Shocking! Study Shows Tea Party Was Decades In The Making, A Creature Of The Tobacco Industry & The Koch Brothers

[hatrack]

A new academic study confirms that front groups with longstanding ties to the tobacco industry and the billionaire Koch brothers planned the formation of the Tea Party movement more than a decade before it exploded onto the U.S. political scene. Far from a genuine grassroots uprising, this astroturf effort was curated by wealthy industrialists years in advance. Many of the anti-science operatives who defended cigarettes are currently deploying their tobacco-inspired playbook internationally to evade accountability for the fossil fuel industry’s role in driving climate disruption.

The study, funded by the National Cancer Institute of the National Institute of Health, traces the roots of the Tea Party’s anti-tax movement back to the early 1980s when tobacco companies began to invest in third party groups to fight excise taxes on cigarettes, as well as health studies finding a link between cancer and secondhand cigarette smoke. Published in the peer-reviewed academic journal, Tobacco Control, the study titled, ‘To quarterback behind the scenes, third party efforts’: the tobacco industry and the Tea Party, is not just an historical account of activities in a bygone era. As senior author, Stanton Glantz, a University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) professor of medicine, writes:

“Nonprofit organizations associated with the Tea Party have longstanding ties to tobacco companies, and continue to advocate on behalf of the tobacco industry’s anti-tax, anti-regulation agenda.”

EDIT

However, the Quarterback study reveals that in 2002, the Kochs and tobacco-backed CSE designed and made public the first Tea Party Movement website under the web address www.usteaparty.com. Here’s a screenshot of the archived U.S. Tea Party site, as it appeared online on Sept. 13, 2002:



CSE describes the U.S. Tea Party site, “In 2002, our U.S. Tea Party is a national event, hosted continuously online, and open to all Americans who feel our taxes are too high and the tax code is too complicated.” The site features a “Patriot Guest book” where supporters can write a message of support for CSE and the U.S. Tea Party movement. Sometime around September 2011, the U.S. Tea Party site was taken offline. According to the DNS registry, the web address www.usteaparty.com is currently owned by Freedomworks. The implications of the UCSF Quarterback report are widespread. The main concern expressed by the authors lies in what they see happening overseas as the Tea Party movement expands internationally, training activists in 30 countries including Israel, Georgia, Japan and Serbia.

EDIT

https://www.desmog.com/2013/02/11/study-confirms-tea-party-was-created-big-tobacco-and-billionaires/

[UpInArms]

1. The tea party was so obviously not grassroots

Slick giant buses … all those premade signs

The Koch brothers will burn in hell for eternity

[lonely bird]

5. Yup

Along with Phil Gramm and his wife.

Of course, the entire study falls under the category of “No shit! Alert the media!”

[bucolic_frolic]

2. And we had no long term planning to deal with it?

Are we planning now? There are liberal think tanks which is where this stuff originates, but they mostly make policy papers. We raise money and GOTV locally and advertise. A swelling of emotion on Election Day seems our goal. Do we have any deception in the works?

A psychopath never changes. What's our plan?

[Gum Logger]

17. As often said, the dems are always three steps behind

Feckless

[FakeNoose]

3. Of course, it was the same folks who put Ronald Reagan in the White House

There was nothing "grassroots" about the "Tea Party." Even their claim to be grassroots was fake and obvious.

If the Tea Party had been a true grassroots movement they would have operated on a shoestring. But that never happened, they threw around way too much money on advertising and organizing their "rallies." The whole thing was always a scam.

[underpants]

4. Every accusation is an admission

Soros funded NO KINGS !!!

[Gum Logger]

18. Talk is cheap. Show proof

[AverageOldGuy]

6. Well . . .

. . . am I ever shocked and surprised!!

During the height of the Tea Party movement I lived in a very red rural Virginia county, surrounded by others that were the same. There were two local Tea Parties --
-- both very active
-- monthly meetings with guest speakers
-- they had a dozen or so 4 X 8 road signs, professionally done, new slogans from time to time
-- 100% old white people

I noticed a few interesting facts.

-- The guest speakers were all the same. I checked in regularly with the website of the Virginia State Tea Party where I found these same guest speakers making the rounds of local Tea Parties statewide, indicating to me some sort of central control.
-- Whenever they showed up in public they had professionally-made signs -- across the state.

One of my favorite photos was of a meeting of one of the local Tea Parties -- a room filled with old, white people, all with grey hair (for those who still had hair), all seated, all holding signs that read "Keep The Government Out Of My Healthcare." I laughed at the sign because it was clear that everyone in the pic was on Medicare -- a government program.

Both of them eventually dissolved into in-fighting.

And both of them disappeared when Obama left office and Trump emerged.



One of these two emerged from our county Republican Party. Seems that for a year or so, certain members of the county Republican Party would interrupt meetings, demanding a "point of order," making fiery speeches, and the like. So -- at the county Republican Party's 2007 Christmas party -- after social hour and dinner, the leadership stood up, resigned, and walked out of the room along with some Republican Party loyalists, to the cheers of the Tea Party insurgents. The Tea Partiers who remained convened an emergency meeting on the spot and elected their own slate of officers and officially changed the name of the organization to the XXXXX Tea Party. The next day, they discovered that the former Republican chair and treasurer had emptied their substantial bank account (around $80,000) and sent the money to the state Republican Party.

The other one dissolved in late 2016 after attendance at their meetings went to 4, 5, 6, attending. In 2022 their website was taken over by a rump group calling themselves "The XXXX Patriots," who were dedicated to defending the Jan 6 rioters.

[Javaman]

7. well no duh.

anyone paying attention knew this.

[mercuryblues]

8. Again

KKK, Birchers, tea baggers, MagaTs, all the same. Just a name change.

[bucolic_frolic]

10. Birchers are very close-knit and secretive

Once they tap into your family tree they never leave you alone.

[mwmisses4289]

9. Yup. Not surprised.

My friends pointed this out from the very beginning, they were too slick to be a grass roots party.

[NoMoreRepugs]

11. Think I read a book somewhere that Big Oil was an early contributor.

Oligarchs and corporate giants have always been a plague on this country IMO.

[hadEnuf]

12. Watergate never really ended. They have been constantly scheming since then.

They continuously did everything possible to make Carter look like a bumbling fool, then the Reagan show started. Media deregulation and the elimination of the Fairness Doctrine made it clear that it was now possible to pipe right-wing propaganda directly into American's living rooms and car radios, unfettered. The 2000 election showed them they could actually get away with screwing with people's votes. Opposition has been sporadic and mostly aimed at being "bipartisan", which is code for weakness with fascists. Fast forward, here we are now.

So yeah, it's no surprise that the Tea party was conceived decades before it became popular. Vast right-wing conspiracy was an understatement.

[Farmer-Rick]

13. Seems to me the "tea party" was rather useless

It was only useful at keeping out Kerry and gaining some congressional seats temporarily. Which was kind of stupid because Kerry had a lot of corporate connections and his sympathies for the filthy-rich were in line with most other Republicons.

But the corporate elite and the oligarchy have gotten better at manipulating everyone. Too bad Dems don't learn from it and respond in kind.

[Martin68]

15. I would tend to disagree. It was a powerful movement to the extreme right that destroyed whatever centrists were left

in the GOP. It accomplished Gingrich's push toward scorched earth extremism.

[Martin68]

14. Not shocking at all. It was obvious tea baggers were manipulated by big money conservatives.

[niyad]

16. NSS. But nice to have it confirmed.

[multigraincracker]

19. Cool hats.

[John1956PA]

20. At first, GOP pundit George Will was duped into believing the Tea Party was noble.

After Trump took over the Republican Party, George Will left it and became a non-affiliated registered voter. He is up in age now, and is essentially retired from punditry. Or, he is afraid to speak out against Trump.

I never cared for Geirge Will. I do not know if he was compensated for his early support of the Tea Party, or if he genuinely believed that its ascent in popularity was beneficial to the political discourse. All of us here on DU who remember the Tea Party craze from twenty to thirty years ago recognized its danger to our country.