Astroweed lobbying

When political action committees pay to create the semblance of a public groundswell, it’s called ‘astroturfing‘. It looks like a grassroots movement, but it’s fake.

To extend the metaphor, here’s a neologism that surely deserves a place in the political lexicon: astroweeds. It comes to us courtesy of Salon’s Alex Koppelman.

[W]hat we are seeing falls somewhere between, and essentially combines the worst part of both grass-roots activism and astroturfing — that is, it pairs the slick coordination of elites coupled with the raw, unfiltered advocacy of the masses. What happens when a set of elites coordinate, fund and foment public expression, but encourage just about anyone — whether informed or not, whether skilled communicators or not, whether dedicated to the particular issue under discussion or merely dedicated to resistance for “Waterloo”-style resistance’s sake — and send them into the public arena to express their opinions? We get ugly signs, incoherent questions and blood-curdling screams about the coming end of America as we know it.

Astroweed lobbying has been a terrible distraction in the American discussion on health care. Insane people are getting townhall airtime — and in some cases, subsequent TV appearances — despite being poorly informed, unfocused, and incoherent.

It’s almost enough to drive you to Whorfianism; maybe we do need more words to describe right-wing reality distortion, just by virtue of its prevalence.