No Kings was nearly 25x as big as the Tea Party but the Tea Party got 25x the media coverage:

[tblue37]

Once again, the main day of Tea Party protests had about 300,000 nationwide, but saw endless coverage.

The No Kings protests had about 7,000,000 nationwide, and many media outlets reacted with a yawn.

No Kings was nearly 25x as big as the Tea Party but the Tea Party got 25x the attention.

— Kevin M. Kruse (@kevinmkruse.bsky.social) 2025-10-26T20:08:51.701Z

[tblue37]

1. And The No Kings protests were also held worldwide.

[Metaphorical]

2. The Tea Party

like so much of what has emerged from the Republicans in the last fifty years, was a marketing campaign from the get-go. Sinclair and Clear Channel media plugged it relentlessly through their various channels, then did everything they could to make it look like a grass-roots effort even given fairly tiny "protests". The bought and paid for MSM is absolutely terrified of giving legitimacy to actual protests.

[tblue37]

6. This!

[B.See]

8. You mean, Clear Channel aka iHeart Radio? A radio conglomerate that

pushed and aired conservative talk show venues like Limbaugh and Beck, and that censored information and opinions critical of Republicans?

[slightlv]

18. Why do you think Bush Jr allowed the select billionaires to take over and add to their portfolios

of media? Used to be they couldn't own the entire blanket mess... now that can, thanks to Bush. Most of us, when this was headed to the SCOTUS could see the harm that would come from this, but SCOTUS just declared it "all good."

[Grins]

13. And FOX!!!!

In April of 2009 Fox was at every TP rally and covering it non-stop from early morning to late evening. Especially Hannity! Before THE WALL STREET JOURNAL called him out on his annual grift for the children of veterans.

[Oeditpus Rex]

21. What makes you think the 'MSM'

"is absolutely terrified of giving legitimacy to actual protests"? Of what, specifically, are they "terrified"? And what does "bought and paid for" mean?

[travelingthrulife]

3. This was the big lesson the GOP learned during Dubya's Iraq war.

Millions of people were in the streets all over the world protesting his war crimes, but they discovered that if you don't show it on tv, it didn't happen.

This is where our more normal rich people have failed us. There is no media structure we can use like the GOP uses theirs.

[sop]

4. And the Tea Party continued getting corporate media coverage long after it became defunct.

Right wing media kept trying to breathe life back into the dying astroturf movement for years, and their mainstream media partners went along with it, pretending the Tea Party was a political juggernaut, like they've been doing with Charlie Kirk.

[BlueTsunami2018]

5. Well yeah, the corporate media is nothing more than a ruling class mouthpiece.

Of course they’re going to shill for that shit and ignore working class concerns. Anti-capitalist ideals are on the rise, they’re going to do everything they can to steer coverage away from those sentiments. Unless it’s to “warn” people about them or downplay them in some way.

Sooner or later the dam is going to break. At some point even the most ardent bootlickers are going to get fed up with being robbed every minute of every day.

We need to keep pushing.

[Initech]

7. Because our worthless media is run by republican billionaires.

Boycott all mass media!

[progressoid]

9. It's almost like the media is part of the problem.

[hay rick]

15. Almost being a synonym for exactly in this case.

[Botany]

10. In Columbus OH in 2009 Sarah Palin in town and about 200 people were there including the press and it got

.. covered both locally and nationally and @ the same time liberal talker Step Miller was in town
and we had @ least 1,500 attend that and it got zero coverage.

[DownriverDem]

11. In Metro Detroit

our local channels covered it pretty good.

[ffr]

12. That's because there was violence and drama during the anti-American Tea Party protests

Americans in the streets by the hundreds of millions is not dramatic enough to warrant headlines. That is, of course, unless they get violent.

But then if that happened, we'd be right back to where we started. The TP would get favorable coverage, while No Kings would get 24/7 wall-to-wall negative coverage. It's the so-called left-wing media. See how that works?

[Grins]

14. The name "Tea Party" was copyrighted in October 2008

By.a Republican who knew the public had had it with the 8-year long nightmare that was the Bush administration, and that McCain was not going to win given that baggage!

In my files somewhere. Can’t recall the name of the guy who did it.

Regardless, the GOP knew in early 2008 they were toast, and planned for non-stop, irrational obstruction - i.e., The Tea Party - months before Obama was sworn in as President.

[twodogsbarking]

16. When you own the information you can bend it all you want.

[Mr.Bee]

17. Democracy NOW!

had inside the crowd ground-level coverage:

Protesters Rally at No Kings Washington D.C.
99K views 7 days ago
8:20

"No Kings": Millions Set to Join Protests Against "Wannabe Dictator" Trump
178K views 10 days ago
13:31

[jeffreyi]

19. Quit wasting time and energy expecting someone else (legacy media, or their ilk) to rescue us, or be "fair."

Not happening. Wake up. It's up to us and our own networks.

[popsdenver]

20. Decades ago

a highly respected journalist from Europe would come and visit us here in the U.S.
He was here for six months investigating U.S. Journalism.
I was saying to him that I was lucky to live where there was no censorship of news.
He almost choked on the coffee he was drinking...........
This was during the Reagan 80's, in the years since he says the US Media has only become worse.
Reagan's Panama invasion had just occurred, and he used it as a prime example. He cut out news articles from several major news outlets here in America about the U.S Military's war actions down in Panama. Then, he gathered articles from many major newspapers in other countries, to show me what the rest of the world saw, and what was presented to us here in the U.S. It was an overwhelming wake up call.
He later sent me a video of another country's documentary on the Invasion, which had won an academy? award.....Most interesting was that the video was BANNED in the U.S. He sent me a copy, but had to go through a lot to get me a copy that was compatible with our video players.
It was appalling to watch the factual video of what we did down there........and especially the numbers of civilian casualties, all to just arrest Noriega? who was installed as dictator down there by the U.S. CIA years prior, and was a major drug trafficker....It seems the Panama Invasion was a distraction to something else that HWBush and his CABAL were doing from the shadows, and wanted to keep out of the news.......
(Sound familiar.??????......Epstein??????)

The journalist also showed me the way highly selected words in U.S. media reporting were being used to represent a totally different picture, as well as photographs being altered......(Think: Photos of Obama, with his facial skin being altered to be much darker, or a poor picture of one candidate and the other candidate with a practically portrait quality picture. or an interview of two people on TV, the Republican a WHITE MALE, and the DEMOCRAT a BLACK FEMALE. or the rhetoric LOADED with dog whistle wording, etc. Or with the Republican making a talking point with a hand gesture (the sign of okay, for instance) which has become a dog whistle hand gesture to flash to the white supremacist audiences viewing.......

Once you know, you will never be able to read or watch anything without recognizing it being done................

Currently the Repubs and Republican Mass owned/operated media are doing anything they can, from the "creating" a military attack on Venezuela, to tearing down the White House to divert attention from Epstein.........

[rurallib]

23. Great story and sure illustrates the problem we have had for a long time

I first became aware of it during the VietNam war and have watched our media continually slide to more and more gutlessness and fear of power Meanwhile the extreme right gets pretty much of a free pass while anything slightly left is 'dealt with'.

[popsdenver]

28. LOL

The scenes in Good Morning Viet Nam that twiddle dee and twiddle dumb getting factual news, on their tele-type, and immediately censoring it before Kronhauer's? group could get it......

Or, was it full metal jacket, where the soldiers, that were news reporters, being ordered.every morning how they had to" word" their articles.......

[tblue37]

26. This.

[markodochartaigh]

27. And we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that

the term "the liberal media" has become a meme in the US zeitgeist, even as our media has been goose-stepping ever reichward.

It isn't enough for our oiligarchs to move our Overton Window to the right without convincing us that the view is to the left.

[popsdenver]

29. One of Hitler's CABAL

was famous for saying: Keep repeating the same lie, over and over, and it soon becomes truth........(Fox news and RepubliCONs technique)

I think it was the same Nazi that said: It is not how the people vote, it only matters WHO COUNTS THE VOTES........I truthfully think it was Musk, messing with the computers that COMPILED the precincts votes that gave Trump ALL of the swing states votes....The Actuaries and Statisticians all agree that the votes in the swing states were a mathematical impossibility....

[Mr. Sparkle]

22. For me this confirms that the media is a run and owned by right wingers

They amplify their supporters and downplay others.

[Cirsium]

24. Interesting

It is almost as though there were a deeply embedded systemic bias driving all of the social, economic and political arrangements under which we live.

In other news, it is almost as though water were wet.

[rurallib]

25. This is probably a no-no but No Kings was FAR larger than the 7 million

the media credits to it. No doubt even that number is put out to mollify Trumpy. The admin knows all about Erica Chenowith's magic 3.5% resistance number and is trying to keep the baby pacified by telling him it was well below that.

I would venture a guess that the real number is probably 2X that 7 million - probably more in the 14 million range and well beyond that 12 million that is the Chenowith number.

I have no doubt that the next protest will be even larger.

I am hoping there will be a call for some kind of economic action to start soon. An action against Amazon before Christmas would be fitting I think.

[uponit7771]

30. ***THIS!!!*** US M$M is a big part of the reason we have Putin's Whore as president

[Cha]

31. What a big fucking surprise.

US "meida"