Paging Jessica Tarlov Re: Astroturfed Anger at DOGE

Jessica Tarlov is the token Democrat talking head often appearing on the Fox News program The Five surrounded by four more level-headed center-right and conservative commentators including Jesse Watters, Greg Gutfeld, Judge Jeanine Pirro, and often Dana Perino. It’s a thankless job but someone must do it. Typically, when Tarlov is unavailable, Harold Ford, Jr., a calmer and much saner thinker, takes the Democrat seat at the table.

Tarlov, the other day, made the point that even Republicans in red districts were not happy with Elon Musk and the DOGE effort to root out waste, fraud, and corruption in various government departments and agencies, and were raising their voices to object to the way that DOGE is going about its work. This seemed to be a Democrat talking point because other leftist commentators were aping this same story on CNN, MSNBC, CBS, etc. (not that identical, unified messaging has ever <cough, choke> been spewed on these networks).

Here is Tarlov making her claim.

There’s just one problem with the claim. According to The Washington Free Beacon:

Red-District DOGE Protests, Cited As Proof of Broad Musk 'Backlash,' Were Organized By Left-Wing Groups

Huh. Go figure. Who woulda thunk?

In one case, a former Dem county board candidate and self-described 'political activist' helped organize a viral demonstration in Georgia.

Turns out that George Soros-funded organizations were behind organizing these astroturf town halls. Again from The Washington Free Beacon:

Across the country, similar protests played out at House GOP town halls and district offices. The demonstrations drove mainstream media coverage of brewing backlash against the Trump administration as the lower chamber left Washington, D.C., for a week-long recess. Well-funded liberal organizations organized many of them.

The George Soros-funded groups Indivisible and MoveOn were at the center of the demonstrations. Both groups launched national "mobilization" efforts targeting the "Trump-Musk agenda" and "Trump-Musk coup" during the recess period. MoveOn said its "members and allies will show up at congressional-led town halls and congressional offices around the country, targeting House Republicans whose votes will be crucial in opposing Trump and Musk's harmful policies." Indivisible issued a "Musk or Us Recess Toolkit" that showed members how to find their local town halls and urged them to "take the fight to Elon."

It did seem rather ludicrous that suddenly town halls around the country were being held in less than a month since Donald Trump was inaugurated...and to assume that Republicans who voted for Trump on the promise that Musk and DOGE would root out waste, fraud, and corruption had somehow changed their minds and now had buyers' remorse.

We’ll see if Tarlov apologizes for spreading Democrat propaganda and a false narrative in the next installment of The Five this afternoon. I’m sure she has a decent contract with Fox News but there do appear to be openings at MSNBC where she might feel more at home.