It's not the same

Washington, September 12 2009. via Fox News.

I'm seeing a lot of traffic on the Twitter, including from some distinguished journalists, drawing an equivalence between these town hall meetings where Republican legislators are getting screamed at and the Tea Party agitation of 2009-10, much of it with the optimistic view that this could augur one of those big waves in the 2018 elections:

Like Tea Party protests, Chaffetz town hall could be harbinger of midterm trouble - Washington Examiner https://t.co/x59yVfVdJ7

— Gregory McCray (@g_mccray) February 11, 2017

Or even pessimistic, worrying that protesters are making themselves obnoxious, and nobody likes that:

No, I'm saying that history teaches us that #resistance movements are also disruptive and often disliked. Some ppl like to look over that... https://t.co/WYZvZX8SFl

— Charles M. Blow (@CharlesMBlow) February 23, 2017

And for counterpoint the breezy Cillizza dismizza:

Why chaotic town halls mean less than you think https://t.co/JIRGfoQvnZ pic.twitter.com/Lj6T2JdnjD

— Chris Cillizza (@TheFix) February 22, 2017

And then there's this:

Woman at Tom Cotton town hall: “We’re going Medicare MY way. Not your way. My way. I’ve got a husband DYING.” pic.twitter.com/fHF9nbyqiB

— Bradd Jaffy (@BraddJaffy) February 22, 2017

It struck me there's an enormous difference between these protests and those of seven or eight years ago, in that these are about reality.

The Tea Party was complaining about taxes going through the roof and masses of Mexicans invading our country when taxes had in fact been going down for years and Mexicans had started migrating in the opposite direction. Not that most of them were lying, I think they really didn't know. They hadn't gone to the trouble of putting two payslips together and figuring it out, and they didn't live in places where there were any Mexicans, and they didn't know what they were talking about, just what Rush and Sean were telling them, and our beloved mainstream media didn't seem to know either—the Chris Cillizzas and Adam Nagourneys who don't feel they're being paid to know anything about real life since how does that impact the horse race anyway?

This week's town hall protesters, in contrast, are talking about access to lifesaving medical care and Donald Trump's tax returns, and it carries a certain conviction. Anyway it feels a lot different to me.

Cross-posted at The Rectification of Names.