What percentage of these teabaggers, do you think, watch Fox News, and maybe Fox News exclusively?
99 percent? 99.5 percent? OK, OK, maybe that’s overstating it.
98 percent.
As Hendrik Hertzberg notes here, the teabag movement is unique in American history because its leadership is entirely comprised of conservative media pundits:
The protesters do not look to politicians for leadership. They look to niche media figures like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Michael Savage, and their scores of clones behind local and national microphones. Because these figures have no responsibilities, they cannot disappoint. Their sneers may be false and hateful—they all routinely liken the President and the “Democrat Party” to murderous totalitarians—but they are employed by large, nominally respectable corporations and supported by national advertisers, lending them a considerable measure of institutional prestige.
The woman in the video with the “Reserved for Glenn Beck Fans” sign - I’m here to tell you her entire political consciousness has been shaped by Glenn Beck; once again, I personally know people like this, who before tuning to Fox News were apolitical. And now they’re wingers - because of Fox News.
My goodness, what would they do if technical troubles knocked Fox off the air for a day? They’d be apopleptic; these people are literally ready to do anything at all that Glenn Beck tells them to do. Glenn Beck tells them to jump, they ask “How high?” And they get mad when you point that out! Because Glenn Beck would only tell them to jump if it was necessary to jump! Don’t you understand?
Perfectly.
