taxes increased?

Do you have a thread you can point to where you point this out or agree with someone who already knew this as well?

 

[Jhhnn]

The Koch network needed a lever to push the GOP even further to the right & the Freedom caucus is it. They hold the GOP hostage. They fully intend to bankrupt the govt of the people & thus destroy the power of democracy. It won't matter what the people want if the govt is too deep in debt & too cash strapped to do anything about it. It changes the whole paradigm.

 

[dank69]

I think there is a difference between what people think it's happening and knowing what is actually happening.

Am I to believe that you and others knew, not only that the tea party was created by Koch and Philip Morris, but you were aware that they were also behind numerous groups pushing a narrative of no taxes, for the sole purpose of ensuring that neither of their companies would have their taxes increased?

Do you have a thread you can point to where you point this out or agree with someone who already knew this as well?

I remember rumblings about this very thing very soon after the Tea Party got started. I don't know if it was ever mentioned that they actually started the thing but people were definitely pointing out that it was hijacked very early on.

Check out this opinion from 2010:
https://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/opinion/29rich.html

 

[ivwshane]

I remember rumblings about this very thing very soon after the Tea Party got started. I don't know if it was ever mentioned that they actually started the thing but people were definitely pointing out that it was hijacked very early on.

Check out this opinion from 2010:
https://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/opinion/29rich.html

I agree that early on most people, including myself, thought the movement was being hijacked. What the article I linked to was saying is that it was never hijacked, it was always a Koch and Philip Morris backed movement. To me there is a huge difference. Its akin to believing trump is a useful idiot to Russia versus trump actually being a Russian agent.

 

[dank69]

Here, have a stroll down memory lane. Notice one of the early replies is that Craig had already brought the topic up months earlier. Also note that the implication is indeed that it was all started by the billionaires. Don't forget to count how many fucktarded conservatives claim it is liberal delusion.

https://forums.anandtech.com/thread...spired-by-billionaires.2116290/#post-30681261

 

[ivwshane]

Here, have a stroll down memory lane. Notice one of the early replies is that Craig had already brought the topic up months earlier. Also note that the implication is indeed that it was all started by the billionaires. Don't forget to count how many fucktarded conservatives claim it is liberal delusion.

https://forums.anandtech.com/thread...spired-by-billionaires.2116290/#post-30681261

Wow! Thanks! It really was laid out that early. I guess I somehow missed the details.
There were a couple of posters in that thread who, looking in hindsight, were spot on with their assessments.

 

[darkswordsman17]

I think there is a difference between what people think it's happening and knowing what is actually happening.

Am I to believe that you and others knew, not only that the tea party was created by Koch and Philip Morris, but you were aware that they were also behind numerous groups pushing a narrative of no taxes, for the sole purpose of ensuring that neither of their companies would have their taxes increased?

Do you have a thread you can point to where you point this out or agree with someone who already knew this as well?

I think you're misconstruing what I was saying, which is that most people blindly just assume this was happening and don't care about the specifics. But they also are the ones that think its both sides and the Democrats were just as bad if not worse (see the idiots who claim that somehow the green/environmentalist movement is that, while ignoring that its up against literally the most profitable companies in the world over the past 5 decades, who have a history of doing exactly that type of stuff).

I was quite aware that corporations were behind the Tea Party movement, not super early (because I actively tried to ignore politics as much as possible back then), but there were articles about it not too long into it. I knew it wasn't exactly unknown, and likewise about the Koch's involvement (which to be fair, if there's a conservative political movement, you can almost bet that the Koch's will have a hand in any manner that it organizes). It wasn't that hard (if I remember, it was as easy as seeing some of the people at the events, and then finding their pics on company websites - which got yanked after several of them got noticed that way, but they were really that brazen). They then found out they were the organizers of the event and then even that allegedly totally organic Tea Party group (they tried to act like they were a bunch of small groups that just popped up out of nowhere). I might be getting that situation confused with another (where some despicable people pretended to be just random schmos that believe in the cause, and then they were shown to be employees of the company that was found to be behind the whole thing). But I know there were a lot of exposes on the astroturfing efforts that corporations were doing, and some of them were so ridiculously transparent that you really have to wonder WTF they were thinking.