Union Astroturf Pretends Like Tea Partiers to Attack GOP

by: warner todd huston | published: 08 23, 2011

The Hill has an interesting, if not a bit slanted, report about the faux grassroots efforts of unions and left-wing advocates to pretend they are somehow just like the Tea Party by attacking the town hall meetings of various GOP congressman across the country this Summer.

The Hill dutifully reports without complaint the union's claims that they are organizing just like the Tea Partiers and forcing GOP congressmen to face "angry protests at home" this month in a "replication" of the Tea Party backlash that "bit" Democrats in 2009.

"Liberal groups have been planning these protests for months," trumpets The Hill, "One organizer told The Hill in February that the campaign would 'build to a crescendo' in August."

These protests have been organized by Obama's supporters in government unions like the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the AFL-CIO as well as far left NGOs such as MoveOn.org, Campaign for America's Future and others.

The report goes on to note that several congressmen have faced unruly audiences this August.

At least ten other House Republicans have been the targets of protests or angry questions at public events in the last two weeks. Many of the protests are the outcome of a months-long effort by labor unions and liberal advocacy groups to turn up public pressure on GOP lawmakers.

These groups have taken a page from the Tea-Party playbook and are trying to replicate the August of outrage that nearly sunk President Obama’s healthcare reform initiative in 2009.

“This is very similar to what the Tea Party did,” said Roger Hickey, co-director of Campaign for America’s Future, which has worked with labor unions and liberal groups to help organize a public backlash to the House GOP agenda.

Only these orchestrated attacks are nothing like what happened in 2009 as the Tea Party movement first started gaining steam.

The Tea Party events were not organized by unions, they did not have millions of dollars behind them, they had no national organizations, no formal groups to which to belong or by which to organize. The protests that Democrats faced in 2009 were real citizens gathering on their own hook not organized from the top like these faux protests are being raised today.

There is no parallel at all between these fake, astroturfed protests funded by Democrat operatives and union thugs and the spontaneous protests peopled by real voters that occurred in 2009, gatherings that eventually became the full-blown Tea Party movement.

Once again we see that these unions have had to spend untold dollars and months organizing to get the "dozens of constituents" that have turned out to this Summer's meetings. By contrast Tea Party events have turned out millions of participants over these last few years few funded by anyone but the participants themselves.

What this shows is that unions and leftists have to employ a top down sort of organizing to get any support for their ideals. It shows that there is no real enthusiasm among regular Americans for the left-wing agenda.

Above all it shows that the left is still no closer to replicating the true enthusiasm and verve and the true grassroots efforts of the Tea Party movement… despite The Hill trying to give them the legitimacy of the claim.

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