First national protests


Ron Paul
On February 19, 2009,[SUP]
[79][/SUP] in a broadcast from the floor of the
Chicago Mercantile Exchange,
CNBC Business News editor
Rick Santelli criticized the
government plan to refinance mortgages, which had just been announced the day before. He said that those plans were "promoting bad behavior"[SUP]
[80][/SUP] by "subsidizing losers' mortgages". He suggested holding a tea party for traders to gather and dump the derivatives in the
Chicago River on July 1.[SUP]
[81][/SUP][SUP]
[82][/SUP][SUP]
[83][/SUP] A number of the floor traders around him cheered on his proposal, to the amusement of the hosts in the studio. Santelli's "rant" became a
viral video after being featured on the
Drudge Report.[SUP]
[84][/SUP]
Overnight, websites such as ChicagoTeaParty.com (registered in August 2008 by Chicagoan Zack Christenson, radio producer for conservative talk show host
Milt Rosenberg,) were live within 12 hours.[SUP]
[85][/SUP] About 10 hours after Santelli's remarks, reTeaParty.com was bought to coordinate Tea Parties scheduled for
Independence Day and, as of March 4, was reported to be receiving 11,000 visitors a day.[SUP]
[85][/SUP]
According to
The New Yorker writer Ben McGrath[SUP]
[79][/SUP] and
New York Times reporter Kate Zernike,[SUP]
[69][/SUP] this is where the movement was first inspired to coalesce under the collective banner of "Tea Party". By the next day, guests on Fox News had already begun to mention this new "Tea Party".[SUP]
[86][/SUP]
As reported by
The Huffington Post, a Facebook page was developed on February 20 calling for Tea Party protests across the country.[SUP]
[87][/SUP] Soon, the "Nationwide Chicago Tea Party" protest was coordinated across over 40 different cities for February 27, 2009, thus establishing the first national modern Tea Party protest.[SUP]
[88][/SUP][SUP]
[89][/SUP] The movement has been supported nationally by at least 12 prominent individuals and their associated organizations.[SUP]
[90][/SUP]
Fox News called many of the protests in 2009 "FNC Tax Day Tea Parties" which it promoted on air and sent speakers to.[SUP]
[91][/SUP][SUP]
[92][/SUP] This was to include then-host Glenn Beck, though Fox came to discourage him from attending later events.[SUP]
[93][/SUP]