In echoes of 2009, Republicans see ‘Astroturf’ in protests
Feb 20, 2017 12:43:45 GMT
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Post by benson on Feb 20, 2017 12:43:45 GMT
“Fox and Friends,” which for years counted Donald Trump as a regular call-in guest, has in recent weeks become a pillar of his defense. On Super Bowl weekend, the show's hosts talked about how Trump's friendship with New England Patriots owner Bob Kraft was the sort of story he should tell more often, and how reasonable policies such as the travel and refugee bans were being badly spun. On Sunday, a “Fox and Friends” co-host asked White House press secretary Sean Spicer if “people are being paid to protest” the Trump administration.
“Protesting has become a profession now,” Spicer said. “They have every right to do that, don’t get me wrong. But I think we need to call it what it is. It’s not these organic uprisings that we have seen over the last several decades. The tea party was a very organic movement. This has become a very paid, Astroturf-type movement.”
It was the clearest endorsement yet of an idea that has become taken for granted in conservative media — that the protests hounding Republican members of Congress are fabricated by big money. The chief culprit is seen to be George Soros, a financier who has plowed hundreds of millions of dollars into progressive and pro-transparency causes since the 2004 election. That year, not only because of his money but also a speaking tour, Soros became a bête noire of the right, whose influence is seen wherever shadows loom, from the Syrian refugee crisis to the Holocaust.
"No, George Soros has not paid protesters or to transport protesters," said Soros spokesman Michael Vachon in an e-mail.
The idea that 2017's protests are Soros-backed largely came from a Jan. 10 article from the Media Research Center, headlined “Soros Gave Nearly $90 Million to Liberal 'Women's March' Partners.” The large list of Soros-aided Women's March co-sponsors, from Human Rights Watch to the Hip-Hop Caucus, was turned against the organizers — and conflated with the idea that Soros had funded the march itself. (He did not.)
www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/02/06/in-echoes-of-2009-republicans-see-astroturf-in-democratic-protests/?utm_term=.0c5481411127
“Protesting has become a profession now,” Spicer said. “They have every right to do that, don’t get me wrong. But I think we need to call it what it is. It’s not these organic uprisings that we have seen over the last several decades. The tea party was a very organic movement. This has become a very paid, Astroturf-type movement.”
It was the clearest endorsement yet of an idea that has become taken for granted in conservative media — that the protests hounding Republican members of Congress are fabricated by big money. The chief culprit is seen to be George Soros, a financier who has plowed hundreds of millions of dollars into progressive and pro-transparency causes since the 2004 election. That year, not only because of his money but also a speaking tour, Soros became a bête noire of the right, whose influence is seen wherever shadows loom, from the Syrian refugee crisis to the Holocaust.
"No, George Soros has not paid protesters or to transport protesters," said Soros spokesman Michael Vachon in an e-mail.
The idea that 2017's protests are Soros-backed largely came from a Jan. 10 article from the Media Research Center, headlined “Soros Gave Nearly $90 Million to Liberal 'Women's March' Partners.” The large list of Soros-aided Women's March co-sponsors, from Human Rights Watch to the Hip-Hop Caucus, was turned against the organizers — and conflated with the idea that Soros had funded the march itself. (He did not.)
www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/02/06/in-echoes-of-2009-republicans-see-astroturf-in-democratic-protests/?utm_term=.0c5481411127
