Last week I challenged a particularly nasty commentary by David Paul Kuhn that alleged that Democrats were even nuttier than the Republicans who believe the ‘birther” narrative because many Dems believe that George W Bush had “advance knowledge of the 9/11 attacks”. Here’s what I said:

There are two different ways that a survey respondent could interpret the Rasmussen question about Bush’s possible “advance knowledge of the 9/11 attacks” – one of which is entirely rational and, in fact, undeniably true.
Gee whiz, come on. Doesn’t everyone still remember the warnings Bush received about the potential use of airplanes as terrorist weapons in the summer of 2001 – warnings Condi Rice admitted did not get followed up? Don’t we all remember the CIA memos saying that “something big” was in the works in September? Don’t we all remember the 9/11 Commission and Richard Clarkes’ dramatic statement that “We failed the American people”
These were not hallucinations or the product of fevered, paranoid Democratic brains. They were component elements of the undeniable fact that there were indeed significant advance warnings that a terrorist attack was in the works for the fall of 2001 – a fact that was the central subject of the 9/11 commission hearings, 10 or 15 books and hundreds of articles.
One would have to throw out every single academic study of the past 30 or 40 years about the effects of question wording on survey response not to recognize that, for many survey respondents who remembered the 9/11 Commission Report and other media coverage, the phrase “advanced knowledge of the 9/11 attacks” could be cognitively processed as meaning:
“The Bush administration had substantial advance knowledge from U.S. intelligence sources that a terrorist attack on the U.S. was being predicted as imminent in the fall of 2001”
Rather than interpreting the question as saying:
“The Bush Administration had specific and detailed advance knowledge about a particular group of 19 Saudi Arabian terrorists armed with box cutters and trained to fly commercial jet aircraft who planned to hijack four U.S. airliners at 9:45 in the morning on September 11th 2001 and attempt to crash two of them into the New York World Trade Center”

This week, in his blog, Brendan Nyhan offers essentially the same criticism of the Rasmussen question. As he says:

The problem, as Media Matters points out, is that the wording of the Rasmussen poll (“Did Bush know about the 9/11 attacks in advance?”) almost surely conflates people who believe Bush intentionally allowed an attack to occur with those who think the administration was negligent in its attention to the potential threat from Al Qaeda. Even National Review Online’s Jonah Goldberg conceded this point in a column published soon after the poll was released.

But then he goes on to say the following:

Another, lesser-known poll used less ambiguous wording and found similar results. A July 2006 Scripps Howard/Ohio University poll asked the following question:

There are also accusations being made following the 9/11 terrorist attack. One of these is: People in the federal government either assisted in the 9/11 attacks or took no action to stop the attacks because they wanted to United States to go to war in the Middle East….

In short, using a more appropriate comparison poll, the primary conclusion stands — both party’s bases are disturbingly receptive to wild conspiracy theories.

Nyhan is clearly right that this question is better than the previous one. But – when viewed in light of the academic literature about how ordinary respondents actually cognitively process poll questions – the fact is that it is still insufficient to support his conclusion.

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Andrea Fuller reports at The New York Times blog, ‘The Caucus’ on “tele-town halls,” a creative alternative to allowing town hall meetings on health insurance reform to devolve into shouting matches with shrill reactionaries. Fuller explains:

The conference-call style of town halls is nothing new, nor has its use been restricted to Democrats. But for some lawmakers back in their districts this month to talk about health care, the tele-town hall is shaping up as a refreshing option to forums that make possible confrontations with protesters….
…Thousands of participants can join tele-town halls. Representatives provide call-in numbers and access codes to their constituents through robo-calls, Web sites and newsletters. Members of Congress say the phone sessions are a more convenient way to reach constituents, especially elderly and disabled constituents who might not attend an in-person event.
“You can talk to thousands of people all over the state all at once in a format that allows everyone to be heard,” said Jon Summers, a spokesman for the Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid. “What we’ve seen with other town halls is the dialogue that people are used to isn’t being allowed to occur.”

Fuller reports that Rep. Heath Shuler (D-NC) has scheduled two tele-town hall meetings for August. Shuler aide Douglas Abrahms said he expects the tele-town halls to “catch on quickly.” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who conducted a tele-town hall meeting in July with 30,000 participants (OK, mostly listeners), is setting up another one. “You can talk to thousands of people all over the state all at once in a format that allows everyone to be heard,” explains Reid aide Jon Summers.
The tele-town hall meeting strategy allows progressives to manage the environment in a way that encourages civil discussion of concerns, instead of discordant yelling contests. Predictably, the Republicans are attacking the tele-town halls as anti-democratic, primarily because there is no way to disrupt them. But tele-town hall advocates could respond that the comparison between the live and tele-town hall meetings as educational forums is like the difference between ‘shock jock’ radio and NPR.
Some Democratic members of congress may be able to handle the live town hall meetings to their advantage, assuming they can have some control over the environment, by demonstrating their maturity and sobriety in comparison to the screaming GOP shills. And it may be that the astroturfers’ protests will peak too soon, or even better, start to turn off increasing numbers of people. For many Dems, however, the tele-town hall meeting approach is a creative alternative to the Republicans’ obstruction campaign.

A big part of the fight against health reform right now involves the identification of specific provisions in the House bill that are then distorted, taken out of context, or otherwise twisted to create the impression of some scary or monstrous outrage. That’s how language authorizing the payment of providers requested by patients to advise on end-of-life treatment options turned into “death panels.”
So now, via Todd Gitlin at TPM, we read a column by Mike Huckabee’s bosom buddy Chuck Norris identifying another scary provision:

It’s outlined in sections 440 and 1904 of the House bill (Page 838), under the heading “home visitation programs for families with young children and families expecting children.” The programs (provided via grants to states) would educate parents on child behavior and parenting skills.

This voluntary program becomes, in Norris’ account, a lurid “home intrusion and indoctrination” program intended to usurp parental rights, impose “progressive-secular religiously neutered” values, and probably even “encourage abortions.”
What it actually sounds like to me is the sort of prenatal and neonatal “welcome wagon” services already offered in many states, often in conjunction with private non-profit and religious organizations.
Still, put all that aside for a moment and consider this: when Norris or Sarah Palin or anyone else cherry-picks some provision in one health care reform bill and then demonizes it, do they ever make the rather obvious suggestion that said provision simply be modified or eliminated during the very long process that would lead to a bill on the president’s desk? I mean, really: the House hasn’t even passed a bill yet. The Senate Finance Committee hasn’t drafted a bill yet, and it certainly isn’t using the House committees’ bill as any sort of template. The Senate allows virtually unlimited amendment of bills. And then even after House and Senate floor action, there’s a conference committee that can and will make changes.
But no: these cherry-pickers simply demand rejection of “Obama’s plan” or the “Democrat plan;” Norris urges his readers to “write or call your representative today and protest his voting Obamacare into law.” Sure, he, like every other opponent of health reform, claims Congress is “rushing” these bills, and says we need a “truly bipartisan group that is allowed an ample amount of time to work on a compromise health care law that wouldn’t raise taxes (for anyone), regulate personal medical choices, ration health care or restrict American citizens.” But that’s another way of saying he opposes anything vaguely approaching universal health coverage. And that’s his right. But please, Chuck, kickbox this suggestion that “Obamacare” is some sort of monolithic plan full of secret agendas that is being rammed through Congress on an up-or-down vote. That is, in point of fact, a lie, which is a term I rarely apply to people’s political expressions.
There’s plenty of opportunity to change health reform provisions, and those who are shrieking about this or that provision need to stop disguising their fundamental opposition to health reform as concern about the details.

Paul Waldman’s recent post “Health Care’s Public Perception Malady” at The American Prospect addresses a topic of growing concern among advocates of health care reform. Waldman’s post is mostly a lament about public attitudes towards government, and senior citizen attitudes toward government-provided health care, in particular. Waldman notes a major public opinion poll indicating seniors’ hostility to government and he adds:

A conservative might argue that the elderly’s antagonism toward government comes from their experience with it. But both Medicare and Social Security are hugely popular among their recipients. Think about the cognitive dissonance involved: I’m very happy with my Medicare coverage, and I couldn’t live without my Social Security, but don’t get that damn government too involved in health care!
Forty-four years after its passage, the success of Medicare — just to review, a big-government program that has provided health care to tens of millions of seniors who would not have otherwise had it, does so more efficiently than private insurance, has seen costs grow at a slower rate than private insurance, and is smashingly popular with its recipients — has not seemed to fundamentally alter the public’s receptiveness to anti-government arguments. Ditto for Social Security. Ditto for the Veterans Administration, which is the only truly socialized health-care system in America, and one that is considered by many health-care experts to provide the best health care in the country.
How do we account for this? It’s true that some people are just idiots and will believe almost anything they’re told. But more than that, it shows the enduring power of ideological rhetoric. When something is repeated often enough, and with enough conviction, lots of people will end up believing it, no matter the facts.

Waldman leaves it there, with the unstated implication that the wisest strategy might be to organize around this constituency. Indeed, the battle for support of skeptical seniors for health care reform has produced few gains in recent years. Of course, seniors demonstrate the most impressive voter turnout rates of any demographic group. Politicians know it, and so seniors wield disprioportionate clout in legislative reform debates.
No doubt there are ways of asking seniors health care policy questions, which will elicit less fearful responses. But Waldman’s point is hard to deny. Still, the only known cure for misinformation is education. Many seniors are well-informed about reform proposals, but it appears that many are not. But if there is any hope whatsoever, of making at least some inroads into the opposition of seniors, the support of their organizations is critical.
So what does AARP, the nation’s largest senior citizen’s organization (40 million members) counsel these days, as the battle for health security for America is being joined? The AARP web page debunking fear-mongering mythology about health insurance reform does an excellent job of exposing the myths about ‘death boards,’ ‘socialzed medicine’ ‘rationed care,’ patients’ decision authority, etc.
But any organization with 40 million members is going to have diverse views among its members, as one L.A. Times article, “Many seniors aren’t sure healthcare system needs repair” featured on its web pages makes clear. Unfortunately, the AARP mythology-debunking commitment, commendable that it is, doesn’t extend to mobilizing its members to speak out at town hall forums. The organization’s statement responding to President Obama’s recent town hall meeting is pretty much standard bipartisan boilerplate, skillfully avoiding statements of support for the more contentious measures. It’s a shame.
Certainly we can hope that the AARP will more aggressively address the fear-mongering in the days ahead, including use of direct mail, phone calls and perhaps public service ads, as well as web pages. When the Democratic health care reform bill is fully-fleshed out, very few organizations can do more than the AARP to secure it’s enactment. Regardless of what AARP or any Senior organization does, however, America needs to hear more from informed, articulate seniors favoring Democratic health reform proposals.

As yesterday’s staff post reflected, the experience of organized and angry crowds of health reform opponents during summer recess “town hall” meetings is raising some legitimate questions about the value of such events. If participants don’t represent the actual views of people in a given district, what’s the point in giving them opportunities to vent their spleen and gain media attention?
Mark Schmitt of The American Prospect notes today that this is not an unprecedented problem. He cites the widespread protests by seniors against the passage of “catastrophic health coverage” by in 1988 Congress as precedent; the led to the repeal of that legislation just a year later:

The bill had put most of the cost on a small group of wealthy seniors, and after passage, a a direct-mail organization stoked backlash over the funding structure, convincing many seniors they would pay the same $800 surtax as the wealthiest. It is remembered today mostly for the televised scene of Rep. Dan Rostenkowski, then chair of the House Ways and Means Committee and, like Dingell, a baron whose authority had gone unquestioned, besieged by angry seniors blocking his car as he tried to exit a similar town meeting.

Schmitt goes on to cite some of the refinements in “astroturfing” since 1989, and concludes that alternatives to the traditional “town meeting” would be helpful to foster genuine representative-constituent communications and public engagement.

At times of big, transformational change, citizens must have a way into the policy-making process, but it can’t be one that’s dominated by the loudest, most disruptive, or best-funded voices. Technology means that people can acquire the text of legislation for themselves, can research members’ voting records, can organize themselves to be heard in a hundred new ways. But it doesn’t make it any easier for a member of Congress to figure out what they think, whether their views are based on misinformation or deeply held beliefs, or how intense their views are.

There are, as Schmitt mentions, some good models out there for more deliberative interaction between the public and its representantives, and better ways to assess genuine public opinion while improving knowledge of substantive issues. Supressing angry voices isn’t right, but neither is listening to no one else.

This item is cross-posted from The New Republic.
The conservative attacks on health care reform and Barack Obama’s economic plan seem to have reached a fever pitch this week. Their obsession with the topics has been matched only by the inanity of most of their critiques. Why are the conservative talking points on these issues grounded in such weak arguments? Is there something else at play here?
This reaction seemed strangely familiar as I read Matthew Yglesias’s recent post about the Christian Right’s obsession with gay marriage. As a matter of course, your average Christian Right crusader against gay marriage acts as though the issue vitally affects non-gay people: It cheapens “real” marriage and threatens the “traditional family,” they argue. Others claim that it enshrines relativistic morals and violates the religious rights of Christians. What unites most of these arguments is that they claim not to be about denying gay people their rights, but protecting non-gay people.
None of these arguments are particularly strong. And not coincidentally, if you spend much time around regular conservative folk (rather than pundits or spokesmen) who oppose gay marriage, they won’t be making them. Rather, you hear various forms of personal and Biblical condemnation of homosexuality, usually combined with outrage that these people demand legal protection for their unsavory behavior. You don’t hear this in public in part because dehumanizing gay people isn’t as generally acceptable as it used to be. But it’s still there, under the surface, and may be one of the reasons why critics of gay marriage keep fighting against gay marriage despite the ludicrous nature of their public arguments.
This may actually help explain many of the absurd conservative attacks on Obama’s economic and health care agenda. We’re painfully accustomed to hearing that Obama is herding Americans into socialism, is destroying the private-sector economy, and is determined to create a health care system that combines the bureaucracy of Great Britain with the ethics of Nazi Germany. Do the people repeating and encouraging this sort of talk really believe it?
Maybe, but there may also be something a little more direct going on in the conservative psychology. There was an interesting vignette at one of the infamous town hall meetings last week in which a disabled woman on crutches who had lost her health insurance was accosted by another woman who shouted, “I shouldn’t have to pay for your health care!” amidst jeering applause from other health reform opponents. That was no more than a crude expression of what some conservative elite spokesmen have explicitly said, such as ABC’s John Stossel, who describes Obama’s plan as “a form of expensive, taxpayer-funded welfare.”
If this sounds vaguely familiar, it echoes what we heard repeatedly among angry grassroots conservatives during the 2008 campaign, particularly after the financial collapse: Irresponsible people (many of whom happen to be minorities) have wrecked the economy by taking out mortgages they couldn’t afford, and were subsequently trying to elect Obama to get themselves more welfare at the expense of good, productive people who didn’t live beyond their means. Indeed, long after welfare reform supposedly took this conservative wedge issue off the table, anger about “welfare”–as applied to mortgage relief, progressive taxes, and now health reform–has made quite a comeback. One of the most potent things about the 1980s-vintage attacks on “welfare” was that they endowed some pretty ugly emotions with self-righteousness, and even a sense of victimization, for people who felt they were being punished for being productive. It seems clear that many of Obama’s right-wing critics are motivated as much by moral judgments about the beneficiaries of his polices as by their alleged impact on the economy or the health care system.
But in the same way that it’s no longer acceptable to publicly hate on gay people, it is not terribly respectable to publicly hate the poor, to consider minorities inherently inferior, or to express indifference towards the sufferings of fellow citizens. And so instead of the woman screaming “Why should I pay for your health care?” we get a host of specious public-spirited arguments about the destruction that health care reform will inflict on us all, be they elderly Medicare beneficiaries or the middle-class mother of a disabled child.
Conservatives are hardly unique in reacting selfishly or self-righteously to political issues, or dressing up personal prejudices with public policy arguments; we all do that from time to time, and to one extent or another. But whether we are talking about gay marriage, government-backed mortgages, or health care reform, there may well be a strongly dynamic relationship right now between privately held feelings of strong disdain for the purported beneficiaries of Obama’s agenda, and some of the wilder arguments being made publicly to attack it.

Matthew Ygelsias has a ‘Think Progress‘ post, “What’s the Point of These Health Care Town Halls?,” which can be read as a continuation of the topic Ed raised earlier today in his TDS post “Should Town Hall Meetings Matter?”
Yglesias riffs on Michael Crowley’s post commending Sen. Claire McCaskill’s handling of a town hall meeting earlier today. Yglesias agrees with Crowley about McCaskill:

She was pitch-perfect: polite and responsive without being a pushover, armed with clear and compelling facts (emphasis on things any health reform bill will *not* do) and firm when necessary. She shamed one of the loudest hecklers by reminding him that “we have good manners in Missouri,” but without losing her own temper. I know the mid-day MSNBC audience is small, but I feel like almost any open-minded person who saw this performance would come away trusting McCaskill over the protesters.

Sounds like it might make a good training video on how to handle the GOP goon squads that have been showing up at some of these forums, but Yglesias provides no link. Looking at the big picture, Yglesias wonders whether the town hall meetings are worth the trouble:

…Watching McCaskill on TV what I mostly thought of was that I don’t understand why members of congress are holding these town halls. There’s been so much focus on the spectacle of the whole thing that nobody’s really stepped back and explained what the purpose of these events are other than to give us pundits something to chat about. Obviously this is not a good way of acquiring statistically valid information about your constituents’ opinions. And it doesn’t seem like a mode of endeavor likely to increase the popularity of the politician holding the town hall. The upside is extremely limited, and you’re mostly just exposing yourself to the chance that something could go wrong.

Yglesias gets an earful of answers in the comments. Nothing earth-shaking, but some thoughtful insights, such as ‘Dan’s take:

The point is to establish anti-Washington credentials. Remember when McCain was begging for Obama to do a series of town halls together last summer? Something about the format seems to jive well with the angry-white-guy populist shtick.

Adds ‘Henry B.’:

I think the reason for doing them is primarily custom and secondarily the need to generate favorable local media coverage. If you’re a member of Congress and you do a couple town-halls and don’t screw up too badly, you can count on some nice pictures on the front of the local papers. It gives people back home proof that you’re making an effort to stay in touch with your constituents.
There is, of course, an unusually large downside risk this year, and I think that’s why a lot of members of Congress have canceled their town-halls this year. Obviously the members who are going forward with their town-halls are getting more attention, but I work on the Hill and have heard of several members who aren’t doing any town-halls.

‘Ted’ shares Ygelsias’s view:

Everyone’s making good points about the value of town halls in the past. But if these things are going to be regularly astroturfed, I agree with MY that it’s hard to see the upside right now, for individual candidates.
I’m not sure what the overall effect has been on health care reform. Ambinder is saying that the right has blown it by letting their crazies run with the ball. But I haven’t seen a whole lot of effective messaging from our side, either. The net effect may be that people are convinced that the teabaggers are nuts, but remain confused & apprehensive about health policy.

A commenter named ‘Midland” explains:

…Most politicians get their start talking to people one on one and get to the top doing the same. That’s why so many of them seem so inarticulate on television: they didn’t get to where they are going to acting school, they got there by talking to a whole lot of people in small groups. About politics, about themselves, about things they believed in, for good or ill.
The saddest thing about this latest blast of meanness from the right is that town halls, for most of the last two decades, have been a refuge of intelligent, adult political debate. No matter how stupid, bombastic, trivial, or dishonest the network coverage, a politician in a honest town hall meeting usually got sincere questions from thoughtful citizens. It was always a welome contrast to the Beltway gasbags.

‘Njorl’ suggests an interesting idea:

…The Democrats best strategy would have been to hold simultaneous town halls all over the country. You’d get fewer shipped-in crazies that way.

The bottom line, simple as it sounds, may be that, with major electronic media so unwilling to give fair coverage to the case FOR Democratic health care reform proposals, proponents simply have to take every messaging opportunity available.

Ezra Klein at the Washington Post has nicely crystallized today the frustrations involved in trying to answer some of the crazier “questions” being raised by opponents of health care reform:

[T]he questions reformers have to answer is not “when did you stop beating your wife?” It’s “what will prevent you from beating your wife?” Given that there is no such thing as a “death panel,” nor any policy provision that would establish such a thing, it is hard to explain the institutional checks that would prevent a “death panel” from coming into being. When you have to explain why your bill won’t create death panels, and what will make sure that it doesn’t, you’ve pretty much lost the argument.
The fact that an idea as loony as death panels has found even the slightest purchase in the public consciousness shows how distant the minority feels from our democracy. Members of Congress are terrified of voter backlash and industry opposition. They are leaving virtually the entire health-care system untouched. They will scuttle the bill if a rural hospital in their district doesn’t receive sufficient reimbursement or if a local device manufacturer is harmed. Yet there is a certain portion of the country that believes that Max Baucus and Mike Ross are willing to vote for death panels and defend them before their constituents in the following election.

Aside from the “what will prevent you from beating your wife?” problem, Ezra is also on target in identifying the large disconnect between the realities of how this legislation is being developed and the apparent perceptions of health reform opponents. Many reform advocates are perpetually in a state of semi-depression about the compromises being made to bring the requisite number of House Blue Dogs, plus the “Gang of Six” in the Senate, on board for any bill. Yet protesters against the “Obama plan” are telling us it’s a replica of the worst features of the British Health Service, which it doesn’t even begin to resemble, and that centrist Democrats are secretly on board with a far-left scheme. This makes much of the health reform “debate” an exercise in shadow boxing.

The continuing arguments over congressional “town hall meetings” and protests against health reform have largely focused on the relative authenticity of the protests. Are the people chanting against Obama and health reform at these events motivated by spontaneous civic-minded feelings, or were they rounded up and deployed by “astroturfing” p.r. outfits paid by health industry lobbyists? The previous post by James Vega goes into the questions of authenticity in some detail.
But I have a different question: authentic or phony, should these protests matter to Congress? We are talking, after all, about relatively small groups of people vociferously expressing a point of view (yes, some ask “questions” of their representatives, but generally of the loaded and rhetorical sort). Should these expressions be given disproportionate weight, perhaps more than, say, the party or ideology of Members of Congress, their understanding of their districts’ needs, or surveys of public opinion?
The question pretty much answers itself if you don’t start with vague notions, as many conservative commentators have been offering lately, that the protesters somehow represent the heart and soul of America, or Concerned Citizenry, or the Middle Class, or some such other abstraction. It’s particularly amusing to hear those who doubt the significance of the protests being denounced as “elitists.” What could be more “elitist” than the belief that democratic procedures should be trumped by the appearance of a few hundred highly opinionated people at a public event?
I dunno–maybe my jaundiced attitude on this subject was developed when I worked for a United States Senator back in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Yes, my boss held public forums pretty regularly, and yes, we carefully toted up calls and cards and letters sent from constituents on various issues of the day. But we were under zero illusion that these expressions of public opinion were necessarily representative of public opinion itself. At public events, the bane of every Member of Congress’ existence in those days were the so-called “Notch Babies,” a cohort of people born between 1917 and 1921 who were convinced they had been denied Social Security benefits that people born just before or after received. “Notch Babies” showed up at every available forum demanding financial reparations. Members and staff patiently listened to, and tried to reason with, these disgruntled citizens, with limited success. But you know what? Legislation to “fix” the “notch” was never enacted.
Elected representatives do have a responsibility to give constituents opportunities to ask them questions and express their own views, as a simple matter of accountability. But those voices should not be confused with the “voice of the people,” measured a bit more scientifically by elections, in which, as you may recall, the candidates clearly preferred by most if not all of the health reform protesters lost. This probably made them feel “disempowered” and perhaps even angry and inclined to answer that email and go out to shake fists at the Democrat Socialist representing them so badly in Congress. That’s all well and good, and any Member of Congress who can’t take heckling now and then is probably in the wrong line of work. But the idea that the chants and signs and head-counts at these highly selective events ought to sway votes on real issues is just wrong.

The current debate between Democrats and Republicans as to whether the teabag/health care reform protests are spontaneous “grass roots” events or totally artificial creations of “Astroturf” lobbying firms is now settling down into a familiar pattern of dueling partisan op-ed page commentaries, sound-bites and press releases. It is therefore an opportune moment to consider a somewhat more nuanced version of this question — exactly how are the local protesters and the lobbying firms really related.
On the one hand, since the April 15th Tea Parties it has been obvious that there is indeed a decentralized network of thousands of local conservative activists distributed across several hundred cities around the country. The 300,000 people that Nate Silver estimated participated in Tea Party events on April 15th are a small percentage of the nation’s total population, but they are a politically significant force because of their wide local distribution. After April 15th there was never any real doubt that these local activists would be ready and willing to mobilize around any of a number of conservative political causes.
Only a minority of these activists are directly paid by lobbying firms or are long-term active volunteers in conservative organizations or the Republican Party. In this very specific and limited sense, many individual protesters can indeed be called “authentic” rather than artificial.
But to properly judge the significance of the teabag/anti-health care protesters of today, it is more instructive to compare them with the student protest movement of the 1960’s. There are actually certain major similarities – and one profound difference.
Let’s look at the student protest movement first:

• On the broadest level the “student movement” of the 1960’s was united by opposition to the war in Vietnam but beyond that it was a kaleidoscopic mixture of outlooks, lifestyles and political perspectives. The student movement included straight traditional liberal “politicos”, extreme radicals and hippy-counterculture protesters whose outlook ranged from highly political to largely non-political. The issues that motivated the participants in the student movement — aside from Vietnam — included civil rights, the environment, legalization of drugs, control over the university itself as well as a vast range of other liberal to radical social and political concerns.
• What gave the “student movement” the powerful sense of solidarity and community that it undeniably had was a distinct social and cultural outlook and a sensibility rooted in the environment and culture of the university and the satellite culture of bookstores, coffee houses, music venues, co-op’s and so on that operated around it. There was a profound sense of shared cultural identity as students, youth and rebels against the dominant culture – a clear perception of “us versus “them”
• The student movement and culture created its own information channels – underground newspapers, alternative magazines and “comix” as well as a universally shared, deeply political music – both folk and rock — and an intense appreciation of the few kindred spirits like the Smothers Brothers who existed in the mainstream media.
• The student movement faced constant and deep divisions over tactics – divisions that evolved over the decade – first between peaceful demonstrations versus sit-ins and then between disruptive protests and more radical actions like “shutting down” the universities and the weathermen’s “days of rage”

In these four particular respects, the current teabag/health care protesters do indeed exhibit certain distinct similarities.

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