The Slatest

Tea Party Activists Are Planning a Comeback

Demonstrators against President Barack Obama stage a protest in Staten Island, New York, on April 15, 2009.

Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty Images

On Monday, the Hill reported that the Tea Party group FreedomWorks is planning to counter the surge in liberal activism with new rallies and appearances at town halls where constituents angry about the potential repeal of Obamacare have confronted Republican members of Congress in recent weeks. From the Hill:

“There will be more grassroots hand-to-hand combat than we’ve seen in Washington for a long time,” FreedomWorks President and CEO Adam Brandon said Monday during an interview in his office near the Capitol. “The conservative [lawmakers], they need to see us out there pushing. And if they see that, they’ll be bold,” he continued. “If they don’t see grassroots there on the ground, they’ll start slipping.”

FreedomWorks will stage an ObamaCare repeal rally on Capitol Hill on March 15 with speeches from Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and other top conservative allies.

FreedomWorks, a nonprofit with a network of 6 million members, is best remembered as one of the groups responsible for organizing and coordinating the original Tea Party protests of 2009 and 2010, then under the leadership of lobbyist and former congressman Dick Armey. Their work was derided by some as “astroturfing” designed to make highly planned events look like spontaneous, grassroots protests. From ThinkProgress:

While working to promote Social Security privatization, Freedom Works was caught planting one of its operatives as a “single mom” to ask questions to President Bush in a town hall on the subject. Last year, the Wall Street Journal exposed Freedom Works for similarly building “amateur-looking” websites to promote the lobbying interests of Dick Armey, the former Republican Majority Leader who now leads Freedom Works and is a lobbyist for the firm DLA Piper.

So why is FreedomWorks waiting until March to get started this time around? Because, after years of decrying the Affordable Care Act, Republicans still haven’t figured out what they want to do about it. “The reason FreedomWorks is waiting until mid-March to ramp up its grassroots engagement on ObamaCare,” the Hill writes, “is that by then, Brandon said, GOP leaders will have a better idea of which path they are taking on replacement.” The GOP’s cluelessness about the path forward was on display at a town hall held by Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wisc., on Monday and attended by Thomas Kaplan of the New York Times:

Michelle Roelandts had a question for her congressman: If the Affordable Care Act and its premium subsidies were repealed, what would happen when her daughter turns 26 this year and needs to get her own health insurance while attending law school Representative Jim Sensenbrenner, a durable Wisconsin Republican who has served in the House since 1979, had little to offer in response. “If I could give you an answer today, I would, but I can’t,” Mr. Sensenbrenner said at a town-hall-style meeting on Saturday, where about 70 people packed a room at the Pewaukee Public Library.

… During Mr. Sensenbrenner’s exchange with Ms. Roelandts, a man yelled to him: “How many times did you vote to repeal without knowing what the replacement would be? How many times? Dozens!” The congressman, who prides himself on his prolific schedule of town-hall-style meetings, banged his gavel and insisted that his rules for civility be obeyed.