FLASHBACK: When a Juve­nile News Media Tried to Destroy the Tea Par­ty

FLASHBACK: When a Juvenile News Media Tried to Destroy the Tea Party

Fif­teen years ago this week (April 15, 2009), the grass­roots Tea Par­ty move­ment ral­lied to oppose the mas­sive gov­ern­ment pro­grams (bailouts, Oba­maCare) pushed by new Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma. In response, left-wing cable net­works employed ado­les­cent jokes to belit­tle the move­ment, while the broad­cast net­works decried it as a front for “cor­po­rate inter­ests.”
The media put­downs failed, of course. The fol­low­ing Novem­ber, the ener­gy sup­plied by the Tea Par­ty con­tributed to a “shel­lack­ing” of Democ­rats in the 2010 elec­tions, as Repub­li­cans gained 63 House seats and six Sen­ate seats (sev­en if you count Scott Brown’s upset in a Jan­u­ary spe­cial elec­tion in Mass­a­chu­setts).
The first T.E.A. Par­ty (Taxed Enough Already) protests took place in var­i­ous cities on Feb­ru­ary 27, 2009, a reac­tion to pre­sumed new tax­es that would inevitably result from the Oba­ma …