Posted on 09/05/2020 10:27:28 AM PDT by EyesOfTX
Guest Piece by America’s History Teacher, Larry Schweikart Today, with a host of conservative websites producing exceptional; content that the Hoax News media refuses to cover, including uncoverdc.com, Breitbart, TheLibertyDaily, Hot Air, and others, it is useful to remember that at one time there was really only one such site. When conservatives had not been vocal, let alone active, www.freerepublic.com (http://www.freerepublic.com) became both the mouthpiece and the gathering place for activism for conservatives.
It’s hard today, with the hundreds of on-line news and commentary sites, to imagine a time when there were few opposition voices to the liberal media. CNN had been founded in 1980 as a cable-based alternative to the “big three” of ABC, NBC, and CBS, and two years later the Washington Times was founded as a conservative alternative to the Washington Post, New York Times, and the only slightly less political USAToday founded that same year. And I do not mean to imply that CNN was “conservative,” only that it was the first to even attempt to challenge the big three.
In 1988, Rush Limbaugh launched his hugely successful national radio show. And that was it: for several years, conservatives had the Washington Times and Rush. Not until 1995 did the DrudgeReport, considered conservative-leaning at the time, appear and make a splash with revelations about Monica Lewinsky’s dress that eventually provoked the impeachment of Bill Clinton.
VDO.AI But already another force was building. Jim Robinson, a California-based software developer who specialized in writing accounting software for fruit growers), had been active on the early Prodigy bulletin boards. At the time Prodigy operated much as today’s Twitter, with a certain word limit before a person had to start a new paragraph and link to it. As Robinson noted, Prodigy was not only clumsy but expensive and he found himself spending a great deal of money just to post on Prodigy every month. “Instead of posting,” Robinson mulled, “maybe I should start my own bulletin board.” He began developing software for a conservative bulletin board in 1995.
A registered Democrat (as was his wife), Robinson “didn’t pay much attention to politics before [Bill] Clinton.” Or, as he put it, “Clinton got to me.” Robinson, a pro-life Christian conservative, was especially put off by Clinton’s private immorality. To solve the Prodigy problem, Jim’s son John—also a software developer—urged him to get his own server. John thought the new internet had great promise.
The original FreeRepublic.com had an html-code foundation, didn’t have a data base, and Jim had to create his own internal search engine. He, John, and a “Freeper” known as Doughty One (Jim’s business partner) launched Free Republic in 1996, just as Clinton was getting re-elected amidst scandal. At first, Jim did virtually all of the posting of articles (while still working a full-time job with his company). Within a few months, the site had 1,000 users, and by the end of 1997, 4,000.
Freepers could post articles from all other sites—Drudge was an early favorite—but also could make comments on the new, which was frequently more informative than the news itself. Soon, Robinson was spending so much time on Free Republic “I didn’t have time to do my own software work.” At that time, he had a company called Software Solutions that had gone public under the name Protosource Corporation, and which was grossing between $2 million and $3 million a year.
At that point, Robinson admitted, “I found out I was the world’s worst manager. The worst,” he added for emphasis. The company had ballooned up with a marketing department, an internet company, a computer training company and so on. The board of directors fired Jim from his own company. But he was allowed a year on his contract and complimentary hosting on the company’s web server. Then the company discovered Robinson’s Free Republic was eating up all of its bandwidth, and Jim was forced off. He started Electronic Orchard as the hosting site for FreeRepublic.com.
By then Free Republic had taken off, first by bringing along many of the older Prodigy posters, but also gaining a new audience of Clinton critics. One of the early Freepers was Lucianne Goldberg, who would become a confidant to Linda Tripp in the Clinton impeachment saga (and mother to neverTrumper Jonah Goldberg). Lucianne left early. As Jim saw it, “She just wanted to form her own website to copy FR.” Not only were anonymous posters present, but soon it became clear that Mark Levin (screen name “holdonnow”), and Sean Hannity were at least lurking, if not posting, on the board. As was Rush Limbaugh’s Bo Snerdly.
As the site grew with unfettered commentary (as Jim originally preferred it), posters could say anything about anyone and ruffled both Hannity’s and Rush’s feathers at some point. Eventually, Rush was attracted back; Hannity, not. At one time, Peggy Noonan, Matt Drudge, and Ann Coulter were all too happy to appear in public with Freepers at events. The Weekly Standard, in a spoof job application to be on Special Counsel Kenneth Starr’s staff in which one of the questions for an applicant was “What is your Freeper handle?”
Without knowing it, Jim Robinson had trained a new generation of internet activists in the person of Andrew Breitbart. Under the screen name “Andrew”—and no one knew who he was at the time—Breitbart lurked and posted on FR. But most important of all, he soaked up the structure and promise of internet-based activism.
The site was completely free-wheeling and on the honor system. As Jim noted, anyone could post under any name, and people frequently posting as “Jim Robinson” were entirely frauds. Anyone could pretend to be anyone. It wasn’t until 1998 that John wrote new software that clamped down on the fraud. Long-time Freeper Kristinn Taylor, who came to FR in 1998, recalled it was “like being home among friends. Conservatives at that time were isolated.”
From 1996 to 1998, the site not only gained posters but fostered activism as Freepers began to make personal connections. This led to perhaps the first real wave of conservative activism since the Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) in the early 1960s. Prior to this, conservatives were polite, nice, non-confrontational. Much of this approach stemmed from Ronald Reagan’s good-natured style of using humor to overcome and deflect liberal critics. But the fact was that the vast majority of people lacked Reagan’s genius and simply ceding ground to liberals only made them more bold. Jim Robinson understood that.
Freeper activism had a stellar early moment in 1998 on Halloween, which was the eve of the House’s Clinton impeachment vote. It went four hours covered by the media, and long-time California, then Washington-based Freeper Kristinn Taylor (“Kristinn”) recalled that it was a key moment in the new conservative activism. “FR did live threads,” Taylor noted, “in innovating and using the internet for activism. “Probably the most active chapter was the California group” that included Connie Hair (now chief of staff to Louis Gohmert) and “Navy Vet” (Roger Hunter).
Indeed, the Clinton administration began to monitor FR threads, as later would the Bush White House and even the United States Supreme Court. Certainly liberal trolls frequented the site. In the early years, when Jim was not around to moderate, liberals would spam the site. When Jim, who has lost both legs and suffers from muscular dystrophy (“I type with one finger,” he joked), left California for the 1998 Halloween rally in D.C., the site was spammed by liberals with pictures of Fox journalist’s Brit Hime’s son, Alexander “Sandy” Hume, who died in February 1998. Jim appointed a number of moderators to share the load and to cover when he was gone.
Among the most notable examples of FR’s success and activism, after 9/11, Kristinn noted that FreeRepublic.com organized a massive campaign of supporting morale of the troops, especially combating the hateful efforts of the anti-war group Code Pink that was assailing wounded veterans at Walter Reed. Freepers made regular appearances at Walter Reed to support the wounded vets. “We were told by both the vets and their families,” Taylor noted, “how much our support helped them.” One notoriouis Freeper, “Doctor Raoul” (Raoul Deming, now deceased) would put on a devil costume and appear at Hillary Clinton booksignings. Soon, other Freepers copied him, all donning devil suits. Clinton found herself harassed and unnerved at every event.
Taylor and Robinson both pointed out that Freepers played a key role in the Clinton impeachment, constantly sending materials to the conservative House members and working closely with the House Impeachment managers. One of the key House Managers, Congressman Bob Barr, said impeachment couldn’t have happened without Free Republic. On the day of the House impeachment vote, Free Republic took out a full page ad in the Washington Times. It was a picture of George Washington with a tear trickling down his face and the question, “How Would He Vote?” At the bottom, the ad thanked all of the 13 House Impeachment Managers by name.
But probably the best-known incident in Freeperdom was the 2004 “Bush National Guard” letter expose known as “Rathergate.” On September 8, 2004, at the height of President George W. Bush’s reelection campaign, Dan Rather had gone on national television with allegations that Bush had ignored direct orders from a superior, had been gronded from flying due to “failure to perform” up to standards, and that his superior had been pressured to give Bush higher marks.
Free Republic was holding a live thread on the broadcast when a Georgia lawyer whose handle was “Buckhead” noticed that the font on the documents was wrong, and instantly knew the typewriter and typography did not exist at the time. The papers Rather touted were forgeries. Soon the “mainstream” media picked up the Buckhead/Freeper allegations and the documents were debunked. Rather looked like a political operative or a fool—and later sued CBS/Viacom for making him a “scapegoat,” but it was clear to Americans—thanks to Free Republic—that Rather had lied.
Not long after Rathergate, though, FreeRepublic began to diminish as a force. This was to be expected. Copycats appeared everywhere and siphoned off Freepers who had their own ambitions or who had an axe to grind with Robinson. There were regular purges at FR, as well. As Kristinn noted, Jim never took advertising, and thus the site was limited to what could be raised by regular “Freepathons.” Also, he said, “Every primary was a bloodbath,” with different groups claiming ideological purity.
Robinson always came around, despite his own preferences, to support the GOP nominee—even Mitt Romney in 2012, who was far from Jim’s preferred candidate. “I never set out to purge anyone,” Robinson said. “I always said if you want to do a different site, be my guest.” The Romney people left, “or maybe I helped them out [the door},” he joked. “Why do I want people to come in [to FreeRepublic] and bash people?” he asked.
Free Republic is still around, and Freepers are as cantankerous as ever. If it doesn’t have the same political presence it had 15 years ago, it’s warrants every modern conservative’s appreciation. Without FR, it’s doubtful that the modern conservative movement would be nearly what it has become.
Larry Schweikart is the co-author of the New York Times #1 bestseller, A Patriot’s History of the United States and the author of Reagan: The American President. He is also the founder of the Wild World of History website that features a full US and World History curriculum complete with student guides, teacher guides, tests, and video lectures.
Thanks for this. Very good. I believe it was Lucianne who gave us the name FReepers.
Alan Girl did a survey once of Freepers professions. I was astounding.
Good times.
Thanks to LS, but most of all thanks to Jim.
My favorite activist, Dr. Raoul!
I remember he posed in front of Bill Clinton’s White House, dressed as the Devil, with bright red skin and horns, carrying a sign that said “Bill Clinton married my sister!”
I think that was in 1998. Anyone got a copy of that picture?
Still are.
Thank God Bolton did that. MSM is undeterred and keeps it going of course. They know the power of repeating a story over and over. They even use Trump denials to help keep the story alive. Trump has done more for vets then any President in a generation.
SENDING A CHECK TODAY TO FREEREPUBLIC!!! THANK YOU JIM! ! !
interesting read
thanx for dusting this off
Another picture I wish I had saved...
That infamous picture of Slick Willy and the Wicked Witch dancing on the beach...
Some evil Photoshop expert had swapped the heads, it was nearly perfect.
Anyone have a copy?
Great article!
I do believe you are correct.
I will never forget the breakfast after the Halloween White House Freep.
I was sitting at a table/booth with Mr Confettiman and Drudge. Lucianne strolled in and exclaimed “Look at all the Freepers!” That was the first time I heard the term...
I need to repost my pics from that event.
Hoo rah...thanks for the memories!
Was it Dr. Raoul who came up with the Clinton chant? (Bill Clinton, we have you surrounded. Put down the cigar, step away from the intern. Come out with your pants up!)
Great article! Thanks for the memories!
Good article!! I am SHOCKED that FR was going 2 YEARS before I JOINED! RATS!! IT changed my LIFE!!
CONNIE HAIR is Louis Gohmerts CHIEF OF STAFF is AWESOME. HI CONNIE!!!
Wonderful history lesson. I learned a lot about the startup that I hadn’t known before.
I was on the AOL Whitewater bulletin board, heard about Free Republic from there, and lurked on FR till Nov 2000 and started posting during the SoreLoserman rallies.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.