If you just woke up yesterday from a long sleep you might only know Amanda Carpenter as Hero of the Resistance #17. A constant presence on MSNBC. A constant presence on The Bulwark. As a writer/editor for Protect Democracy: a "nonpartisan, nonprofit group working to prevent authoritarianism." As the author of the 2018 book "Gaslighting America: Why We Love It When Trump Lies to Us" published by Harper/Collins.
But if you haven't been asleep for the bulk of the 21st century, you may also know that the book she was paid to produce before "Gaslighting Murrica: Yadda Yadda..." was not published by Harper/Collins.
It was published by Regnery Press, and it was a work of Swiftboating-style filth entitled "The Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy's Dossier on Hillary Rodham Clinton."
You see, before Amanda Carpenter was a regular on MSNBC, she was a regular on Fox News's The O'Reilly Factor, Red Eye w/ Greg Gutfeld, Hannity & Colmes and The Big Story, and a regular contributor to right wing whorehouses like Townhall and the Moonie Times.
Before Amanda Carpenter was Resistance Hero #17 she was right wing scumbag Jim DeMint's senior communications advisor and speechwriter, and was then promoted upward to the position senior communications advisor and speechwriter for super right wing scumbag Ted Cruz.
Because Amanda Carpenter is not a decent person.
How do we know this?
Because no decent human being with five functional senses, a working brain and a conscience would make a career out of putting themselves in the service of Fox News and Regnery Press and Jim DeMint and Ted Cruz and slagging Hillary Clinton by accident. Instead, Amanda Carpenter is one of that small army of amoral Republican opportunists who saw their mild criticisms of Donald Trump slamming the doors shut on their professional opportunities on the Right. So they called upon their many, many legacy media pals who run the media's Reputation Rehabilitation Laundromat. And quick like a bunny this small army of dispossessed professional Republican hatchet-men looking for a nip and a tuck and a book contract, were immediately whisked to the front of the line past the hundreds and hundreds of Liberal writers and critics who have gone gray in the service of opposing poison factories like and Townhall and the Moonie Times instead of being their paid instrument. People who have exhausted themselves trying to end the influence of filth like DeMint and Cruz instead of being their paid creature.
But, alas, this is the media environment we have, not the media environment we want or deserve. This being so, we few OG bloggers out here on the rim of the political galaxy still retain the ability to see what others do not, then laugh ourselves stupid about it, then write about it, then toss it into the face of a legacy media which continues to insist we do not exist.
So today's subject is Amanda Carpenter. Specifically, the Townhall/Fox News/Ted Cruz hardwiring in her head that is all still live and sparking even as her friends in the legacy media successfully rebrand her as Hero of the Resistance #17.
Today, Ms. Carpenter was on a mission to sell credulous Democrats on the idea that the cure for what ails us is some of that "Tea Party spirit". She does this by
- Lying about what the Tea Party was all about and,
- Lying about why it was successful.
Carpenter: ...because if you look at the origins of the Tea Party, that was when Obama was on the rise, right? There was a bailout... a bunch of energy... but because there was so much anger about spending and the potential government takeover that we knew that was coming with health care. People started organizing early. And so Obama took office, y'know, the height all the excitement... and people were on the ground taking the streets and um doing organizing and meetups that Spring, right?
-- from the forehead or Ronald Reagan. As every survey has shown and everyone with an ounce of common sense who doesn't have a political axe to grind knew from the beginning, the "Tea Party" was a fraud. Nothing more or less than the most heavily funded and carefully coordinated political re-branding effort in recent American history -- the latest layer of Koch-funded, Fox News promoted whitewash splashed over the same goddamn whelping box full of bigots and Bible-thumpers who have made up the base of the Republican Party for most of my adult life.
Ms. Carpenter again: And so there was an outside-in strategy that was movement based -- not organized around a particular politician and what have you, um, to try to influence the people who were in Washington who could potentially do something with their limited tools.
Here is how Politico reported on the grass-roots organizing of this plucky group of outsiders on April 15, 2009:
On “America’s Newsroom” Wednesday morning, Fox News host Megyn Kelly declared that “it’s tea party time, from sea to shining sea.” A short while later, “anti-tax tea parties” rose to the top of the network’s Hot List.
In between, Fox News reporter Griff Jenkins — who earlier this week donned colonial garb as he traced the history of the tea party movement — reported on a tea party protest in Washington’s Lafayette Park. Meanwhile, Fox hosts Neil Cavuto, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and Greta Van Susteren were all preparing for their own on-the-scene reports from tea parties around the country.
“Can’t get to a tea party?” Fox’s Bill Hemmer asked viewers the other day. “Fox Nation hosts a virtual tea party — you can check it out on the site, a location of a tea party in your area...
“Fox appears to be promoting these events at the same time it is presenting them in a way that looks like reporting,” said Stephen Burgard, director of Northeastern University’s School of Journalism.
Burgard called the practice “pseudo-journalism,” adding: “We have seen this before from Fox News Channel, but its role as galvanizer of opposition to President Obama’s policies and leadership posture appears to be emerging.”
Ms. Carpenter again: And so people will think about the filibuster that we staged, um, over health care, and it was not successful, but as an organizing effort it was hugely important hugely important. Um, y'know, we did a little hashtag "Make DC listen". We made it about inviting people in. And we were stopping a process that was very nerdy but people came to understand that there was someone in Washington who would actually fight for you on these things. Because they were begging to have someone that wouldn't just roll over and take it and rubber stamp it and let these things happen.
As Ms. Carpenter knows damn good and well, this is not what happened at all. Starting on the day Barack Obama was inaugurated there was a conspiracy hatched by a cabal of powerful Republican lawmakers, media goons and assorted other henchmen to sabotage the Obama administration starting on Day One.
From "The Conspiracy to Commit Legislative Constipation" by James Wolcott, Vanity Fair, April 27, 2012:
In a scene reminiscent of the summit meeting of mob bosses in The Godfather, Republican House leaders were summoned by evil marshmallow and message-crafter Frank Luntz to hash out a strategy to cope with the defeat of their party in 2008 and the election of the newly inaugurated President Obama, according to Robert Draper's just published book Do Not Ask What Good We Do: Inside the U.S. House of Representatives.
From a report on Draper's revelation by Ewen MacAskill in the Guardian UK (bolding mine)
During a lengthy discussion, the senior GOP members worked out a plan to repeatedly block Obama over the coming four years to try to ensure he would not be re-elected.
In his book, Draper opens with the heady atmosphere in Washington on the days running up to the inauguration and the day itself, which attracted 1.8 million to the mall to witness Obama being sworn in as America's first black president.
Those numbers contributed to a growing sense of unease among Republicans as much the defeat in the White House race the previous November. The 15 Republicans were in a sombre mood as they gathered at the Caucus Room in Washington, an upscale restaurant where a New York strip steak costs $51.
Attending the dinner were House members Eric Cantor, Jeb Hensarling, Pete Hoekstra, Dan Lungren, Kevin McCarthy, Paul Ryan and Pete Sessions. From the Senate were Tom Coburn, Bob Corker, Jim DeMint, John Ensign and Jon Kyl. Others present were former House Speaker and future – and failed – presidential candidate Newt Gingrich and the Republican strategist Frank Luntz, who organized the dinner and sent out the invitations.
The dinner table was set in a square at Luntz's request so everyone could see one another and talk freely. The session lasted four hours and by the end the sombre mood had lifted: they had conceived a plan. They would take back the House in November 2010, which they did, and use it as a spear to mortally wound Obama in 2011 and take back the Senate and White House in 2012, Draper writes.
"If you act like you're the minority, you're going to stay in the minority," said Kevin McCarthy, quoted by Draper. "We've gotta challenge them on every single bill and challenge them on every single campaign."
The Republicans have done that, bringing Washington to a near standstill several times during Obama's first term over debt and other issues...
Democrats have no billionaire backers willing to fund either a real grassroots movement, or an AstroTurf simulacrum of a grassroots movement.
Democrats also have no lavishly-funded, million-decibel media empire megaphone capable of relentlessly marketing any such movement while out-shouting any naysayers.
And, finally, Democrat simply do not enjoy the same simpering deference and credulity on such matters from the legacy media as Republicans. When the Koch Brother and Fox News cooked up the Fake Tea Party rebranding scam, the entire legacy media rolled over for it immediately, giving it cache it never deserved as a genuine, spontaneous protest movement over Gummint Spending.
If Dems tried any such thing, grassroots or not, the Right's million-decibel media empire megaphone would begin scream about it 24/7. The legacy would then immediately fold and dutifully begin taking their talking points from Jesse Watters.
Because, alas, this is the media environment we have, not the media environment we want or deserve.
This has been another edition of Never Trumpers Giving Shitty Advice, respectfully submitted, this date, November 16, 2024.
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