Weak Tea: Fox News Sponsored Tea Party Protests Fizzle Out

Remember back in 2009 when Fox News was pulling out all the stops to promote the newborn Tea Party? They broadcast every town howl and invited an endless stream of tri-cornered hat wearing crackpots to rant about tyranny and Kenyan usurpers. Fox even branded the Tea Party movement as its own entity while beseeching viewers to attend rallies.

Fox Tea Party

Well, this year they have not had much success pushing their fringe agenda. They spent months hammering away on Benghazi, Solyndra, Fast and Furious, and a bevy of second-tier scandalettes, but have been met with yawns. After Fox launched a campaign to hype the false allegation that the IRS was targeting Tea Party groups for harassment, the national protest to “Rein In the IRS” drew tens of angry Teabaggers to IRS offices across the country.

IRS Protest

The latest effort by Fox to pump up the right-wing wrath was a planned protest by America’s truckers to create the “biggest traffic jam in history” in Washington, D.C. Their promises ranged from thousands of truckers jamming the capital’s highways and arresting members of Congress, to hundreds of millions of citizens nationwide participating in a show of solidarity. This morning the protest began with nothing more than a trickle of trucks that failed to have any noticeable impact on traffic. Even Fox News posted a story reporting that “Dozens, not thousands, show up for DC trucker protest.”

The “Truckers Ride for the Constitution” was supposed to send a message to Washington that they were “sick and tired of the corruption that is destroying America!” Apparently, the hordes of sickly, fatigued protesters never materialized. This will surely cut into their comically delusional list of demands that include that President Obama immediately resign from office.

Next up for the Fox News Protest Committee is an event targeting the closure of American memorials and monuments due to the Tea Party driven government shutdown (or slimdown, as Fox is calling it). On Fox’s community web site, the lie-riddled Fox Nation, they have posted an item that can hardly be characterized as news. It concerns something called the “Million Vet March” that is scheduled for this Sunday. That seems like bad planning on Fox’s part, because if the truckers rally had successfully stopped traffic in D.C., how would the vets get to their event?

The Fox Nationalists promotion of the Million Vet March was not actually a story about the proposed rally. It was a link to the web site of the political action committee that is sponsoring it, the Special Operations Speaks PAC. The PAC’s web site indicates that it was formed to lobby for a Watergate-style congressional committee to investigate Benghazi. Now they are taking a detour to protest the “vicious tyrant” in the White House who “shut down our nation’s war memorials and declared a war on our veterans!”

Never mind that it was the House Republicans who shut down the government and the memorials. The The bigger problem is that Fox is posting links to partisan activist organizations in the guise of reporting the news. If Fox had written a story about this march, or linked to a story written by another news outlet, that would be bad enough and they would still be guilty of proselytizing on behalf of a political cause. But Fox didn’t even bother to put that much distance between themselves and the fringe group organizing the march. They just linked directly to the organizer’s web site where you are greeted with a solicitation to donate.

It is pretty unlikely that anywhere near a million veterans are going to show up in D.C. on Sunday. So this event will be just as big a flop as the trucker rally. But both events demonstrate that Fox is not a news network, and they aren’t even pretending to be one anymore. They are a political advocacy enterprise and, measuring by their recent efforts, they aren’t even any good at that.

Advertisement:

5 thoughts on “Weak Tea: Fox News Sponsored Tea Party Protests Fizzle Out

  1. id recomend stop refering to them as fox nationalists and instead fox minimalists.

  2. This is a misleading and/or false statement – specifically the memorial part: “Never mind that it was the House Republicans who shut down the government and the memorials” – have you ever been to DC? I have been numerous times and have walked every one of the memorials – and they can’t be closed down unless you actually post guards to force people away – the memorials, with the exception of the Washington monument which requires a free ticket to get in – are wide open walking spaces that have NO gates or staff to run them. The museums – which there are several – I’m sure are closed, but any memorial would actually need physical people in place to keep walkers out – that would be and is a deliberate act by the president to make this painful. It actually does take more money to close those memorials than to just leave them as they are. Sounds like Fox News propaganda coming from News Corpse – nicely done. Are you mad that we are getting along just fine and society hasn’t collapsed because your precious government is closed – I’m sure you’re disappointed.

    • That’s incredibly naive. You must know that any public space is still liable for maintenance, safety, and security. Someone could have an accident, be assaulted, or there could be vandalism or even terrorism, if unattended. Just imagine how right-wingers like you would blame Obama if something unfortunate occurred at a monument while unattended during the shutdown.

      And it is beyond naive to think that the President is micromanaging the operation of these sites. He’s got more on his plate than that. That’s the responsibility of the National Park Service. Now you sound like the freak jobs who spew conspiracy theories about the President controlling everything from the weather to traffic lights to the microchips he personally implanted in the fillings of your teeth.

  3. You can not sue the Fed. Govt., This is BS If the next time something is not liked by the minority hold up the budget, after all I was sent here to do the will of the country. Fir them all for all I care just shut up and do your job……..s

Comments are closed.