How the GOP (and the Tea Party) Helped Kill SOPA

Hugh Pickens writes "Strengthening intellectual property enforcement has been a bipartisan issue for the past 25 years, but Stewart Baker writes in the Hollywood Reporter that when the fight went from the committees to the floor and Wikipedia went down, the Democratic and Republican parties reacted very differently to SOPA. 'Despite widespread opposition to SOPA from bloggers on the left, Democrats in Congress (and the administration) were reluctant to oppose the bill outright,' writes Baker. 'The MPAA was not shy about reminding them that Hollywood has been a reliable source of funding for Democratic candidates, and that it would not tolerate defections.' That very public message from the MPAA also reached another audience — Tea Party conservatives. Most of them had never given a second thought to intellectual property enforcement, but many had drawn support from conservative bloggers and they began to ask why they should risk the ire of their internet supporters to rescue an industry that was happily advertising how much it hated them." (Read on, below.) Pickens continues: "Pretty soon, far more Republicans than Democrats had bailed on SOPA, the Republican presidential candidates had all come out for what they called 'Internet freedom,' and now for Republicans, opposition to new intellectual property enforcement is starting to look like a political winner. 'It pleases conservative bloggers, appeals to young swing voters, stokes the culture wars and drives a wedge between two Democratic constituencies, Hollywood and Silicon Valley,' concludes Baker, adding that unfortunately for Hollywood, as its customers migrate to the Internet, it is losing not just their money but their hearts and minds as well."

Comments

Hmm

[eternaldoctorwho]

I want to mod this article as Flamebait.

Re:Hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

What facts?

There's hyper-conjecture in the article, but not a lot of substance. SOPA would never have gotten out of committee without a majority of Repugs supporting it, it never would have gotten to the floor without John "Corruption Is My Middle Name" Boehner's support. THR conveniently leave that fact out of their reporting.

Now, a bunch of media-savvy members of the GOP noise machine came up with campaigns about "Obama wants to use SOPA to shut down right wing blogs" and other such lying bullshit that the retarded rank and file were more than happy to lap up, but that's about all you can say for it. The GOP opposition wasn't about principles of free speech; remember, anyone they don't like, gets Joe McCarthy-style "hearings", they just don't use the name "House Unamerican Activities Committee" any more.

I'm glad I support the Republicans

[Taco Cowboy]

I'm a libertarian at heart but I just can't stand the Democrats anymore - especially the new bunch whose main objective is to restrict every right of everybody on this planet.

And I fully know that the Libertarian party can never garner enough support to do anything significant, that is why I am throwing my support on the Republicans

I know, I know, there are a lot of rotten apples in the Republican camp - but then, there are a lot of rotten apples everywhere, and my main objective now is to stop that bunch of lunatic Democrats who are doing everything to restrict everybody's rights

Re:I'm glad I support the Republicans

[J3947]

"You are absolutely correct and its been working. The left has been using that strategy forever. The 'genius' if you will of the likes of Karl Rove during the Bush era and now as well as some of the new anti-Obama super PACs and similar is that Conservatives have started to do the same thing to and about liberals. You can't have an intelligent debate when the other side is permitted to get away with name calling and baseless hyperbole that is not subject to challenge."

What are you talking about? The Republicans have always been the big name-callers in politics. It was in the early 1990s when Rush Limbaugh would get on the radio and bitch and complain about "liberals" and do everything he could to make sure "liberal" was a dirty word. Democrats are actually pretty restrained in the face of constant name-calling from Republicans.

Re:I'm glad I support the Republicans

[Man On Pink Corner]

It restricts their right to have control over their own bodies, because of a conclusion derived from a belief derived from a holy book.

No, it's not derived from their holy book, either. Here in the US, what we know as "pro life" rhetoric was spun from whole cloth by modern-day Christian fundies, based on equally fabricated dogma from the medieval Catholic church.

The only thing the Bible says about abortion is that if you cause a woman to miscarry, you owe her old man a couple of goats, or something. Everything beyond that is just some stuff the Bible-thumpers made up to raise an army of useful idiots.

Re:It's True

[roman_mir]

The only 'fiasco' about debt ceiling was that it was allowed to go up.

Re:It's True

[0123456]

Yes, but the difference is that the Republican party is a divided party.

Unlike the Democrat party, which is an alliance between three million special 'victim' groups who all want their 'rights' paid for with other people's money. It's particularly problematic for them with stuff like SOPA, since their supporters include both Hollywood fat-cats and kids who like to download stuff (or OWS, with support from the fat-cat bankers and the smell hippies).

Re:non-interventionist != anti-war

[Prune]

Ron Paul you say? Let's see...
Racism which his sycophants are trying to whitewash: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/ron-paul-signed-off-on-racist-newsletters-sources-say/2012/01/20/gIQAvblFVQ_story.html -- check.
Being a dominionist with a hidden religious agenda: http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2007/10/is_ron_paul_a_dominionist.php -- check.
Looking for a return to the gold standard, which is what made the great depression worse: Hamilton, J.D. "The Role of the International Gold Standard in Propagating the Great Depression," Contemporary Policy Issues, April 1988 -- check.
Yep, that's the guy!