Random Acts of Chaos

[A] small group of some of the richest men in America used willing shills to shift the blame for the Great Recession and the debt onto the man who’d just inherited the crisis. The so-called Tea Party movement was simply a façade for the unprecedented way conservative media and dark-money groups rebranded and ignited the Republican base…

As documented in the book The Fox Effect, the most popular cable news network in America spent over a year engaged in actual political organizing. They advertised rallies in advance, invited candidates on for the express purpose of making fundraising pitches and allowed their hosts to raise funds for Tea Party groups. They did this all while fomenting the myth that the movement was non-partisan and spontaneous (along with hyping scandals that targeted Democratic personalities and institutions, then bullying the mainstream media into covering them).

Of course, the first incarnation of the “Tea Party” was an actual grassroots effort in support of Ron Paul’s 2008 campaign for president. In 2009, the name was co-opted by Fox News and dark-money nonprofits like FreedomWorks and Americans For Prosperity. These groups — both founded by money from David Koch — took the Tea Party brand and used it to harness the anger millions of Republicans felt as the economic crisis peaked. And with Fox and AM radio encouraging their audience to “take the country back,” millions of Americans did become politically active under the banner of the Tea Party, shrewdly organized by the anonymous millions pumped into groups like FreedomWorks and AFP.