Clinging to the notion of #COVID19 insurrectionist groups as “Astroturf” is understandable, but wrong. I get it’s terrifying to think that there are 1.3 million Americans so anxious that they’re willing to ignore medical experts and put lives at risk. But that’s where we are.

At @IREHR we've tracked 253 different groups that attracted 1,314,899 members. That’s up 68,191 since YESTERDAY. These are real people putting real pressure on real legislators. They are effectively organizing to get governors and legislators to repeal stay-at-home directives.

The same “AstroTurf” argument was made during the rise of the Tea Party. It was as wrong then as it is now. The Tea Party was a social movement bent on political power with both top-down and grassroots origins.

The Tea Party expanded to 17-20% sympathy in the public, nearly 10 million supporters, and a base of around 600,000 hardcore members. In swept the 2010 elections, dominated the political conversation for a decade, and carved the path for Trump's election.

We are in danger of repeating the same mistakes made during the rise of the Tea Party. Back then, we did focus group testing which found the “AstroTurf” and “Dark Money” frames were politically disempowering for progressives.

The “Astroturf” mirage frame downplayed the threats and focused attention back on beltway groups instead of local organizing. "AstroTurf" was heard as "fake" and "not real."

The “Dark Money / Koch Bros” frame was even worse. The exasperation of “how can we compete with these billionaires?” was palpable. It shifted everything to talk to money. Rather than “what do we do?” the most common refrain was “how/where do we find our own billionaire?”

Organizing and political activity vanished in those conversations. Talking straightforwardly about the facts-on-the ground, on the other hand, shifted focus group participant conversations to "what can we do about this around here?"