Up in smoke

Published February 17, 2017

by Carter Wrenn, Talking About Politics, February 16, 2017.

The phones began ringing and kept on ringing and each caller said the same thing: ‘I want you to hold more ‘Town Hall’ meetings.

Sensing a groundswell of support for Town Hall Meetings, rolling across their districts, Republican Congressmen accommodated and walked straight into a trap.

A few days later, stories began to appear in the newspapers:

Republican Town Halls get nasty.

Congressman Chaffetz shouted down… 

Angry crowd confronts Congressman Amash…

Republican Congressmen get an unexpected jolt… 

Newspaper reporters described Republican Congressmen meeting a fearsome new force: Angry crowds springing to life, spontaneously, overnight, at Town Hall Meetings hundreds of miles apart in Utah, Michigan and Tennessee.

But then, a few days after that, an anti-Trump group’s plan, explaining how it had orchestrated the calls and protests, landed on the Internet – and it turned out the press had been fooled too. And the legend about the birth of a fearsome new force and spontaneous protests went up in smoke.

http://www.talkingaboutpolitics.com

February 21, 2017 at 4:28 pm
James w Harris says:

Please go back and read you comments about the Tea Party. Then explain to us why those town hall confrontations were patriotic expressions of opinion even though they were bought and paid for by the Koch Brothers and orchestrated by Dick Armey. Now the protests against Trump and the repeal of ACA are phony? Give me a break.