Goodbye Cruel World: Tea Party 'FreedomWorks' Group Is Dead As Doornail

Millennials probably killed that too.

Join us on a nostalgic journey all the way back in time to the sepia-toned, long-gone early days of Barack Obama’s presidency, when Glenn Beck took to the airwaves night after night after night to fill a chalkboard from one edge to the other with indecipherable hieroglyphics positing conspiracies and hidden elite agendas, when John Boehner swilled his wine and wept copiously over nothing, when a congressman yelling “You lie!” at the president in the middle of his State of the Union address was the worst breach of decorum imaginable in a congressional chamber short of a Brooks-Sumner rematch, when patriots tied little bags of Earl Grey to tricorn hats and proudly rode their Rascal scooters in mindless protests while calling themselves “teabaggers” to unending sophomoric giggling from everyone over the age of 12.

It was also the heyday of FreedomWorks, a conservative think tank with alleged libertarian leanings. Sensing an opportunity when America committed the horrific sin of electing a Black man as president, FreedomWorks spent those years near the top of the wingnut food chain by pumping up the Tea Party, dispensing funds and protest training seminars to its adherents, and endorsing spectacular assholes like Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz.

But this week FreedomWorks shuttered, having somehow been out-assholed by the populist descendants of the Tea Party and their god-king, Donald Trump:

FreedomWorks leaders, for example, still believed in free trade, small government and a robust merit-based immigration system. Increasingly, however, those positions clashed with a Trump-aligned membership who called for tariffs on imported goods and a wall to keep immigrants out but were willing, in [FreedomWorks President Adam] Brandon’s view, to remain silent as Trump’s administration added $8 trillion to the national debt.

Oh sure, FreedomWorks also dabbled in election conspiracy theories and defended Florida’s infamous “Don’t Say Gay” bill and had some involvement with the ridiculous Project 2025. But mostly it suffered from the same split of MAGA versus Never Trumpers that has plagued the Right since Trump came on the scene:

Brandon, for his part, said some donors would contact him to complain that the organization was doing too much to help Trump, while others called to complain that they weren’t doing enough to help Trump. “It is an impossible position,” he said.

At the same time that FreedomWorks was trying to navigate this split, it tried to rebrand as a more centrist organization in order to appeal to independents who might be open to libertarianism, but the effort fell flat, mostly because independents didn’t believe it was genuine. Donations kept dropping, and a year ago the organization laid off 40 percent of its staff. At that point, the writing was clearly on the wall.

But in its heyday, FreedomWorks excelled at providing cover for plutocrats robbing the country blind while they kept the rubes occupied cosplaying as freedom fighters keeping the poisoned waters of socialism from touching America’s shores. Who can forget the Tea Partiers protesting while dressed up as Founding Fathers? Or the majestic organized events? The FreedomWorks-organized Taxpayer March on Washington or the FreedomWorks Tax Day Tea Party? 

A Children's Treasury Of So-So BlackBerry Photos From FreedomWorks' Tax Day Tea Party

Bread and circuses in service of an excellent grift. As Paul Waldman put it at his Substack:

It was also a fantastic opportunity for conservative grifters to separate the gullible masses from their money. Tea party-themed scams proliferated in the long-running show I have referred to as the Circle of Scam, in which right-wing groups solicit donations to fight the good fight, but the money actually goes to enrich consultants and their partners in conservative media.

You can draw a line from the Tea Party to the MAGA takeover of the Republican Party. Donald Trump came along and suddenly the tea partiers looked downright subtle. Much like Xeroxes or the clones in Multiplicity, the quality of wingnut seriously degrades from generation to generation.

Now all we need to do is fire the Manhattan Institute into the sun.

[POLITICO / Paul Waldman]

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