Democrats are making much of the numerous angry constituents who are showing up at House Republicans’ town halls and district offices to protest the Department of Government Efficiency’s aggressive push to expose and eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse inside of federal agencies.
On the Friday evening edition of Fox News’ The Five, the show’s lone Democrat Jessica Tarlov, told colleagues that many Americans, even those who voted for President Donald Trump, were experiencing buyer’s remorse. Referring to the protests that disrupted Republican town halls the previous night, she said:
So [Republicans] Rich McCormick in Georgia – safe seat – people booing him, catcalling, they’re concerned with everything from spending cuts to what’s going on with DOGE to that Donald Trump is becoming a tyrant. Cliff Bentz in Oregon – similar reaction. This guy Tony Balderson – he’s in a Trump +18 district in Ohio – [constituents] saying Trump’s executive orders are getting out of control. They are hearing from the American public that what is going on, from the Oval Office to CPAC … is not what the American public wanted.
Tarlov, well known for dutifully memorizing, reciting, and at times, even reading the Democratic talking points, forgot to tell viewers that these protests were planned and organized by the Left.
Democrats are trying hard to create the narrative that even Republicans are pushing back on DOGE. The Washington Free Beacon’s Colin Anderson details their efforts in a Tuesday article titled, Red-District DOGE Protests, Cited As Proof of Broad Musk ‘Backlash,’ Were Organized By Left-Wing Groups. He reported, “In one case, a former Dem county board candidate and self-described ‘political activist’ helped organize a viral demonstration in Georgia.”
Planned to appear as organic, grassroots protests, these organized events, intended to influence public opinion, are known as “astroturfing.” And they are not a new phenomenon.
Professor William Jacobson, a Cornell law professor, identified a series of astroturfed protests in February 2017 against Republican Rep. Tom Reed in New York State and detailed the story here. He wrote: [Emphasis added.]
You probably have seen viral videos of the disruption of town halls held by Congressman Tom Reed.The media narrative is that there was an organic, grassroots uprising by concerned citizens.Don’t believe it. As detailed below, there was a well-organized national and local campaign to get activists to Reed’s town halls for the specific purpose of creating a protest environment. Instructions how to protest and what questions to ask were circulated.
Professor Jacobson noted he’d spotted his first clue in an article “in The Cornell Sun student newspaper about Cornell students traveling to Reed’s town halls, even though the town halls were hours away (it’s a geographically huge district).”
No one should be surprised that Democrats have resorted to the use of astroturfing to sway public opinion. It’s one of several highly effective weapons they can use to convince voters that Trump’s efforts to cut waste, fraud, and abuse from the federal budget are somehow harmful to the country. Although cutting fat out of the government should be a bipartisan goal rather than a controversial issue, the Democrats had to find a way to make it appear unpalatable to as many Americans as possible.
But astroturfing is just one of the Left’s tools. As always, the legacy media works in tandem with party members to support and promote their narratives and gaslight the public. And this time is no different.
The gaslighting from the media is coming hard and fast. In a widely read article titled The Coup Has Failed, The American Prospect’s David Dayen breathlessly told readers that one month in, “Trump’s cooked. His failure has followed the usual direction of political overreach.”
Over the weekend, James Carville made the absurd prediction that Trump’s administration will experience a “massive collapse” within the next 30 days.
And funnily, Carville cited a recent Harvard-Harris poll as proof. Unfortunately for Carville, a new iteration of the poll released on Monday was actually very positive for Trump as well as for DOGE. It showed Trump’s job approval at 52%, nine points above his disapproval of 43%.
The poll also found that 76% of respondents support “undertaking a full-scale effort to find and eliminate fraud and waste in government expenditures.” In other words, they like what DOGE is doing. In fact, with the exception of renaming the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America (which only 39% supported) the majority of individuals polled supported Trump’s entire agenda by majorities that ranged from 57% (for ending bans on offshore drilling in Alaska and elsewhere) to 81% (for deporting illegal immigrants who have committed crimes).
The naysayers may want to have a look at this poll before declaring Trump “cooked” or making uninformed predictions about the imminent collapse of his administration.
Elizabeth writes commentary for The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation and a member of the Editorial Board at The Sixteenth Council, a London think tank. Please follow Elizabeth on X or LinkedIn.
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