Inside Man: How A Prankster Plans To Destroy The Tea Party Movement

[meegbear]

Meet Jason Levin: possibly the scariest man in the tea party universe. An Oregon technology consultant, Levin is the leader of Crash The Tea Party, a plan to take down the tea party from the inside. Levin says he's got a crowing cadre of supporters across the country, and conservatives from the message boards to the set of the Sean Hannity's show are getting nervous.

"Our plan is not to shout them down," Levin told me yesterday, "but to infiltrate them and push them farther from the mainstream."

The scheme reads like a sequel to "Being John Malkovich": Levins group of protesters plan to get in the heads of tea partiers at the Tax Day Tea Parties nationwide Thursday and manipulate them right out of relevance. They'll dress like tea partiers, talk like tea partiers and carry signs like tea partiers. In fact, according to Levin they'll be completely indistinguishable from tea partiers, except for one thing -- they won't be out-crazied by anyone.

"Our goal is that whenever a tea partier says 'Barack Obama was not born in America,' we're going be right right there next to them saying, 'yeah, in fact he wasn't born on Earth! He's an alien!" Levin explained. He said that by making the tea parties sound like a gathering of crazy people -- his group's goal -- the movement will lose its power.

Levin said he got the idea from a counter-protest to the infamous Westboro Baptist Church group held outside Twitter headquarters in January. Levin said the Westboro group broke up after counter-protesters showed up holding signs "even crazier" than the ones held by the Westboro group. "They realized they couldn't get their message out, so they just left" Levin said.

On the Crash The Tea Party website, managed by Levin, he explains how the plan will work. "Whenever possible, we will act on behalf of the Tea Party to exaggerate their least appealing qualities (misspelled protest signs, wild claims in TV interviews, etc.)"

"The lower the public opinion of them goes, the less coverage they're going to get in the mainstream media," Levin said when I asked him about the plan. "Then the GOP stops listening to them and they disperse and they go back to their militias and cabins in the woods."

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http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/04/inside-man-how-a-prankster-plans-to-destroy-the-tea-party-movement.php?ref=fpb

[Robb]

1. So Levin is sort of an idiot provocateur. nt

[woodsprite]

2. So can the Dems use that on a larger scale and make the Repubs irrelevant? n/t

[Webster Green]

3. Some of us think it is a hoax, providing cover to teabaggers.

See here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=8139422&mesg_id=8139422

[meegbear]

4. I will check it out ...

I got the story from Talking Points Memo and they are pretty good about stories like this (and if it is a hoax, they will post an update story.)

[arcadian]

5. You might be right.

His analysis of the Westboro Baptist Church counter protest is absolutely wrong. The WBC didn't leave because they were outnumbered by the crazy, they thrive on the fact that people come out and protest them, it gives them more coverage and as I witnessed, often times people driving by think the counter protesters are with the WBC. But the real flaw in his analysis in WBC is that they left out of frustration, the WBC left because they only protest at any one place for 30 minutes to an hour. Check their schedule on their website.

[Mudoria]

23. I think it's impossible to "out crazy" the Westboro protesters myself.

[G_j]

7. I agree, it is suspect

it would be a classic RW tactic, of which Rove could be proud.

[damntexdem]

8. That's my suspicion. In any case, it's a stupid idea.

And it's even dumber to announce it in advance -- that is, unless it's a hoax.

[Nickels13]

6. This is just cover for them to be racist nut cases!!

Now this just give Sean Hannity a backdoor excuse when the videos of tea party members being racists comes out. That was one of plants not a tea party member.

[ChazII]

10. Agree with you 100%. n/t

[jberryhill]

Bingo /nt

[conscious evolution]

9. As others have said

This appears to be a psy op aimed at giving cover to the teabaggers to deflect attention from their rascism/homophobia,etc.. by blaming liberal infiltrators.
IMO progressives need to stay far away from this stunt.

[grantcart]

11. I hadn't seen the counter Westboro protests that this was based on

Click through if you hadn't it was very effective and funny.

[grantcart]

12. What would be really brilliant is to make the announcement and then actually

have nobody infilitrate.

The Tea Party will then spend half of its time accusing innocent Tea Baggers of being plants.

[starroute]

13. Or have covert provocateurs

Who don't act crazy themselves but go around at the rallies accusing the more nutso actual Tea Partiers of being plants and trying to get them to turn against each other.

Of course, progressives are far too polite and respectful of the democratic process to actually do anything like that. But the resulting meltdown would certainly be entertaining.

(For that matter, since the Tea Parties seem bent on reproducing all the structural flaws of the old left, I expect them to start factioning any moment and accusing each other of ideological deviation. I can hardly wait.)

[HipChick]

14. looks like it was a hoax...

http://www.facebook.com/crashtheteaparty?ref=search&sid=1371258800.4127437561..1

[dem mba]

18. that's not the "official" page

but I think it's suspect. Go to crashtheteaparty.org, then click on the facebook logo there.

What I think is really happening is one guy, who is technically savvy, is planting this message and getting great coverage. Freepers heads are exploding and now, he doesn't even have to do anything.

I have seen another article about this, but no one has contacted any of the 65 other member groups. There is no one confirmed to be in this counter-movement except Jason Levin.

[tom_paine]

22. But in this country, ruled by Bushiganda and the Corporate M$M, Bushie Hoaxes work even AFTER

they've been debunked.

Witness ACORN. Brief, shattering AMATEURISH Bushiganda Op that, surprise of surprises, crushed ACORN out of existance even before it could be debunked.

But that's the truly amazing think about the self-referential universe of Goebbels v2.0 that the Bushies have perfected, I saw M$M stories AFTER the scam had been outed at CPAC and cleared by the various DAs that treated the "Pimp b-roll" O'Keefe tape as if it was 100% legit.

Amazing, but this is only the 100th or perhaps the 1000th time we've all seen the "water flow uphill" like that.

[TheKentuckian]

15. laissez faire buffoons and the Klan have been with us for a long time

but I wish all who try to obliterate those movements the very best.

[NeedleCast]

16. Haha, I love it

[librechik]

17. the joke is, now he doesn't have to infiltrate at al

He's just made them all so paranoid that they will imagine infiltration where there is none.

he disrupted excellently!

[dem mba]

19. what's amazing to me is that so far

only ONE person has been identified in this "counter-movement". ONE person, Jason Levin. Now that's some mighty fine viral marketing my friend, but it means nothing.

We still know nothing about him, or anyone else involved.

[gatorboy]

20. What brilliance! Announce with your full name and picture that you're going under cover.

I think the hunger for publicity got the best of him.

[pecwae]

21. How stupid.

Levin is out for Levin, plain and simple. You don't announce stealth actions if you want them to be successful.