The Morning Briefing: Your Friendly Reminder That There Are No Grassroots Efforts on the Left
Top O' the Briefing
Happy Tuesday, dear Kruiser Morning Briefing friends. Ulenbecua felt that she didn't get enough respect for her ability to free-mime any scene from the first season of "Saved by the Bell."
Leftists sure do love their protests, don't they? It often seems as if every radical from the '60s hooked up and brought forth little baby commie malcontents, who then had kids of their own.
Things aren't really that natural with the angry, protesting mobs on the Left, though. Oh, those Vietnam-era angry hippies were more authentic and self-motivated. They were real outsiders then, but would go on to become entrenched members of the Democratic Establishment. I explained that whole journey in my classic book, "Don't Let the Hippies Shower."
That 1960s hippies-infused Democratic hierarchy grew up to become professional agitators. They were management, though, long past the point when they wanted to get dirty in the streets. Or arrested. They established a tradition of top-down civil unrest, astroturfing long before it was called that.
My good friend and partner in thought crime Stephen Green wrote about the latest organized uprisings from the lefties:
You too can be reimbursed for up to $200, and all you have to do is protest Department of Government Efficiency chief Elon Musk from the comfort of a Tesla dealership. It isn't clear whether the offer from the left-wing Indivisible Project covers the cost of spray paint, keys, or bail, but money is fungible — so wink-wink, nudge-nudge, comrade.
"Indivisible Project can reimburse groups for eligible expenses associated with your Musk or Us actions, up to $200 per group, per congressional recess!" the group's website reads, followed by a link to get the reimbursement form.
Stephen goes on to explain the Indivisible Project's origins and its, um, interesting funding.
Things like this are typical over on the "mostly peaceful protests" side of the aisle. I've been a conservative activist for over four decades and I don't know that I've ever seen an organic protest from the left. I won't unequivocally declare that I haven't, but I can't point to any of the ones I remember and say they weren't astroturfed.
I'll share an anecdote from my Tea Party days. It was at the height of the Occupy Wall Street fever, which the Democrats' flying monkeys in the mainstream media were portraying as a leftist grassroots response to the Tea Party. I was in Madison, WI to give a tax day speech at the state capitol the next day. Another Tea Party stalwart (who shall remain nameless) roped me into taking a little tour of the sizeable Occupy encampment that was about a mile from our hotel.
We didn't want to roll up in a cab, so we took a bus. We were taken to a woman who was in charge and told her that we were writers and interested in learning about the encampment. She didn't press us for specifics. I had a video camera (remember those?) and they allowed me to take some footage.
The place was dismal, pungent, and populous. It wasn't a gathering of principled protesters, it was a pop-up homeless encampment that was obviously being funded from the outside. At the end of the grand tour, I asked the woman if she slept there. She laughed and said, "No way." She was at a nearby hotel, but didn't tell us who was paying for it. All Occupy money trails led to George Soros, though. Anyway, she was about to head out for the night and offered to give us a ride. We had her drop us off at a restaurant because we didn't want her to know where we were staying.
By the way, it was a lot of fun the next day when all of the people from the Occupy campout saw us with our "Speaker" credentials as we walked up to the Capitol steps.
That's just my favorite story. There was always a "one of these things is not like the others" person in charge at every Occupy Wall Street gathering we encountered in each city we went to in 2011. There were also organizers at every small lefty protest we encountered back then, typically from Big Labor, and almost always reps from the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). They were usually pretty open about it, too. It's the Dem lapdogs in the MSM who create and perpetuate the grassroots fiction.
It's all garbage.
At the end of February, Stephen wrote a column about a fever dream at The Atlantic which hoped the libs could respond to President Trump with a Tea Party movement of their own. That got us reminiscing about other low-T attempts by the leftists to get a little Tea Party mojo of their own going. Occupy Wall Street was the largest, of course. Stephen reminded me about "The Coffee Party," and "No Labels," both of which were launched with great fanfare and extensive media coverage and fizzled out as soon as the MSM grew bored and moved onto other things.
A genuine political grassroots movement springs up among people who share common principles in response to a problem. It doesn't require offers of free food, places to sleep, or some generous pocket change. When I co-founded the Los Angeles Tea Party, it was with three guys I only knew from Twitter. We had a common goal, put in a little effort, and got it going. We didn't seek funding or the help of any organization. Heck, the Republican Party wasn't even on our side.
Trust me, you'll never hear a similar story from the Dems and their agitators. Not one that's true, anyway.
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