Media

Here Are The People Who Called The Tea Party ‘The M-Word’ — Or Worse

Virginia Kruta Associate Editor
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Media outlets are scrambling to get away from the use of the word “mob” to describe the protests that disrupted Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s initial Senate Judiciary Committee hearings, his first day seated on the Supreme Court and everything in between.

What many of them appear to have forgotten is that less than a decade ago, many of them sat silent — or agreed — as protesters aligned with the Tea Party were described in the same terms or worse.

CNN’s Brooke Baldwin, for example, was not having it.

But as Mary Katherine Ham pointed out at the end of the segment, if it had been the Tea Party …

Even the Obama White House got in on the action.

Not to be outdone, Vice President Joe Biden referred to conservatives as “barbarians.”

Union leader Jimmy Hoffa Jr., introducing Obama at an event, called the Tea Party “sons of bitches.”

What makes the contrast even starker is a look at how those protests differed in execution.

The Tea Party, a movement born of frustration with higher taxes and the advent of the Affordable Care Act, spurred numerous spontaneous protests and rallies — and resulted in a handful of arrests over the course of a few years.

The anti-Kavanaugh protesters, backing the as yet uncorroborated accusations against Kavanaugh by Dr. Christine Blasey Ford and others, have racked up arrest numbers in the hundreds in just a few weeks. They have disrupted Senate hearings and votes and attempted to claw open the 13-ton brass doors of the Supreme Court.

RELATED: Dozens Of Protesters Arrested As They Swarm Hallways Of Senate Office Buildings

Additionally, Kavanaugh’s family and Senators who dared to support him have been threatened and harassed — some in public — resulting in the need for additional security.

Dana Loesch, who was deeply involved in the Tea Party movement in St. Louis, called the comparison “specious.”

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